Someone just turned $25 into $3 million with NES Super Mario Bros.

Someone actually traded a game that was originally worth only $25 for $3 million in the form of a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This copy of Super Mario Bros. has broken a number of records and likely left the original owner extremely pleased with the outcome of its time at auction.

While not all games are destined to become collectibles, those who are patient and have games carefully tucked away somewhere can certainly turn them into a significant profit. In the past, auctioned games have sold for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on their condition and rarity. But this new achievement leaves them all in the dust.

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Super Mario Bros sells for a whopping $3 million at auction

On June 12, a copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES successfully sold for $3 million at Heritage Auctions. The amazing feat was due to the fact that the game was in excellent condition and because it was an extremely rare copy. When it was sold separately in the past, Super Mario Bros. sold for $25, which would be worth about $77 today due to inflation. This particular copy of Super Mario Bros. featured the glossy sticker seal, rather than a matte sticker or shrink wrap sealing the game box, making it a second production example.

What kind of weapon is that?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

What kind of weapon is that?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s) Medium (5.0s) Hard (2.5s) Permadeath (2.5s)

Only three sealed copies of the game with this special sticker seal are known to exist, and the $3 million copy that just sold is in the best condition of them all, with a PSA 9.6 A++ rating. It was previously estimated that a maximum of 10,000 examples with this particular seal ever existed, and potentially as few as 2,000. As a result, finding one in poor condition 40 years later would be a difficult task Super Mario Bros.' original edition.

Mario in the world 1-1 - Super Mario Bros.

While the sale is notable, it's not the first time Super Mario Bros. has broken records like this. One of the previously mentioned glossy stickers seal copies of Super Mario Bros. broke a record in 2019 when it sold for six figures, while a differently packaged version of the same game ended up selling for $660,000 just two years later. That record was finally broken the same year The Legend of Zeldawhich sold for $870,000, and many more records have been established since then. But this new $3 million sale means that Super Mario Bros. has taken its crown back to become the most expensive game ever sold in video game history.

Find all 10 pairs

Learning that someone has spent seven figures on a video game can be amazing, but it's far from the only example of gaming fans spending big on their favorites. Outside of copies of video games, things like Pokemon TCG cards have garnered millions of dollars in sales, with a rare Pikachu Illustrator selling for $1.4 million earlier in 2026, and a Logan Paul-owned copy of the same card selling for $16.5 million. Meanwhile, a seller put one of the Space World 2000 GameCube prototypes up for sale for $100,000, which, while historic, doesn't actually contain any internal components, so it doesn't function like a real console.