VINTAGE video games, rare consoles, comics and Pokémon cards are going under the hammer with Lichfield’s auctioneer.
The Lichfield Auction Centre in Fradley Park has been filled with the beeps and burps of 8 and 16 bit game music as cataloguers relived their youth.
Online now with Richard Winterton Auctioneers until Monday, May 30, the timed sale is ‘hugely evocative’ for gamers.
Three sealed Super Nintendo SNES games from the mid-1990s, all from a single owner collection, are tipped to sell for hundreds of pounds each.
1994’s Super Metroid is estimated to make £600-£800; Donkey Kong Country 2 from 1995 is estimated at £400-£500; and Terranigma, also from 1995, is estimated to fetch £600-£800.
“SNES is when video gaming really became a global phenomenon,” said a spokesperson for Richard Winterton Auctioneers.
“The RPG (role-playing game) Terranigma only ever came out in Japan and Europe so that makes it slightly more unusual and, of course, rarer.
“The whole gaming section of the sale is really representative of the formative years and development of video games and hugely evocative – especially for Generation X and Millennials.”
Game Boy RPG Knight Quest
The start of the video game revolution is represented by two rare games for the Atari 2600/VCS games console dating back to 1983, Boing! and Espial.
And the sale also features a HALO 3 Legendary Edition from 2007 including Master Chief’s spartan helmet, consigned by a Lichfield collector, expected to sell at £300-£400.
The first generations of consoles are represented by an Adman Grandstand TV game 3000, a ZX Spectrum 16k, a boxed Amiga 1200, a SEGA Master System, Sony PlayStation versions 1, 2 and 3 and a PlayStation portable, an XBOX 360, a Nintendo Wii, N64, SNES and a Game Boy Colour.
“Boxed Amiga games include Monkey Island 2 and Double Dragon and there are a number of vintage Game Boy items,” added the spokesperson.
“Game Boy games are not usually boxed or even in good condition as they tended to be used on the playground and were often damaged in schoolbags or lost altogether.”
The sale includes a rare RPG Knight Quest, boxed, estimated to fetch £600 to £800; Donkey Kong Land, sealed, estimated at £400-£500; Wario Land II, sealed, guided £200-£300 and Bart & The Beanstalk, boxed, estimated at £300-£400.
There is also a Pokémon Crystal from Game Boy Colour.
Pokémon trading cards in the auction include a Complete Base Set – valued at £300-£400 – a Jungle Set and a Fossil Set.
Vintage comics range from original X-Men editions including multiple first appearances by Apocalypse, Kitty Pride and Emma Frost to Spiderman, including The Green Goblin’s last stand, and Avengers comics including first appearances by Falcon and Rogue.
Super Metroid, 1994
The auction also features high end audio equipment such as a Garrard 301 turntable with Goldring Lenco tone arm – which is expected to sell for around £1,000 – and Quad amplifiers and speakers, set to fetch many hundreds of pounds.
The final lot is a Rock-Ola ST39 jukebox dating back to 1939 which plays 78rpm records and is valued at £800 to £1,200.
