Mario is the most valuable character in the collectibles market. Not Disney. Not Pokemon. Not sports. A single sealed NES cartridge of Super Mario Bros. has sold for $2 million. That is the all-time record for any video game ever sold at auction.
But the Mario collectibles market goes deeper than sealed games. Amiibo manufacturing defects. Prototype cartridges. Nintendo Power magazines. LEGO sets. Arcade cabinets. Every category has its own price ceiling and its own collector base.
Here is every major Mario sale worth knowing about. Organized by category. Verified prices only.
Sealed Video Games. The Record Breakers.
The sealed Mario game market went parabolic between 2019 and 2021. The all-time record was broken six times in 18 months. Every single record was a Mario game.
$2,000,000. Super Mario Bros. (NES). WATA 9.8 A+. Hangtab variant. Sold through Rally in August 2021. Rally originally purchased the game in April 2020 for $140,000. That is a 14x return in 16 months. One of only 14 known hangtab box variants. Still the all-time record for any video game.
$1,560,000. Super Mario 64 (N64). WATA 9.8 A++. Heritage Auctions, July 2021. The first video game to break $1 million at public auction. Only copy ever graded 9.8 A++. Effectively the highest feasible grade for this title.
$660,000. Super Mario Bros. (NES). WATA 9.6 A+. Hangtab, 1 Code, Mid-Production. Heritage Auctions, April 2021. Purchased as a Christmas gift in 1986. Sat unopened in a desk drawer for 35 years.
$360,000. Super Mario World (SNES). WATA 9.4 A+. "Made in Japan" variant. Heritage Auctions, July 2021. The finest example of this title ever offered at Heritage.
$156,000. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES). WATA 9.2 A+. "Left Bros." box variant. Heritage Auctions, November 2020. 20 bidders. Bidding opened at $62,500.
$114,000. Super Mario Bros. (NES). WATA graded. Hangtab variant. Heritage Auctions, July 2020.
$100,150. Super Mario Bros. (NES). WATA 9.4 A++. "Sticker Sealed." Heritage Auctions, February 2019. The first video game to sell for six figures. Purchased by a group that included Heritage co-founder Jim Halperin.
$88,550. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES). WATA 9.8 A+. Heritage Auctions, October 2021. Found at the back of a walk-in closet in Indiana.
And the market is still active in 2026. A sealed Super Mario Bros. at WATA 8.0 sold for $26,108 at Goldin's Pop Culture Elite auction in February. Not a gem mint copy. An 8.0. Still five figures. A 1989 NES copy graded CGC 9.8 went for $57,340 in the same window.
The Donkey Kong Record
$370,880. Donkey Kong (NES). WATA 9.6 A++. Goldin Auctions, September 2025. First-production gloss sticker sealed copy from 1986. Untouched for nearly 40 years. Shattered the previous Donkey Kong record by 5x.
$72,000. Donkey Kong (NES). WATA 8.5 B. Heritage Auctions, January 2021. Only known copy of this package variant in factory sealed condition. Tripled pre-auction estimates.
The Controversy You Need to Know About
Several of these record sales are directly tied to allegations of market manipulation.
In August 2021, YouTuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst published a 52-minute investigation alleging that WATA Games (the grading company behind most of these sales) coordinated with Heritage Auctions to inflate prices. The $100,150 sale in February 2019 involved Heritage co-founder Jim Halperin as a buyer. That is a conflict of interest that the investigation highlighted.
A class-action lawsuit was filed against WATA Games in May 2022 alleging RICO violations, false advertising, and market manipulation. As of March 2026, no public settlement has been reached.
WATA Games was acquired by Collectors Holdings (the parent company of PSA) and was fully rebranded under the PSA name in October 2025.
The prices are real. The sales happened. The checks cleared. But the questions around how the market got to these levels are also real. Collectors should understand the full picture.
Prototypes and Development Items
$31,200. Super Mario Bros. 3 Prototype Cartridge. Heritage Auctions, September 2020. The first Nintendo-developed Mario prototype ever sold at Heritage. Made from a repurposed Kid Icarus cartridge with "Super 3" handwritten over the label.
