The original 1981 Donkey Kong flyer art sold for $329,400, more than double its high estimate
The original art for Nintendo's 1981 North American Donkey Kong arcade flyer sold for $329,400 at Landry Pop Auctions on October 28, per CollectiblesNews.com (October 29). The estimate was $100,000 to $150,000, so the price came in at more than twice the top of the range.
The piece is by illustrator Leslie Cabarga. It shows Donkey Kong, Pauline and the hero then called Jumpman, who became Mario. Landry Pop describes it as the first public appearance of the character. It measures about 19 7/8 by 16 3/8 inches and was made in acrylic on acetate over ink and airbrush on board. Nintendo commissioned it in 1981 through the agency Dentsu, according to the auction house, and Cabarga's versions of the three characters later went on the front of Ralston Purina's Donkey Kong cereal box.
Where it came from
The art came from Donna Darbous, a former Nintendo of America advertising executive. Landry Pop says she spotted original Nintendo illustrations among materials being thrown out during an office expansion in the late 1980s and, with her supervisor's permission, kept several pieces. They sat for decades in the flat drawers of a coffee table, alongside prewar lithographs she had collected in the Czech Republic.
Two other pieces from the same archive sold in the sale:
- Original Mario and Luigi production art from around the 1985 release of Super Mario Bros. made $17,080, against an estimate of $4,000 to $6,000.
- Promotional art for Nintendo's 1982 Mickey & Donald Game & Watch made $10,980.
CollectiblesNews doesn't say whether the prices include buyer's premium, so we list them as reported.
Why it matters for the market
Video game art is being priced like the games themselves. The graded game market has spent five years setting records for sealed cartridges. This sale puts a price on the art that sold those games to arcade owners. It is a one-of-one, so there is no comp ladder behind it and no second copy to test the number against. The useful read is the gap to the estimate: the auction house's own expectation topped out at $150,000, and the bidding took it past twice that.
Provenance did a lot of the work. The story is clean and easy to tell: commissioned by Nintendo, saved from the trash by a Nintendo employee, held by her ever since. For a single piece of art with no grading company and no population report, a documented chain from the company to the consignor stands in for a slab label.
The rest of the archive sold above estimate too. The Mario and Luigi art made nearly three times its high estimate. That suggests the demand wasn't only for one famous image; buyers paid up for early Nintendo production art in general.
What it doesn't tell you. One result at one house is not a trend, and the market for original Nintendo art is thin. Few pieces from this era survive outside Nintendo's own archive, and they come up rarely. The next sale of comparable early Nintendo art will show whether $329,400 was a high-water mark or a new level.
What to watch next
- Further pieces from the Darbous archive, if Landry Pop offers more.
- Heritage's Video Games Signature Auction #7455 in Dallas on November 20–21, where graded and sealed games sell alongside any promotional material in the sale.
- Grand Theft Auto VI's release on November 19, the biggest game launch of the year and a test of how much attention a new release pulls toward older games.
Figures are as reported by the source below on the date shown. This is market data and commentary, not investment advice.