Founder of LCG Auctions Mark Montero visits WIRED to talk through the appraised value of five high-end pop culture collectibles. From an original Super Mario Bros cartridge for the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the very first iPhone and more, learn just how much these technological relics of the recent past are fetching on the collectors market.
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00:00 My name is Mark Monteiro.
00:01 I'm the founder of LCG Auctions.
00:03 We specialize in high-end pop culture collectibles.
00:06 Today, we're gonna talk through five collectibles
00:08 ranging from $3,000 to $60,000.
00:12 (upbeat music)
00:14 This is the very first Super Mario Brothers
00:27 released on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
00:30 This particular example would appraise for around $10,000.
00:33 This is a rare hang tab edition.
00:35 The back of it has a hang tab that's perforated,
00:39 which is different from the subsequent models
00:41 that came out, and collectors find
00:42 the hang tab very collectible.
00:44 This one is graded by CGC,
00:46 which is also a comic book grader.
00:48 They've graded some of the most valuable comic books.
00:50 Anything 9.0 or greater
00:53 is considered exceptional condition.
00:55 Super Mario Brothers is the most popular video game
00:58 of all time.
00:58 There's been over 40 million copies sold.
01:01 Super Mario Brothers revived the video game industry
01:04 after Atari, the video game console, was starting to fail.
01:08 When the Nintendo Entertainment System came out,
01:10 Mario in particular,
01:12 it created a whole new level of interest.
01:14 The Holy Grail of Super Mario
01:16 is a 9.8 sealed hang tab edition.
01:20 It sold for $2 million.
01:23 [upbeat music]
01:26 This is a Sega Game Gear released in 1991.
01:30 It's the very first release,
01:31 retailed at $149.99 at launch.
01:35 This is around $12,500.
01:38 This example is what we call Hobby Fresh.
01:41 It's never gone to market before,
01:42 and it'll be interesting to see where it ends up.
01:44 This grade is the Holy Grail of Sega Game Gears.
01:48 It's graded by VGA.
01:50 It's a VGA 85.
01:51 Game Gear was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Game Boy.
01:55 The Game Boy was black and white.
01:57 The Sega Game Gear was in color.
01:59 Unlike Game Boy,
02:00 you could actually play Game Gear in the dark
02:02 because of the backlit screen.
02:04 The Sega Game Gear had popular titles
02:05 like Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage.
02:08 Over 10.5 million units were sold of the Sega Game Gear.
02:11 It was one of the most popular,
02:13 portable gaming systems for years.
02:15 The Sega Game Gear is known for ripping through batteries,
02:18 but there was also a TV tuner
02:20 that you could put on the top,
02:22 allowed you to watch television stations
02:24 on the portable console.
02:25 This is the very first release of Ghostbusters
02:31 on VHS from 1985.
02:33 It retailed for $79.99.
02:36 $79.99 was a very high price,
02:39 but VHS was in its infancy,
02:41 and the tapes were just very high.
02:43 It's dropped down a bit,
02:44 but it's still in the four figures.
02:46 The first edition Ghostbusters has some unique features.
02:49 The logo on the front is an embossed logo.
02:53 On the back, it also has what we call waterfall watermarks.
02:57 These are vertical RCA white watermarks
03:00 that resemble a waterfall.
03:01 VHS as a collectible is relatively new
03:04 in the four and five figure numbers.
03:07 Some videotapes that have sold for a lot of money
03:09 include Superman Black Box Edition.
03:12 This was a Betamax tape that sold for $40,000,
03:15 and some of the early release Rockies
03:18 have sold for significant amounts of money as well.
03:21 This is an Apple iPod, first release,
03:27 first generation from October 2001.
03:30 It retailed for $399.
03:32 The last one that sold, sold for $29,000.
03:35 The first edition iPod is extremely rare
03:38 in factory-sealed condition.
03:39 It's become highly collectible through the years.
03:41 In collectibles, we have something called scarcity.
03:44 Just because something is rare
03:46 doesn't make it collectible.
03:47 Scarce factors in demand,
03:50 so something scarce is oftentimes collectible.
03:53 This is most definitely the holy grail iPod,
03:56 the first release, the five gigabyte version
03:58 in factory-sealed.
04:00 It has a black and white screen.
04:02 It utilizes buttons as opposed to a click wheel,
04:04 and it stores around 1,000 songs.
04:07 Apple had been struggling up until the early 2000s,
04:10 and this was the first handheld device
04:13 that really helped the company turn a corner,
04:15 and it really launched Apple's handheld division
04:18 to new heights.
04:19 This is a first-release iPhone from 2007.
04:24 This model cost $599.
04:28 We have it between 50 and $60,000.
04:31 This model's eight gigabytes.
04:33 For the internet, it used something called the Edge Network.
04:35 It was a very slow internet service,
04:38 and that was kind of the main difference
04:40 for this first model compared to the subsequent models.
04:43 Factory-sealed means the seal has not been broken.
04:46 It's not been opened up.
04:47 You may have an iPhone at your house
04:49 and think it could be worth a lot of money.
04:51 The reality is it's probably not.
04:53 There's a lot of them in the population,
04:54 and for that reason, they're not worth very much.
04:57 Steve Jobs introduced the phone at Macworld in January 2007.
05:02 There was a lot of hype around it.
05:04 The most expensive item that we have sold
05:06 is a first-release iPhone from 2007.
05:09 It was the rare four-gigabyte model.
05:12 The four-gigabyte was discontinued after just two months in,
05:15 and it went for $190,000,
05:18 an item that would just be a holy grail
05:19 that we have not seen.
05:21 If we were to have an unopened iPhone
05:23 with a signature from Steve Jobs,
05:25 the sky would be the limit on something like that.
05:27 I've heard that he actually gave a signed edition iPad
05:32 to his inner circle.
05:34 There are counterfeits that enter the market
05:36 from time to time.
05:37 Collectors have to be very careful
05:39 to make sure that all sides of the iPhone are shown.
05:42 The seal follows a very detailed pattern.
05:45 The use of the box underneath the seal,
05:48 it should be in mint condition.
05:49 The seams along the side are very thin.
05:51 Those that are resealed,
05:53 the counterfeiters never tend to get the seal right.
05:55 My advice to those looking to get into collectibles
06:02 is to collect what you like,
06:03 do your homework in terms of pricing,
06:06 previous sales history.
06:07 Some of the stuff is very, very expensive.
06:09 So you want a good amount of knowledge before you dive in.
06:12 (clap)