Almost 100 rare Nintendo cartridges have been discovered in a Wisconsin retro games store, with a handful of them to go up for auction this week. The individually wrapped Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt NES cartridges appear to have come from a previously unknown run of the games, with collectors having been unaware of their existence until now.
The 97 Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridges belong to Kevin Braun, owner of retro games store OneStopWonders in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and were identified with the help of Nintendo Wire editor Jason Ganos. Nintendo Wire reports that the cartridges were initially in the possession of a precious metal recovery service, which Nintendo appeared to have contracted to break them down.
They were left untouched for decades, until Braun purchased the box of games from the owner’s grandson. He had been intending to sell the games at OneStopWonders, but forgot them in a storage unit until they came up in conversation with Ganos.
“After Kevin finished his story, I immediately could tell that the blood had drained from my face,” Ganos wrote, recounting the discovery on Nintendo Wire.
Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt themselves aren’t rare games in and of themselves. Released in the U.S. alongside the NES’ 1985 launch, Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt have left enduring legacies as two of the platform’s most popular titles. In 1988, the games were put together in dual cartridges and sold with the NES in an Action Set bundle.
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However, Braun’s cartridges do not appear to be from this run. In fact, they do not appear to be from any run that was previously known. Aside from differences in their back labels and instruction manuals, their manufacturing codes indicate that they were made in 1993. As Nintendo Wire noted, this dates the uncovered cartridges after every Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt bundle that fans were aware of.
“What we had found was the very last production run, and an undiscovered variant of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Arguably one of the most beloved, and one of the most documented games in Nintendo history,” wrote Ganos. “Not only that, but nearly every cartridge was pristine.”
Though there was some initial speculation that the cartridges could be counterfeit, authentication company PSA has since confirmed that they are real. The company also evaluated them for their condition, scoring several between PSA 9.6 to 9.8, while five were given a perfect PSA 10 — a grade that Nintendo Wire states had never been given to a NES cartridge before.
Three games from the collection will be listed by Goldin Auctions this Wednesday, including one of the cartridges given a PSA score of 10. Though Braun and Ganos intend to keep some of the cartridges for themselves, more will be auctioned off in the future, including in charity auctions.
Exactly how much the cartridges might fetch is unclear. However, they’re likely to go for significantly more than the $15 Braun had initially planned to sell them for. A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. with a PSA score of 9.6 just set a new video game auction record in June, selling for a whopping $3 million.
