#‘The Legend of Zelda’ Cartridge Sold For $870,000, Thanks Mom for Throwing Out My Copy – Review Geek

I always knew my mother shouldn’t have thrown out my perfectly good Star Wars and He-Man toys, but now I realize I shouldn’t have let her toss my NES games either. A sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda just sold for $870,000, and sure my copy probably wasn’t worth that much, but I can still blame Mom.

With that price tag, this copy of The Legend of Zelda now holds the record for the most expensive game ever sold, beating out the previous Super Mario Bros. record of $660,000. But before you go digging into your tub of NES games, don’t get your hopes up too high. The fact that you played them at all, let alone all the spit from blowing into them, means you won’t get anywhere near that amount of money at auction.

And even more to the point, this is a rare copy. You see, Nintendo made multiple production runs of the game, and this one comes from the second iteration dubbed NES R. One one variant (NES TM) precedes this copy, and the auction house says it’s improbable a sealed copy from that run will show up. That’s down to the fact that it’s “…widely believed that only a single sealed “NES TM” example exists…”

So maybe Mom isn’t totally to blame when she threw out my copy of The Legend of Zelda, but I’ll still never forgive tossing my Battle Damage He-Man and Skeletor toys.

Source: Heritage Auctions