Goldin Auction Features $25,000 Bid for Early Pokemon Red Cartridge

A single bidder placed a $25,000 offer on a prototype Pokemon Red cartridge listed at the Goldin auction house.

The item is a development version of the Nintendo Game Boy game from 1998. Retro Dodo first identified the listing and described the hardware as incredibly rare. As of October 23, 2026, the auction remains open with that one standing bid.

Specialists at Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) verified the cartridge for the sale. They could not read the entire data file, but they successfully accessed the first 32KB of the contents. PSA labeled this partial result technically unique. The firm stated that the readable game data is completely identical to the U.S. retail version. They expressed confidence that the unreadable portion matches as well.

The authentication report notes two specific differences in the ROM header. One change occurs at offset 0x014C, which indicates the Mask ROM version. The value is set to 55 instead of the standard 00. This error changes a calculated checksum at offset 0x014D, which reads CB rather than 20. Neither difference affects how the game plays.

The physical cartridge bears a sticker with the code DMB-MBC-16M-FLASH. The part number is DMG-(F)KGDB-01. PSA interprets DMB as Dot Matrix Game, the original internal codename for the Game Boy. MBC likely stands for Memory Bank Controller. This chip allowed games to exceed the console's standard 32KB limit. The 16M designation probably refers to 16 megabits of flash-writable memory. The device is physically longer than a standard retail cartridge.

Goldin describes the board as previously undocumented. However, the Rare Gaming Dump wiki lists the same part number for a 2000 development cartridge. That earlier item used a similar 16-megabit Sharp flash chip. Close-up photos in the current listing show a design nearly identical to the wiki entry, though the sticker text differs slightly. Pokemon Red launched the franchise in the 1990s. Combined sales for Red and Blue versions exceed 31 million copies.

The auction will close in several days. The current bidder may win the piece, though the price could rise before bidding ends. A reader comment suggested the cartridge might be a master copy from a 2015 batch sold by a Nintendo employee. Those details remain unverified.