Rare Video Game Sells In Denton For $7,500
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DENTON (CBSDFW.COM) - One of the rarest video games on Earth just sold in Denton for $7,500 after a dealer in Texas decided to sell off his Nintendo video game collection.
The cartridge is a 1987 track and field game called, "Stadium Events."
"The gameplay is actually horrible. The game is terrible," said Michael McCaskill, a gamer from Gilmer who just sold the game. McCaskill was at a yard sale two years ago when he stumbled upon a box of Nintendo games.
He paid $80 for about 40 games, one of which was "Stadium Events."
"I had no idea other than it looked familiar. That was it. Of course it took Google and a phone to go, 'Oh my god,' " said McCaskill.
His $2 8-bit investment was worth nearly $8,000.
"(It's crazy) to just go to your video game shelf and pick off a piece of plastic with a sticker on it that's worth $8,000 that you didn't pay anywhere near that for," said McCaskill. "So you have to constantly pick it up and go, how lucky am I?"
After much thought, McCaskill decided to sell his treasure to a private customer for $7,500. "To have it in my store for the sole purposes of getting hands on with it, to verify that it was real…it's phenomenal," said Alec Featherstone, owner of Freaks and Geeks Video Games in Denton.
Featherstone helped authenticate the often boot-legged video game. He said McCaskill's copy is one of only 200 known copies in the world. "Something, you know, that rare, you expect to see in a museum. You expect to see in someone's collection where you can't touch it…where it's completely hands off," said Featherstone.
While he will miss seeing the game sitting on his shelf, McCaskill and his wife are taking the money and putting towards buying a house.
"She's dead set we'll find another one. I mean we were that lucky. Can lightning strike twice? I don't know. I'd like to see it if it does," said McCaskill. "If I found another one, I'm keeping it."