It's not too uncommon these days for people to happen upon extremely rare games and gaming paraphilia, which at one point, would have just been another item for sale, but these days are worth a ton of money. Recently, a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES was sold at auction for a staggering $870,000. Now, perhaps hoping to beat that record, someone has put a potentially valuable Nintendo e-Reader card up for sale on eBay.
This rare Nintendo item in question comes from the 2002 E3 convention. It represents a first place card containing Kirby on the front that's compatible with the now-defunct e-Reader machine. Essentially, these prize cards were handed out at E3 in order to promote its, then, new device. While the winning cards were supposed to have been destroyed, it seems as though one slipped through the cracks and has ended up on the site where it's currently sitting pretty at $6,500 as of this article going live.
For those who don't know, or don't remember, the e-Reader was an attached for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, a hand-held console that was released in 2001 and was a successor to the Game Boy Color, which in itself was a reiteration of the hugely influential Game Boy from 1989. The e-Reader contained a scanner, and was attached to the GBA console itself. Cards could be bought which contained data on them. When swiped, they could unlock additional content for a game, such as secret items.
With 25 bids on eBay, which recently decided to ban the sale of adult games on its auction site, some caution is recommended as the Kirby card has not yet been officially verified. However, the user selling the item has posted both a photo showing the congratulatory message on the GBA screen, as well as a video which shows them actually swiping the card into the reader. In the short clip, swiping the card does indeed reveal the message that they are a winner, complete with a fanfare-esque winning music, which does suggest this could be the genuine thing.
As the Nintendo e-Reader only lasted a few years, being discontinued in 2004 in the US and in 2008 in Japan, and the prize card was handed out at an event which, at the time, was fairly exclusive, the seller could be onto something that is a one of a kind. Much like the rare N64 development kit that was discovered recently, this e-Reader card shows that there are just so many Nintendo devices and add-ons out there that have only increased in value over the years.
Source: eBay