Three rare Nintendo Game & Watch consoles, considered the 'holy grail' for collectors, could fetch up to £9,000 at auction. The consoles are officially licensed variants used to promote Phosphatine, a French cereal and infant food product.
Rare Phosphatine-branded consoles
Nintendo first released Game & Watch consoles in 1981. Vintage examples on eBay start at around £45, but rarities can rise to thousands of pounds. Auctioneer Ewbank's, based in Guildford, Surrey, said the specific type is particularly sought after.
James Spooner, head of retro video games at Ewbank's, said: 'Phosphatine-branded Game & Watch systems are considered a holy grail for hardcore Nintendo collectors.'
'It was discovered by the broader retro gaming community relatively recently, with only a single-digit number of verified units documented to exist in the world,' he added.
Three consoles tested and working
The three handheld consoles include the Parachute [PR-21], Fire [FR-27], and Turtle Bridge [TL-28] games. They have all just been tested and found to be working, and each is guided at £1,500 to £3,000.
A surge in demand and prices for retro video games helped Ewbank's to a premium-inclusive £200,000-plus over three sales in a single week last month.
'A key factor has been PlayStation's decision to stop selling physical product, so fans have been clamouring to get their hands on historic games and consoles that are now sought-after collectables,' James said.
Record prices for signed and sealed games
An empty box for a Nintendo 64 (N64) Mario 64 game had been expected to sell for £1,000 to 2,000, but ended up making a premium-inclusive £8,450. What made it so special was that it had been signed by Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's leading video game designer, producer and director.
Miyamoto signed the box for the vendor at a historical event at Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in London on February 21, 2003. This was the first and only public appearance and signing event in Europe of the creative mastermind behind franchises like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and Pikmin.
A First Print, factory-sealed Nintendo Game Boy Pokémon Emerald game, complete with red strip Nintendo seal, also had hopes of £1,000 to 2,000 but made £4,940, a price boosted by the absence of any damage to the seal.
Further success came for a factory sealed Nintendo Game Boy Pokémon Yellow, with a Nintendo Red Strip Seal, again with no breakages to the outer seal. A guide of £500-1,000 turned into a final selling price of £3,640.
Ewbank's, who have been holding dedicated sales of retro video games for some time, publish a guide to collecting them on their website. Live online bidding begins on September 4.
