It’s time to go start cutting some grass and breaking some pots to save up rupees for this sealed, early production version of The Legend of Zelda that is up for auction at the high price of $115,000 on Heritage Auctions.
Most local vintage game stores are likely to have a version of the NES classic, The Legend of Zelda, out on their store shelves for us Zelda fans to add to our collection. Although, none of them come even close to being as rare as this particular cartridge belonging to the production run known as the “NES R.” The “NES R” production run only lasted for the last few months in 1987 before being replaced in 1988. Since it ran for such a limited time, this version of The Legend of Zelda is extremely rare and extremely valuable. This value is only doubled by the fact that the packaging remains sealed, leading to the high bidding price of $115,000 for this legendary cartridge. In fact, Heritage Auctions thinks this may be the oldest sealed copy of the game one could possibly obtain.
The first production run of The Legend of Zelda is referred to as “NES TM,” which ran from the original release in 1986, until being replaced by the “NES R” version in 1987. Of this original production run, a single known sealed copy remains in the world and it is likely to never hit the market. So Heritage Auctions is most likely correct and this “NES R” production cartridge up for auction may be one of the oldest sealed copies of the original Legend of Zelda left today.
While the current bidding price of $115,000 may seem like a tall order, there is no doubt it is worth that amount of money because of how rare this sealed copy game is. Let’s just hope the Master Sword does not run out of energy from all those pots we will have to break.
