Originally published at: Zelda video game cartridge fetches $870,000 at auction | Boing Boing
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I hope the person that buys it opens it up and plays it.
But, alas it will likely just end up in someone’s climate controlled storage unit accumulating value until it’s sold again.
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Once again the investment boat sailed without me on board.
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The grotesque nature of the sale pitch’s hyperbole made me want to vomit.
And this is just going to end up in a vault in a free trade zone warehouse, most likely.
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Why are there people starving in our world?
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What an insidious waste.
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I wonder if the battery is still alive…
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Damn! With that hermetically-sealed case around it, how can I get in to blow on the cartridge?
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This.
When you’ve got the resources for this sort of thing, you really think there may just be an obligation to use those resources to alleviate suffering etc…
I still have my copy of this game (very opened, very played, pretty much void of any significant value), so I get why this is cool, but there’s a “WTF, close to a million?” thing going on as well. I could get behind someone using discretionary income to spend a few hundred on something like this, but when the amount skyrockets to something that could do so much good, I have to wonder if you’re not just a little bit evil to use it selfishly rather than support the greater good.
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the sales pitch crucially doesn’t even bother to explain the differences between the versions
maybe it’s that one where you get to play as zelda?
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This makes it all too clear why. Obviously not the only reason, but it’s a good example of one reason why.
Actually, I would say that your open, played and enjoyed version has significantly more value than this useless slab.
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Yes, and then consider that the money spent on this weighted cardboard box is no different to any financial speculation, except that the amount is so comparatively tiny. The buyer is plainly stating that they have $800,000 too much; it proves a defect in the system. And this is a rounding error compared to what’s spent on real estate and art and magic pieces of paper.
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The 80s were a wonderful time to grow up, but it always feels really weird to think that if I’d packed a decade’s worth of Christmas gifts in a closet instead of unwrapping and playing with them, I could be a multimillionaire by now. Nostalgia can go TOO far…
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A ‘collectible’ like this will accumulate ‘value’ while Gen X ages and gets more money and nostalgia. When we start dying out the ‘value’ will diminish dramatically because our kids and grandkids won’t give a damn about it.
At least this is what has happened for ‘collectible’ toys from the 50s and now the 60s. There is still some niche collectible value, but as the kids who played with them die off the demand and interest fades as well.
Of course, like all collections, this will sit in storage or a display case until the collector dies. At which point other collectors will swoop in like vultures to buy up the pieces at bargain prices. Then they will feel satisfaction at how much ‘value’ they now have.
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Well, that record didn’t stand for long
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