When you think of rare and collectable NES games, chances are Super Mario Bros. is the last thing that springs to mind. It's one of the most common NES releases in existence, and logic would dictate that on the secondary market, it's not worth a great deal - even in exceptional condition.

However, a sealed copy of the iconic platformer has just sold for $30,100.44 on eBay, and the seller has confirmed that the buyer has paid, so this isn't a case of artificially inflating an auction for headlines.

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The seller - DKOldies - told Kotaku that the game had been sitting in the company offices for quite some time, and that it was traded in with a collection years ago.

So what makes this particular example so special? The fact that it's sealed and in absolute mint condition obviously helps, but the biggest selling point is that this is a "hangtag" version, where the box had a tab on the back which allowed it to be hung on a peg in-store. According to experts, there may only be a dozen examples of this kind of packaging in existence, and this is the best-kept one which has surfaced so far.

To top it off, DKOldies says that the same buyer purchased some other sealed games that were up for grabs at the same time, including a lot which contained a sealed copy of Kid Icarus that finished at over $11,000. Now that's a serious collector.

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[source kotaku.com]