$360,000. Nintendo PlayStation Prototype. Heritage Auctions, March 2020. Not Mario-specific, but the most significant Nintendo hardware prototype ever sold. The only surviving example of approximately 200 pre-production consoles from the aborted Sony/Nintendo SNES CD-ROM partnership. 57 bids.
Nintendo World Championships Cartridges
$207,400. Gold NWC 1990 Cartridge. CGC 4.0. Goldin 100 Part 2 Auction, August 2024. One of only 26 gold cartridges ever made. Given away through Nintendo Power magazine sweepstakes. Only 16 are known to exist today.
$78,000. Gray NWC 1990 Cartridge. CGC graded. Goldin Auctions. The gray versions were given to contestants at the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. Approximately 90 were produced.
Amiibo
$25,100. Legless Princess Peach Amiibo. eBay, December 2014. Manufacturing defect. Missing both legs. Factory-sealed. 109 bids. Holds the Guinness World Record for most expensive amiibo figure.
$2,500. Dual Cannon Samus Aran Amiibo. eBay, 2014. Manufacturing defect with an extra cannon on the left arm.
Defective amiibo became an instant collector category when the figures launched in 2014. Missing limbs, double accessories, and misaligned paint jobs all command premiums. The Peach sale set a ceiling that hasn't been touched since.
Nintendo Power Magazine
$108,000. Nintendo Power Issue 1. CGC 9.8. Heritage Auctions, April 2023. The all-time record for any Nintendo magazine. More than quadrupled the $24,000 price of a CGC 9.4 copy sold at Heritage just four months earlier.
The first issue of Nintendo Power featured Super Mario Bros. 2 on the cover. Published in July 1988. CGC 9.8 is effectively gem mint for a 38-year-old magazine. The price reflects both the cultural significance and the impossibility of finding another copy in this condition.
LEGO Nintendo Sets
LEGO NES (71374). Retail $230. Current resale $330 to $420. Retired November 2024. 2,646 pieces. A buildable NES console with a working TV screen that scrolls through a Super Mario Bros. level. Amazon raised its own price to $330 post-retirement.
LEGO Super Mario 64 Question Mark Block (71395). Retail $200. Current resale $270 to $350. Retired mid-2024. Opens to reveal four micro-levels from Super Mario 64 including Bob-omb Battlefield and Lethal Lava Land.
LEGO Mighty Bowser (71411). Retail $270. 2,807 pieces. The largest LEGO Super Mario set. Still in production but expected to appreciate significantly post-retirement based on the trajectory of other retired Nintendo sets.
The new LEGO Mario Kart Luigi and Mach 8 Kart (72050) drops April 1 at $179.99. It is an 18+ display set at 1,972 pieces. Companion to the 2025 Mario and Standard Kart set.
Arcade Cabinets and Hardware
Original 1981 Donkey Kong upright arcade cabinets sell for $1,000 to $5,000 depending on condition. These are not six-figure items. The market is more about preservation than investment. Restored units sell higher than original-condition units.
A commemorative Nintendo Game & Watch handheld sold for $9,100 at auction. Vintage Nelsonic Nintendo game watches from the 1980s sell for $200 and up.
Where the Market Stands Now
The retro gaming collectibles market crossed $4 billion in 2026. Projected to hit $8.5 billion by 2033. Mario is the single most recognizable character in the medium. Every anniversary, every movie, every cultural moment sends attention back to the original games.
The sealed game market corrected significantly from its 2021 peak. Many titles dropped 50% to 90%. But the top-end Mario titles have held better than the broader market. Grade sensitivity is extreme. The difference between a WATA 8.0 at $26,000 and a WATA 9.8 at $2,000,000 tells you everything about how condition drives value at the highest levels.
Mario turned 40 this year. The Galaxy Movie opens April 1. The Switch 2 era is rolling. Every wave of mainstream attention pushes more eyes onto the collectibles market. And the plumber keeps setting records.
