Rare Super Mario Cartridges Found in Wisconsin Storage

A box of ultra-rare Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt game cartridges discovered in storage at a Wisconsin pop culture store will go up for auction starting Friday, after collectors determined the games represent a previously unknown variant with historic significance.

Kevin Braun, owner of One Stop Wonders in Waukesha, near Milwaukee, asked well-known Nintendo collector Jason Ganos to help sell some items including common Nintendo games and Pokémon cards. In the process, Braun mentioned a box of Mario cartridges that had been sitting in storage for years. He had bought them from a customer whose family had kept them for scrap metal, not realizing their value.

Inside were 97 "absolutely pristine" copies of Super Mario Bros. Duck Hunt, a game originally released in 1988. Ganos's research found the cartridges were made in 1993 — two years after Nintendo had discontinued the bundle in 1991 — making them a new variant and the last known production date of the game. He and Braun believe they may have been warranty replacements or part of a retail bundle that never materialized.

Ganos flew to California with the 97 cartridges in his carry-on luggage to have them verified and graded by video game experts. Five of the cartridges received a perfect 10 rating from Professional Sports Authenticator, the first time any NES cartridge has ever received that score, according to Ganos.

"I flew down to California with 97 carts in my carry-on luggage, sweating bullets going through TSA," Ganos said, recalling his nervousness at the checkpoint.

Ganos and Braun plan to auction three of the perfect-10 cartridges starting Friday through Golden Pop's Culture Auction, running until September 9. They are each keeping one perfect-10 copy along with several others rated in the high 9s.

Ultra-rare video game cartridges with unique production histories can fetch six- to seven-figure prices among collectors, though Ganos said he cannot estimate the value of these because they are incomparable to anything he has seen before. He said the games could be worth anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.

Braun and Ganos also plan to hold a charity auction once the current sale concludes.