Rare Nintendo Cartridges Unearthed at Wisconsin Shop
A Wisconsin game shop owner discovered nearly 100 never-before-seen Nintendo cartridges, including variants of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. The rare find was made years after purchase from forgotten storage.
A trove of nearly 100 never-before-seen Nintendo cartridges, including unique versions of the iconic games Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, were discovered in storage at a game shop in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The discovery was made by Kevin Braun, owner of Onestopwonders, who had purchased the box of games approximately two to three years prior.
Braun acquired the collection from an individual who had stored them in their garage, untouched for two to three decades. These particular cartridges, featuring different screws, labels, motherboards, and manuals compared to previously known variants, were reportedly slated for melting down for gold recovery by a metal recycling service before being forgotten. The production year marked on the discovered box is 1993, a full two years after the last officially known copy of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was produced, according to Jason Ganos, owner of Nintendo Wire, who consulted on the find.
A Forgotten Find Re-emerges
The box of games remained hidden, tucked away behind Halloween decorations in Braun's storage unit, until a recent conversation with Ganos prompted him to investigate the forgotten acquisition. While the gameplay of the rediscovered Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt titles is identical to the widely recognized versions, the physical cartridges themselves represent a significant deviation from standard production. Ganos described the find as extraordinary, noting the immense historical significance of one of the most documented and popular video games ever released.
The discovery comes at a time when the video game collectible market is experiencing a surge in value and interest. Three of the newly found cartridges are scheduled to be auctioned at Goldin Auctions. Further adding to their rarity, the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), a leading memorabilia authentication service, has graded several of these cartridges a perfect 10. This perfect score is a first for any Nintendo Entertainment System game, underscoring the exceptional condition and rarity of the find. This follows a record-breaking sale in June 2026, where a PSA 9.6-graded copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $3 million at Heritage Auctions, setting a new benchmark for the highest-graded, earliest sealed edition of the game.
Ganos speculates that these cartridges may have been manufactured for a planned but ultimately unreleased game bundle or possibly as replacement stock for warranty repairs and refurbished systems. "Finding this kind of thing is just unheard of," Ganos stated. "I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing." The implications of this discovery could extend to collectors and historians alike, offering new insights into Nintendo's game production processes during the early 1990s.