A Nintendo poster that was nearly thrown in the trash has now become the most expensive piece of video game artwork ever sold at auction. The rescued find has now provided an incredible windfall for a former Nintendo employee.
Video game collectibles and the games themselves can sometimes be sold for eye-watering prices, especially when they’re in good condition. For example, earlier in 2026, a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. broke sales records when it was auctioned off for $3 million. Finding old copies of games and their connected works in good shape is getting harder as the years roll by, leading some coveted items to sell for incredible prices.
Classic Donkey Kong Poster Sells for Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars
An original art poster for Donkey Kong has now sold at auction for a whopping $329,400. The artwork is a classic, featuring Donkey Kong on top of a tower with Pauline, throwing barrels down at Jumpman. Jumpman is essentially the prototype for Mario, and looks considerably different here than the plumber most Nintendo fans know. What makes this particular piece of art so unusual is that it’s the original painting, produced in 1982, making it one-of-a-kind. The artwork was created by illustrator Leslie Cabarga, and was estimated to be worth anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000, but fan interest led to a considerably higher selling price.
Aside from it being the original art, part of what makes this sale so remarkable is that this piece of work was almost lost forever. Prior to being sold, it was owned by Donna Darbous, a former Nintendo employee, who reportedly rescued it from being thrown in the trash during an office expansion at Nintendo of America. She’d largely forgotten about it until four decades later, when she rediscovered it in her belongings, which led to it being auctioned off. The art is still in remarkable condition, especially considering its age, with only minor wear, rubbing, and small tears on the archival paper.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Games and cards sold to the general public sometimes fetch a high price later on if they’re in good shape. After all, most of them end up being played with, and accordingly, standard wear and tear develops on the items themselves, while packaging is often thrown away. However, rare items like this Donkey Kong poster that were never available to consumers can often sell for even more. In another such find, a prototype of Pokemon Red sold for over a hundred thousand dollars. The game data is considered to be nearly identical to that found on standard retail copies, but its uniqueness as a prototype cartridge led to an incredible payday.
Nintendo products are among some of the most coveted and expensive auctioned items out there. A sealed copy of the original Legend of Zelda game sold for nearly $900,000 several years ago, and many Pokemon fans know that the extraordinarily rare Pikachu Illustrator card has fetched millions at auction. While finds like these will become less common with time, it remains to be seen if Nintendo can top its own records in the future.
- Released
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July 31, 1981
- ESRB
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E For Everyone
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo R&D1, Ikegami Tsushinki
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
- Franchise
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Donkey Kong
