Designed in 1981 to promote Nintendo’s very first Donkey Kong game, this poster has become the most expensive original video game artwork ever sold at auction.
Headline act
With a price of $329,400, the item smashes the previous record of $63,000 held by the original cover art for Prince of Persia since 2023, even though this category of items still falls far short of the games themselves, as shown by a vintage Super Mario Bros cartridge that sold for $3 million last summer.
A very wealthy plumber
Mario, indeed, is featured on this 50 x 42 cm poster, back when he was not yet called Mario but Jumpman. “Long before Mario became the face of a multi-billion-dollar entertainment franchise, he was a character appearing on the flyer for an arcade game,” explains Landry Pop Auctions, the auction house in charge of the sale. The result of $329,400 is a striking reminder of how far Nintendo’s most famous plumber has come, and of the value acquired by the surviving original work from his very beginnings.