In 2021, someone paid $2M for an unopened 'Super Mario Bros.'

'Super Mario Bros.' helped save the video game industry

A 1983 crash left the industry in tatters, desperate for a hit. Nintendo’s focus on a more immersive home experience was realized in “Super Mario Bros.,” bringing the industry from the arcade to the living room. The title eventually sold over 40 million units.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

'Super Mario Bros.' was released in 1985

The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. It’s seen as a landmark in the history of video games and minted the Mario character as a pop culture icon.

'Stadium Events' is one of the rarest Nintendo games

The game, in which players compete in Olympic-style events, is notoriously boring, but it's also incredibly rare, thanks to a branding change after the cartridge's initial run. That's made it one of the most sought-after video games, with buyers paying over $35K for it.

The game’s theme was the first video game composition added to the Library of Congress

Koji Kondo’s “Ground Theme,” the opening music for “Super Mario Bros.” was added to the National Recording Registry in 2023. “Having this music preserved alongside so many other classic songs is such a great honor,” Kondo said. “It's actually a little bit difficult to believe.”

Thousands of Atari cartridges were once buried in a New Mexico landfill

A waste management specialist unearthed a legendary cache of unsold games decades after they were buried, transforming one of gaming history's most famous disposal stories into an unexpected and lucrative salvage operation.

The levels for 'Super Mario Bros.' were designed by hand

Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.

A unique art piece became the most expensive NFT when it sold for $92M

Non-fungible tokens sold for millions of dollars during their popularity peak from 2021 to 2022, with the top ten most expensive NFTs all costing upwards of $7M.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

One of Apple's first computers sold for $375K at an auction

An operational Apple I, the first model of personal computer made by Apple, sold for $375K at an auction. The machine was first sold in 1976 and has a handwritten serial number by Steve Jobs himself. The auction, provided rare insight into the beginnings of the influential tech company.

A 30-second Super Bowl 2026 ad is expected to cost $8M

By 2026, a single 30-second Super Bowl ad is projected to cost $8M. Advertisements for Super Bowl I in 1967 cost from $37,500 to $42,500 for a 30-second spot.

The mushrooms in 'Super Mario Bros.' are modeled after a real mushroom

Almost every mushroom in "Super Mario Bros." is based on the Amanita muscaria, sometimes referred to as the fly agaric, because it is known to attract flies. It's also the basis for the original mushroom emoji and the mushrooms from the popular game "Minecraft."

Two Papa John’s pizzas were the first real-world transaction involving cryptocurrency

In 2010, a programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made the first real-world transaction involving cryptocurrency—purchasing two Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. While the transaction was lauded as a milestone for cryptocurrency, it has also become a tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale—the value of the purchase price exceeded $620M at bitcoin’s all-time high.

In 2023, a Dalí painting was purchased from a house clearing sale for $200

"Vecchio Sultano," a 1966 work by Salvador Dalí, was sold in a house clearance sale in the UK in 2023.

Superman first appeared in 1938

The Man of Steel debuted in the first issue of "Action Comics." The original cover price was 10 cents. In 2024, a copy of the comic sold at auction for $6M.

Rockwell's 'Saying Grace' sold for $46M in 2013

The 1951 painting is classic Rockwell: an image designed for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post featuring a humble American family engaging in a traditional value. To date, it's the highest-grossing work in Rockwell's catalog. Its buyer? "Star Wars" director George Lucas.

The ‘Harry Potter’ franchise is valued at more than $32B

Combining book sales, films, theme parks, and merchandise, Harry Potter ranks among the world’s highest-grossing media franchises—estimated at more than $32B in total value, alongside giants like Star Wars and Marvel.

View the most expensive materials on Earth, led by those forged in particle accelerators

Californium-252—valued at $27.8M per gram, as of 2025—is far rarer and more valuable than gold, silver, or diamonds due to production and transportation costs. The most expensive substance ever found or created is antimatter, costing approximately $62.5T per gram.

Investors are buying up land in the Metaverse

Real-estate transactions in the metaverse are reaching record highs. Digital real estate investors share how and why they're spending millions on virtual property.

Explore the cost of major viruses and other malware incidents through 2017

The first significant malware was the Morris worm in 1988, which caused an estimated $10,000 to $10M in damage to computers. With $38B in damage caused, Mydoom is the most costly piece of malware in history. Spread via email and, at one point, accounting for about 25% of all messages sent worldwide, the malware infected computers to create a botnet that launched cyberattacks.

How literary agent Scott Meredith invented the modern book auction

Prior to the 1964 auction of "The Night Action" for $13,500 to New American Library, a gentleman's code persisted in the literary world: no manuscript should be shared with more than one publisher at a time. Meredith—the agent behind Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke—leveraged his deep knowledge of the talent pool to publishers, sending around manuscripts to 19 different publishers to generate a bidding war. The Beat-influenced novel eventually flopped and is now out of print.

Two men dressed as cops stole artwork from a Boston museum valued at over $500M at the time

On March 18, 1990, the thieves entered Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum pretending to be police officers responding to a disturbance. After overpowering and handcuffing the guards on duty, they stole 13 precious items, including works by Rembrandt and Manet. The theft is the largest art heist in US history. The pieces are still missing, and the museum is offering a $10M reward to anyone who provides valuable information about their location.

A Y2K glitch billed one VHS renter $91,000 for a movie

At a video store in upstate New York, a date rollover error marked a customer’s 1999 rental as 100 years overdue, resulting in a $91,250 bill. The store quickly fixed the bug and gave him a free rental as consolation.

America's most misunderstood dollar

The $2 bill isn't rare; it's just hiding. First printed in 1862, stopped in 1966, and revived in 1976, there are still 1.6 billion in circulation. People just don't spend them.

Pop Mart is the company behind the viral Labubu toy craze

Labubus, the Chinese collectible toys, are being heralded as the next Beanie Babies. Pop Mart, the company behind the Labubus, is using a few psychological tools to keep the Labubu economy booming.

In 2008, the 'Big Short' mastermind Michael Burry made more than $700M

Before the 2008 housing crisis, Burry used credit default swaps to bet against subprime mortgage-backed securities that fueled the 2008 housing crisis. His firm made more than $700M for its investors, and Burry made more than $100M in personal profits.

The 'playing card' and 'blueberry' taxes are among the strangest around the world

In Canada, companies making children’s breakfast cereals are granted a tax exemption if their cereal boxes contain free toys. While the exemption is limited to toys that are not “beer, liquor, or wine,” the cereal tax is far from the world's most eccentric tax.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The USPS spent $3.97B in 2024, accounting for .058% of the federal budget.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Experimental hantavirus vaccines and therapies, still under development, have long been funded by the US military.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'