When Nintendo and Game Freak launched Pokémon Red and Blue back in the 1990s, nobody could've guessed that these Game Boy games would go on to become very valuable collector's items.
The RPG games which introduced the world at large to the Pokémon franchise, Red and Blue (and Green and Yellow) kicked off a craze that is still going strong to this day. And your old copy of these games could be worth a lot these days.
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Keep reading to learn about a very big trade which went down recently, which proves just how valuable Pokémon Red has become...
The $20,000 Pokémon Red trade that will send you scrambling behind the sofa
As discussed in the YouTube video below, the worth of Pokémon Red has just been proven yet again, because a trade has gone down involving a sealed copy of Pokémon Red being swapped for a hyper-rare game called Nintendo World Championships.
Copies of the highly-limited edition Nintendo World Championships game have been known to sell for around $20,000 USD, which makes this trade particularly huge - and it goes to show how much people are willing to part with in exchange for a sealed Pokémon Red.
Although Pokémon Red is a beloved game with huge cultural significance, some people online are stunned to see a copy of Nintendo World Championships being given up for a sealed Pokémon Red.
After all, there are only a couple hundred copies of Nintendo World Championships in existence, whereas Pokémon Red was mass-produced in vast quantities. But hey, the heart wants what it wants.
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Who made this trade?
Portland game store owner Josh Hamblin is the man that traded his Pokémon Red for a copy of Nintendo World Championships, and you can see him looking quite happy about it in the Facebook post below.
What we don't know, however, is the identity of the other person in this trade - the one who gave away their ultra rare copy of Nintendo World Championships in order to receive Pokémon Red.
As to why this copy of Pokémon Red was deemed so valuable, Nintendo Power reports that Hamblin has described it as “the highest Red ever graded” because it had a “white ESRB seal 83% which is commonly accepted as the 1st print run.”
It's a long shot, then, but you could make a pretty penny - or trade your way to one of the rarest games of all time - if you have one of those down the back of the sofa!
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