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The Heritage November Signature Video Game Auction was a somewhat paradoxical event. While some auction stats improved since August and the most expensive video game sale of 2022 was recorded, other stats declined and several key titles continued their precipitous slide in value.
Mean, median, 75th percentile, and 25th percentile sales were all up from the August event, which at face value, feels like a step in a positive direction for the broad video game market. Of course, it's not so simple, particularly for those who play at the higher end of the market.
The major positive takeaway from the event was the most expensive sale of 2022. A hangtab copy of Super Mario Bros sold for an eye-opening $720,000. Last April, as the market was working itself into a speculative frenzy, a copy one variant earlier with a superior seal grade sold for $660,000, setting the record at the time. That the copy in the November event was able to surpass that total in a vastly weaker moment for the video game market is impressive, and it follows the pattern in other categories of true grails continuing to hold their ground and even advance.
Now, the further you move from the top sale, the more apparent it is that this event was the weakest at the high end in the last year and a half. There was very little depth towards the top, as many popular titles continue to fetch lower and lower levels. Take Mario Kart 64 for example. The trajectory over the last 7 months for copies graded a 9.6 is truly jarring.
So how did the headline stats for November shake out better than for August, given the high-end performance was so superior in August? The Super Mario Bros sale helped, but a real step forward was also taken at the lowest end of the market. 67 games sold for less than $1,000 in August, compared to just 27 in November. The bottom 50 sales in November averaged $955, a 79% increase over August's $533. BUT the total number of bidders was down 15% from 965 to 820. Like we said, a pretty paradoxical event. That's the lowest number of bidders in the last six signature events.
Notable Sales for Fractional Investors
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