4 ms·

Well, that particular sold for so much b/c it is a 9.6 graded sealed copy - even though the game itself sold 60 million copies, there are extremely few copies s

Well, that particular sold for so much b/c it is a 9.6 graded sealed copy - even though the game itself sold 60 million copies, there are extremely few copies still available in such pristine shape. I'd argue it's more like the Honus Wagner baseball card or Action Comic #1.

spijdar 5y ago
The author covers this. While there may be fewer copies in this condition, that condition isn't really intrinsically interesting in the way something that is actually rare is. At least for me, and apparently the author, the idea of a rare item being more valuable makes sense, especially if the rare thing is unusual or has attributes unlike other, commonly available things. Obscure computer hardware is like this for me. It's interesting because the experience of using/looking at it is unlike what you'll get from anything else. Even if it's a purely inferior experience, it's novel. In this case, the only thing that makes this different from the 60 million other copies of SMB is it's the most cleanly preserved copy in retail packaging and shrink wrap. Now, I understand for some collectors, whose only purpose for these is to put them in a display case or collection, that is how they'll experience this. But IMO there's nothing special about the game itself, nothing intrinsic to the item. If you so much as scuffed or opened the packaging, it'd lose all its value, whereas those other rare games and collectibles can be used for their original purpose (assuming you're careful and don't damage them) without destroying their value. It's all subjective though, so more power to the collectors who will treasure shrink wrapped copies of things.
- famicomblog 5y ago
  Author here. Yes, this is my point. The Wagner card, or Action Comics #1 or Atari 2600 Air Raid are all rare items on their own without their rarity having to be defined in an extraordinarily narrow way to establish that they are in fact rare. With SMB on the other hand you have to define that copy as a "one of a kind copy of a thing there are millions of out there", which is different from the above examples. The point that I was mainly going for in the post was that just a few years ago it didn't seem like the hobby was going to go down this route. Until recently everyone just assumed that a game like Air Raid (or the NES World Championship carts used in tournaments in the 1980s which are also extremely rare but also aren't well known outside collecting circles) would be the hobby's holy grail because that is what collectors were most fascinated by. Then WHAMMO, copies of SMB started going berzerk and completely obliterating the records set a few years ago for those rarer games, which I think has caught everyone in the retro gaming collecting community off guard since it is such a common game. Which I thought was worth writing something about, using Air Raid and examples from other hobbies as comparisons.

spijdar 5y ago

The author covers this. While there may be fewer copies in this condition, that condition isn't really intrinsically interesting in the way something that is actually rare is. At least for me, and apparently the author, the idea of a rare item being more valuable makes sense, especially if the rare thing is unusual or has attributes unlike other, commonly available things. Obscure computer hardware is like this for me. It's interesting because the experience of using/looking at it is unlike what you'll get from anything else. Even if it's a purely inferior experience, it's novel. In this case, the only thing that makes this different from the 60 million other copies of SMB is it's the most cleanly preserved copy in retail packaging and shrink wrap. Now, I understand for some collectors, whose only purpose for these is to put them in a display case or collection, that is how they'll experience this. But IMO there's nothing special about the game itself, nothing intrinsic to the item. If you so much as scuffed or opened the packaging, it'd lose all its value, whereas those other rare games and collectibles can be used for their original purpose (assuming you're careful and don't damage them) without destroying their value. It's all subjective though, so more power to the collectors who will treasure shrink wrapped copies of things.

famicomblog 5y ago
Author here. Yes, this is my point. The Wagner card, or Action Comics #1 or Atari 2600 Air Raid are all rare items on their own without their rarity having to be defined in an extraordinarily narrow way to establish that they are in fact rare. With SMB on the other hand you have to define that copy as a "one of a kind copy of a thing there are millions of out there", which is different from the above examples. The point that I was mainly going for in the post was that just a few years ago it didn't seem like the hobby was going to go down this route. Until recently everyone just assumed that a game like Air Raid (or the NES World Championship carts used in tournaments in the 1980s which are also extremely rare but also aren't well known outside collecting circles) would be the hobby's holy grail because that is what collectors were most fascinated by. Then WHAMMO, copies of SMB started going berzerk and completely obliterating the records set a few years ago for those rarer games, which I think has caught everyone in the retro gaming collecting community off guard since it is such a common game. Which I thought was worth writing something about, using Air Raid and examples from other hobbies as comparisons.