Reno man Scott Amos was going through some possessions from the attic of his childhood home the other day when he came across something: an unopened copy of Kid Icarus for the Nintendo Entertainment System, complete with receipt from 1988.
As the Reno Gazette Journal reports, nobody from Amos’ family can exactly remember why the game was up there, but it’s a fairly convincing theory that it was bought as a Christmas present for Scott and then, for whatever reason, forgotten about and never given (the receipt is from December 8, 1988).
“It was kind of funny — I saw it was sealed, and I thought it was worth a couple hundred dollars,” Amos told the Journal. “I go to work the next day and emailed a couple of experts. One of them wrote me back within 30 minutes and said, ‘You have an Easter egg.’”
Once he’d spoken further with the experts, he knew he had something very special on his hands. Heritage Auctions’ Valarie McLeckie said of the game “To find a sealed copy ‘in the wild,’ so to speak, not to mention one in such a nice condition and one with such transparent provenance, is both an unusual and rather historic occurrence. We feel that the provenance will add a significant premium for serious collectors.”
The copy sold over the weekend for $9000, and Amos already has some fun plans on how to spend the unexpected windfall.
“I have an older sister, too. We’re splitting (the proceeds) 50-50. We’re going to do a Disney World vacation next month”, he told the Journal. “Instead of doing something responsible, we’re going to have some fun with it.”