Nearly 100 never-before-seen Nintendo cartridges found in Wisconsin game shop
The version of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was previously unknown.
A Wisconsin game shop discovered almost 100 copies of a never-before-seen version of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt cartridges in storage, according to the shop’s owner.
The games’ cartridges included different screws, labels, motherboards and manuals than previous variants of the game, Jason Ganos, owner of Nintendo Wire, told ABC News.
Kevin Braun, owner of Onestopwonders in Waukesha, Wisconsin, bought the box of games about two to three years ago from a man who had them in his garage untouched for 20 to 30 years, Braun said.
The cartridges were intended to be melted down for gold at a metal recovery service, but the games were never destroyed, Braun told ABC News.
The production year on the discovered box was 1993, two years after the last known copy of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was ever produced, Ganos said.
Braun found the box hidden behind Halloween decorations in his storage unit, forgotten about until a discussion with Ganos, who prompted him to open the box, Braun said.
The game itself would play the same as the well-known Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, but the cartridges are entirely different, Ganos said.
“This is one of the most documented video games in history,” Ganos said. “It's probably the most popular video game that's ever been released.”
Three of the cartridges are tentatively scheduled to go up for auction at Goldin Auctions on Friday, according to Ganos.
Professional Sports Authenticator, a memorabilia authenticator, graded several of the cartridges a perfect 10, a first for Nintendo Entertainment System games, according to the authenticator.
On Friday, June 12, a Professional Sports Authenticated 9.6-graded Super Mario Bros. game sold at Heritage Auctions for a record-breaking $3 million. The game was the highest-graded copy of the earliest sealed edition of the game, according to Heritage Auctions.
"As an entire collectible market, video games is experiencing an incredible wave," Claire Shelton, head of Professional Sports Authenticator Games, said in a statement to ABC News.
Ganos believes the games could have been manufactured either as a replacement stock for warranty repairs and refurbished systems or for a bundle that was planned but never released, he said.
“Finding this kind of thing is just unheard of,” Ganos said. “I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
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