$100K Mario seller: “It’s probably the wrong move, long term, to sell”

Enlarge / Ba-ding! (credit: Aurich)
Last week, a copy of the first printing of Super Mario Bros. in pristine condition sold for just over $100,000. This week, the collector who sold that gem told Ars that he's been preparing for this moment for years.
The seller—who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy but goes by the handle Bronty online—told Ars he didn't even have an NES growing up. He just played games like Super Mario Bros. at a friend's house. But around 2002, at age 27, Bronty was gripped by a desire to once again play the NES games he hadn't thought about for well over a decade.
A quick trip to eBay got him his nostalgic gaming fix and sparked an interest in a new hobby that fewer people were paying attention to at the time. 'Having already been a comic collector for many years, I had an interest in collecting in general,' Bronty told Ars. 'I started thinking, 'Would this be an interesting thing to collect?''
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