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$13,000 NES cartridge found at the bottom of a Safeway sack

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Geekz Snow
$13,000 NES cartridge found at the bottom of a Safeway sack

SEATTLE—In the decades since 1990's Nintendo World Championship tournament, its unique prize for participants—a competition-class cartridge with timed versions of classic games Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris—has become a sought-after collector's item.

It represents a golden era when Nintendo could host a tournament that captivated a nation (and followed the two-hour commercial of a film that was The Wizard).

Hence, the discovery of any Nintendo World Championship cartridge is a newsworthy event for a certain class of retro-gaming enthusiast.

"You wouldn't believe this," Pink Gorilla co-owner Cody Spencer told Ars Technica in his shop's storage room on Wednesday, after a whirlwind 24 hours concluded with the game's sale to a collector.

“Bored out of my mind”... but not for long

The seller, a man in his mid-30s, wasn't recognized as a regular customer when he walked into the chain's south-Seattle location on Tuesday with "a Safeway bag full of the most boring NES games you can imagine."

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