As Heritage Auctions explains it, most of the copies you’re likely to encounter are “Rev-A” variants, but earlier production runs had “NES TM” and “NES R” variants. The NES TM variant is the earliest, but Heritage explains that only one sealed NES TM copy is thought to exist. This copy of The Legend of Zelda is an NES R variant that was only produced for a few months in late 1987 before it was replaced by the Rev-A variant, inflating its rarity (and its price) significantly. The copy also carries a round Nintendo Seal of Quality, which helps bring the price up further.
“As for this particular copy of the world’s first adventure with Link, we don’t even need an entire hand to count the number of copies that are purported to exist in sealed condition from this “No Rev-A” production run, and this copy is among the finest known of these examples,” Heritage Auctions wrote today. Once again, we’re left wondering if this record will be broken anytime soon, but since it’s only been a few months since the last time we said such thoughts out loud, we’ll just wait and see what happens next.
Keyword: Wild price for sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda breaks auction records