Have you checked your parent’s attic or basement recently? Scott Amos of Reno, Nevada is certainly glad he did. He was recently cleaning out his Mum’s attic on Mother’s Day (what a nice son) and discovered a few boxes of his childhood possessions. What he wasn’t expecting to find, however, was a J.C Penney bag with a sealed copy of Kid Icarus for the NES inside.
Also within the bag was the original receipt, which dated it to the 8th of December, 1988 (Kid Icarus was released in North America the year before) and cost someone, likely his Mum, $38.45 – which translates to approximately $80 in today’s currency. The running theory is that since it was purchased in December, it was intended as a Christmas gift but then forgot about in the attic.
Amos knew it would be worth something but assumed it wouldn’t be more than a few hundred bucks. The NES game was then left on the kitchen counter in full reach of little people until the next day. At work, Amos emailed a few experts and was promptly informed he had an “Easter egg”. A quick call to his wife later, and Kid Icarus was hurriedly stored in a less obvious location. “I didn’t want the kids pulling it down or coloring on it”, Amos told the Reno Gazette Journal.
As it turns out, Kid Icarus is very rare to find sealed and since it’s bundled with its original receipt (so, a nice backstory) sold for a nice premium on Heritage Auctions. It’s thought less than ten sealed copies exist out there – so if you do manage to locate one in the dark, dank reaches of your garage, prepare for a nice Christmas bonus yourself.
Growing up while the fifth generation of consoles reigned supreme meant that Brendan missed out on much of the 80’s and early 90’s of gaming the first time around. He either lacked the cognitive ability to play them, as naturally, he was a baby - or he simply didn’t exist yet. Undeterred, Brendan started a blog called Retro Game On in 2011. This followed his exploits as he collected and played everything he could get his hands on no matter what the release date. While RGO is mainly YouTube focused these days concentrating on video reviews and historical features, the itch to do some old fashion writing never went away. More recently, Brendan has been a staff writer for the gaming website, GameCloud, mostly focusing on the indie gaming scene in his locale of Perth, Australia.
