Why One Legend Of Zelda Cartridge Just Sold For $32,500

Published Oct 13, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

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Long-lost copies of old titles, especially those from the early days of gaming, tend to fetch a rather princely sum, and The Legend of Zelda is no stranger to this phenomenon. If you want to snag yourself a copy of the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, you could end up paying hundreds of dollars, a fee that seems ludicrous when put into perspective. However, as scarcity increases drastically and new fans enter the collection space, it is not particularly surprising to see the costs of certain games balloon.

What may surprise some, however, is the fact that one Legend of Zelda cartridge managed to sell for a whopping $32,000, an unimaginably high figure for a single game. Considering that one could buy every Legend of Zelda game, including the upcoming Zelda remaster, at full price and still have tens of thousands of dollars left over, it is somewhat baffling how this singular cartridge sold for so much. Naturally, this has people wondering what unique quality earned it such a high price point, and, fortunately, we have the answer.

The vast majority of The Legend of Zelda copies on the NES go for around $60 to $100, with a few of the rarer or older editions tending to skew in the $200 to $300 range. That seems about right for a pre-2000s video game and wouldn't raise an eyebrow if brought up in conversation. $32,000 (or, to be specific, $32,500) would absolutely raise an eyebrow, as it's not merely an eye-watering amount of money, but an astonishing amount to spend on a single video game.

Of course, we've seen higher amounts, with a copy of the original Mario going for $3,000,000 earlier this year (a sale that beat a previous record for the most expensive video game copy ever sold, also held by the original Super Mario Bros. game). Nevertheless, this is a noteworthy amount, and a figure justified by a handful of small details that helped set this particular copy apart. Chief among them was the fact that this version of The Legend of Zelda was for the Famicom and not the NES.

Nintendo attempted to exclusively sell The Legend of Zelda on the NES in the West for quite some time, meaning the Famicom version could only really be bought in Japan. Finding one these days is rare, and naturally fetches a higher price. Additionally, this copy had the words Disk System written in yellow, indicating it is one of the earlier copies of The Legend of Zelda on the Famicom (Disk System would later be printed in white). Finally, it received a grading of CGC 9.2 A+, which means it's in practically pristine condition, at least for a 40-year-old game.

It's an impressive figure for an excellent game and one that reminds us all to dig through our collections of old games from our childhoods every once in a while. Who knows, perhaps your boxed copy of Breath of the Wild or the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake could end up selling for $30,000. It seems doubtful, but then again, whoever bought this copy of The Legend of Zelda forty years ago likely didn't know they had a future fortune on their hands.