Rare Copy of Pokemon Red Sells for Over $100,000

An unusually rare copy of Pokemon Red has sold for over $100,000 at auction. Given the recent sale, anyone who has a similar copy of Pokemon Red could end up with a small fortune, should they decide to sell it. However, this particular copy may be one-of-a-kind.

Rare Pokemon merchandise can fetch a pretty hefty sum these days, with rare Pokemon cards being some of the most expensive among them. While some of these cards have been drawn from standard packs, a number of them were rare to begin with, like the iconic Pikachu Illustrator card, which has sold for millions in the past. Such is also the case with this recently-sold copy of Pokemon Red, which was never available on a store shelf.

Rare Pokemon Red Prototype Sells for Six Figures

On October 25, a Goldin auction for a prototype copy of Pokemon Red closed after receiving 20 bids and reaching a whopping $101,000 final winning bid. After fees, the cost for the cartridge reached $123,220. The prototype isn’t much to look at, with no official branding or external packaging, with the internal components of the cartridge fully visible. While PSA authentication determined that the cartridge is a prototype, a scan of the internal data didn’t yield any differences between the game data on it and the standard US release of the game. There were apparently some minor differences located in the header data, but they were deemed “inconsequential.” Not all of the data on the cartridge was accessible due to an “equipment failure,” but the assessment determined that it’s likely that the game build on the cartridge is identical to the official release.

Unfortunately, the assessment of the cartridge means that it’s unlikely to yield any secrets from the development era of the game. Pre-release prototypes are often coveted in part because they sometimes have beta files in them that didn’t make it to an official release copy. However, the cartridge still managed to net a sizable sum despite this knowledge being shared in the auction listing. It’s nonetheless an interesting part of Pokemon history, and something that a collector will be able to consider largely one-of-a-kind, too, as no other instances of this particular development board have been documented in the past.

To put the price of the Pokemon Red copy into perspective, a prototype Nintendo PlayStation console once sold for $360,000 at auction. It’s a sizable sum, but not as earth-shattering as one might expect for what’s thought to be the last surviving prototype in existence. On the other hand, a completely non-functioning shell of a Nintendo GameCube that was put on display at SpaceWorld went on sale for $100,000.

It’s not known how the Pokemon Red copy was discovered, but while rare, these things can happen by accident. In one case, a prototype SpaceWorld Game Boy Advance was sold alongside a bunch of other standard consoles and games for just $700. It’s likely that these kinds of finds will become rarer over time, so there’s no telling how inflated prices may become in the future.

Systems

Released

February 27, 1996

ESRB

e

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Engine

unity