UofMUSCLE.com – M.U.S.C.L.E. Figures from Mattel

The M.U.S.C.L.E. Nintendo Game
By Professor Terry

This week my thoughts are around the Nintendo game as I was asked to take some photos of M.U.S.C.L.E. Items I own. So I pulled out my boxed Nintendo game for the first time in years.

While I had it out and realized it’s complete right down to the foam insert to fill the box. The next thought process in my curiosity was “I wonder how much these go for on eBay these days?”

Upon checking it out, the last 2 sold went for $473 and $511. Both of those prices were higher then the last couple purple claws sold! I’m quite surprised at that. But what drives the price that high? On one hand I believe retro gaming collectors are seeking out games complete in box and that NES games must be harder to find now than in years past. Nintendo games do seem to sell for more than their SEGA counterparts.

The other group of potential bidders would be M.U.S.C.L.E. Collectors. Would a collector in this space pay that much for a CIB (complete in box) game? It’s not that rare is it? Maybe it is to Nintendo collectors because M.U.S.C.L.E. Collectors own the majority of them potentially.

What’s interesting is that the cartridge only is advertised for $12.99. So you can still play the game for a very cheap price.

Now being in Australia I cannot play this game on my NES as it’s region is NTSC and Australia runs PAL systems. So from a gaming standpoint I’m not interested in it. It’s been universally regarded as a pretty poor game by the M.U.S.C.L.E. Community anyway. It’s probably rated poorly by Nintendo collectors too. So the only reason I can think of for these prices is that 2 collecting groups have driven the price up. Rule of 2 applied to 2 groups rather than 2 people 🙂

Then there is also the lack of suspect authenticity of the Nintendo game in comparison to the purple claw which potentially limits the price of the claw.

But the fact that is sells for more than a purple claw shows a distinct trend starting in my opinion. Thoughts?