A 1981 promotional poster for the original Donkey Kong, featuring the first public appearance of Mario, has become the the most expensive piece of original video game art ever sold at auction.
But this artwork nearly got thrown out in the garbage. According to Landry Pop Auctions, who facilitated the sale, a former Nintendo of America employee named Donna Darbous saved the poster from a collection of materials that were marked for disposal.
The poster was drawn by artist Leslie Cabarga as an arcade flyer for Nintendo of America, depicting Donkey Kong angrily hoisting a barrel over his head as a determined Mario — then simply named ‘Jumpman’ — makes his way up a building to save Pauline, who cowers in fear behind her hulking captor.
As told in a press release shared with IGN, this flyer has now sold for an eye-watering $329,400, making it the most expensive video game artwork ever sold at auction. That record was previously held by the original cover artwork for Prince of Persia, which sold at Heritage Auctions in 2023 for $63,000 — meaning the Donkey Kong poster blew it out of the water by a staggering $266,400.
The poster inspired a sale of other historic Nintendo artworks titled Landry Pop Auctions’ Jumpman: The Beginning of an Icon. This event included original production artwork from Super Mario Bros. and even some of the first illustrations of the game series’ iconic enemies.
For example, original artwork of Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Bros. sold for $17,080, which Landry Pop Auctions said was nearly three times its estimate of $6,000. Original artwork of a Goomba, an ever-recurring enemy in the Mario games, raked in $10,370, more than double its $5,000 estimate.
A first-production 1985 copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES , boasting an 8.0 grading from PSA, went for $34,160, while a curious piece of history, a Nintendo of America employee orientation VHS tape that featured Mario, was also sold in this auction for $3,660 against its $1,500 estimate.
“Long before Mario became the face of a multibillion-dollar entertainment franchise, he was a character on an arcade flyer. The $329,400 result is a striking reminder of how far Nintendo’s most famous plumber has come, and how valuable the surviving artwork from his earliest days has become,” Landry Pop Auctions said in a press release.
This is the latest game-related auction sale to raise eyebrows after a retired decorator in the UK sold their collection of Pokemon cards for $2 million earlier this month. And in June, a PSA-graded 9.6 A++ copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES was sold at auction for a record-breaking $3 million, becoming the most expensive video game in history.
Image Credits: Nintendo of America, Landry Pop Auctions
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.