Original NES Blues
About a week ago a story came out telling how an eBay seller scored big bucks by selling a used Nintendo Entertainment System along with a couple of games. It turns out that if you’re one of a few people in the world who actually have a copy of the 1987 game, “Stadium Events,” you can sell it for top dollar at auction. This particular auction sold for $13,105.
Not bad for a rare game over twenty-three years old.
But what about those of us who still own an original box for the classic game system, and said box is still in excellent condition?
original NES Action Set box - circa 1987
As it turns out, don’t expect much for it at all.
When I first heard about the auction mentioned above, a different news story claimed that the auction also included the original box. I’ve heard that the box itself could possibly be worth several thousand dollars.
Like everybody else in the late 1980s, my brother and I had a Nintendo. We didn’t get ours until sometime in 1988 (for only $99.97 according to the price tag still on the box), after the Nintendo was already a common household item. My parents didn’t like for us to be involved in current trends like this (this was back when stories were circulating about certain neighborhood kids being addicted to the games, often playing them for two to three days straight), but we finally got one when they were still hot sellers. Before this my brother and I were dedicated Atari 2600 fans, so jumping to the Nintendo with its awesome graphics and really cool games was a big improvement. It wasn’t as cool as the classic computer games we were also playing, but using a modern console system was still fun.
My mom tossed the box into the attic, and sure enough, over twenty years later it was still sitting up there in nearly mint condition. A thin layer of dust has been embedded onto one side of it, but otherwise, the box itself looks outstanding. I love that classic advertising picture on the back showing a family having fun while the two brothers are both controlling Mario simultaneously, which, as we all know, was not possible. “Super Mario Brothers” could be played with two players, but each player took turns. Player one controlled Mario while player two used Luigi.
Long live the Nintendo!
After reading about the Nintendo auction that netted the seller over $13 grand, I was more than pleased to find our original box. The console, controllers, and a dozen or so games are in another box around here somewhere, and I’m aware that they’re not worth that much money. Everything still works, but the games were common ones that everybody else had. We were also big into renting games at Blockbuster and playing them over the weekend.
Just today I was looking at the NES auctions on eBay, and sadly, those auctions featuring boxes like mine were going for low prices. It’s hard to get excited about selling something when seeing Buy-It-Now prices between $199 and $299, with completed auctions averaging around $100. That’s not too bad for a 20-year-old gaming system, but it’s really not worth selling at that low of a final sale price.
As far as my Nintendo, right now I’m leaning towards just keeping it in the attic until:
A) There’s a sudden craze and collector’s are willing to part with big bucks for a used gaming system.
B) I rip out the console’s components and install my future entertainment center computer inside of the old console, making a cool, retro entertainment system.
C) I just forget about it and save it for a future generation sometime down the line.
It’s not worth it parting with my beloved (and still working) gaming system for only around a hundred bucks at the most.