Sealed ‘The Legend of Zelda’ copy reaches $110,000 at online auction

A 1987 original and sealed copy of Nintendo Entertainment System’s first Zelda game has reached $110,000 at the online auction site, Heritage Auctions, recently.

It was originally sold at retail for $49.99 when it was released in 1986.

This copy being sold is graded at an A, 9.0, by Wata Games, an online video game collection grading team composed of video game collectors and business experts.

They grade the item at a 0.5 to 10 scale, and a C to A++ rating scale for seal-quality.

Heritage Auctions described this copy as “one of the most incredibly rare” as this copy of the game is an “NES R” variant. Only one of the few products that were released in the market in 1987 before it was replaced by a “Rev-A” variant in 1988.

This means that the game is one of the earliest copies of the game that came out in the market.

"Truly, the term 'grail' only begins to scratch the surface of describing this game," Heritage Auctions writes in the lot description. "Of all of the games we've offered in our auctions, this sealed early production copy of the first game in the groundbreaking Legend of Zelda series is no doubt the apotheosis of rarity, cultural significance, and collection centerpieces," said on the Heritage Auctions page.

Heritage Auctions also sold a Nintendo PlayStation console for $360,000 in March last year and an original Wata A+, 9.6 graded Super Mario Bros. game at $660,000.