Nintendo has recently tipped its hat to the classic Nintendo World Championships with a Switch title that apes the short-burst challenges seen during the event, which started during the NES era.
The 1990 Nintendo World Championships kicked off in March 1990 and would visit almost 30 North American cities, coming to a close in December. During the event, special competition cartridges were used to filter out the best players, and featured modified Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris games.
These carts were grey and had dip switches to adjust the total game time afforded to players, but 26 gold competition cartridges were handed out by Nintendo Power in the Players' Poll Contest Sweepstakes, and these have become some of the most collectable NES items in the world.
Now, for the first time in many years, one of these gold carts is going up for auction (thanks, Pat Contri). The auction will take place on Goldin on Monday, July 22nd. The only catch is that the cart is missing its label.
"As far as we know, and until as recently as a few months ago, of the 26 copies of this gold game, which carries a resemblance to the famed The Legend of Zelda gold cartridge, there are only 13 copies extant, making this highly coveted piece of video game history," says the auction listing. "The condition sensitivity of these gold cartridges is due to a lack of packaging, and the label applied to this specimen is missing. The dip switch, allowing adjustment for time, is still present."
Goldin claims that the cartridge was originally owned by Patrick King of Cheyenne, Wyoming, whose name appeared in Nintendo Power #18.
"Of the 350 grey cartridges alleged to have been produced, 26 were sacrificed to make the 26 gold cartridges for the sweepstakes," adds Goldin. "Of the 92 grey cartridges known to exist, these are more scarce and desired, and collectors have chosen to spirit these away into their collections; rare, if ever, do they change hands, save for the rare private sale. To understand the context of this game and its importance in the hobby, some collectors have turned into treasure hunters, traversing the country and the globe for this game. Some intrepid hunters have even reached out to the 26 winners with the intent of tracing the journey of these discarded relics. That's how important this game is to the video game hobby and this game's place amongst its highest echelon."