Enormous video game collection reaches $50,000 bid in ongoing online auction

When the story broke last night, the Internet was only beginning to become aware of the phenomenon of Michael Thomasson’s video games collection. Consisting of over 11,000 (!) individual items, with over a fourth of them still in brand-new unopened condition, it was certified in 2011 by Guinness World Records as being the largest such collection on the planet, though others have challenged it in recent years.

In fact, when the news was first being reported, the bidding at the Game Gavel auction page had only reached $2,200. This is, of course, a paltry sum for such a set, representing a value of about twenty cents per game. Some outlets have published an estimate of “between $700,000 and $800,000” for the total worth of the sum.

At press time, however, the bidding had certainly increased significantly, standing at a cool $50,000. But it is worth noting that the reserve has still not yet been met, and the hunt is still wide open for the eventual recipient of this unique opportunity. The bidding war will end Sunday night, June 16th, and surely there are a few serious collectors out there sizing up their reserves for a potential strike.

Game Gavel has handled high-profile gaming auctions before, as they seek to become the specialty house of choice for such matters. They handled the $33,000 sale in 2012 of a box set for Air Raid, an Atari 2600 title, which made it the highest-selling price ever for a commercially available video game.

It is mind-boggling, then, to realize that $33,000 for this particular set would result in a relative bargain of about $3.00 per game. Who knows how high the auction will end up? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.