Nintendo World Championships Gold -- ever heard of it?

Video game collecting is really interesting -- there are numerous rare and uncommon games out in the wild that many people haven't heard of, but some collectors get all crazy about. One of these games that gets the hardcore collectors excited is up for sale right now on eBay. The starting bid: $15,000.

The game is Nintendo World Championships Gold. This was a limited-edition game that Nintendo put out for the NES in 1990. It was made around the time of the movie The Wizard, which stared Fred Savage, and promoted the release of Super Mario Bros. 3. Nintendo had a contest where you had 6 some-odd minutes to get a bunch of points in a couple of games, in this big competition, held by Nintendo Power magazine. 90 grey edition Nintendo World Championship games were made; and only 26 of the gold edition Nintendo World Championship versions were given out to winners of the contest, making this cartridge one of the most sought after games around.

Only 12 of these gold edition games are known about. Somewhere out there -- if they haven't been destroyed, that is -- are the other 14; so if you see one selling at garage sale for really cheap, please buy it and send to me care of Neoseeker.com.

$15,000 is actually the going rate for this game -- this seems like a reasonable price for it. One was sold last year for around $20,000 on myebid, by a father who was selling possession owned by his late son, who perished in the Iraq war. Who knows -- $15,000 might turn out to be a great deal. You never know with collecting. Game collecting might go the way of comic collecting, and the rarest titles might see their value someday skyrocket. This game could be the 'new' Superman #1.

But if you are a collector, as always, you should be on the look-out for fakes, which turn up from time to time.

If you are interested in rare games, I recommend the excellent Rare Video Games blog, which tracks this topic quite well.