Rare Unopened NES Cartridges Discovered in Wisconsin Shop
A retro shop owner in Waukesha, Wisconsin, found ninety-seven pristine, unopened NES cartridges, including rare versions of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, sitting in a storage room. Originally acquired from a circuit board salvage business, the games received exceptionally high grades from Professional Sports Authenticator, with five items achieving a perfect ten score, highlighting a significant vintage gaming discovery.
Key points
- Kevin Braun, owner of the Waukesha, Wisconsin retro shop OneStopWonders, discovered ninety-seven untouched NES cartridges in his storage room.
- The stash includes never-before-seen versions of popular Nintendo Entertainment System titles Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.
- The original seller acquired the box from a grandfather whose business recovered precious metals from circuit boards.
- Professional Sports Authenticator graded all units at 9.6 or higher, awarding five cartridges a perfect 10 rating.
- The collection initially sat forgotten after Braun purchased them years ago intending to resell them cheaply.
A retro video game store owner in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has uncovered a rare cache of ninety-seven unopened Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges in a storage room. Kevin Braun, who operates OneStopWonders located roughly fifteen miles west of Milwaukee, originally bought the items years ago with the expectation of reselling them for ten to fifteen dollars each. The inventory instead remained untouched in storage until Jason Ganos, editor-in-chief of Nintendo Wire and a friend of Braun, examined the boxes and recognized their potential value.
The collection features previously unseen variants of classic NES titles, specifically Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. According to the seller, the cartridges purportedly originated directly from Nintendo of America. The previous owner's grandfather operated a business dedicated to recovering precious metals from circuit boards, and the box was originally acquired for recycling purposes before somehow escaping the smelting process and entering private hands.
Professional Sports Authenticator evaluated the items, assigning grades of 9.6 or higher to the entire batch. Notably, five of the cartridges achieved a rare, perfect score of 10. While the exact total market value remains to be fully realized, industry observers note that vintage, high-grade unopened NES games from this era routinely command thousands of dollars among collectors.
Sources
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