"I kept picturing us stranded on the side of the road with a $100k collectible game": Holy grail Castlevania buyer outlines his daring reverse heist to get the game home
Apr. 23, 2024“The less attention you bring the better”
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Earlier this month, a$90,000 eBay sale of a rare version of the original NES Castlevania made headlines, but for the game’s buyer, the real adventure was getting the game back home.
Collector Tom Curtin, who now co-owns the rare Castlevania alongside a childhood friend, tellsKotakuthat he flew to Texas to pick up the game, took it to Florida to get it properly graded, and then flew it back home to deposit it in a New England bank vault. “Our adventure to pick it up will be something I look back on forever,” Curtain says.
“Our journey included us returning an electric vehicle with one mile of range left,” Curtin explains, “running through the airport, literally, and getting in the boarding area as they announced doors were closing is pretty funny considering the cargo. We took four flights in three days. I kept picturing us being stranded on the side of the road with a $100k collectible game on us.”
Curtin says that he has collector friends who “literally, just like Mission Impossible, have the Pelican case with the handcuffs.” but he believes “the less attention you bring the better.” That’s why he simply stuck the game in a backpack - with an acrylic case and a sweatshirt providing a little extra protection - to get it through airport security.
Now that it’s been graded, some observers believe that this game might be worth far more than double that $90k price tag, but for now, Curtin has no plans to sell. “I fully realize that this may just be something that I enjoy for a limited period of time, and then there comes a time when I have to sell it and move on,” Curtin says. “But the collector side of me, it being my true Grail, it would be tough to do that.”
Young gamer lists rare copy of NES Zelda hoping for “something like $15,000 or $20,000,” sells it at auction for $288,000 after scrupulous eBay users informed him “what I had.”
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