Sources: eBay, Gamesniped.com, Nintendo Age forums, Craigslist

The following video-game-related items are so rare, you probably haven't heard of any of them. They are all real, there is only a handful in the world of each, and you can NEVER HAVE THEM, because of the wallet-stopping combination of being both expensive AND totally useless. You can look, though. But you can't ever touch. Especially the grenade.

NINTENDO "RED TENT" SIT-DOWN ARCADE UNIT

You may know of the PlayChoice 10, an upright arcade cabinet that contained ten NES games that played for a limited amount of quarter time...but have you ever heard of this thing?

It contains eight games, but they are on motherboards, not cartridges....so you can't swap them out

eBay Price: $500


SEALED "STADIUM EVENTS"

Ever since it made national news when a woman sold her sealed Stadium Events copy and was surprised to get over 20 grand, more copies of the rare game have been popping up. Typically they make $25,000 or more instantly, whether they're real or not

This guy is pushing his luck, though

eBay Price: $500,000

OCARINA OF TIME 3D SCROLL

A Nintendo of Australia exclusive. Three different scrolls were created, and only 26 of each scroll were produced. In order to win one, you had to write an essay on how you were the biggest Zelda fan

How much would it cost to unite them all? There's a quest

eBay Price: $481.86

MAJORA'S MASK LIMITED EDITION ADVENTURE SET

Nintendo of Australia produced only 1000 boxes of this super deluxe MM release

Inside: a boxed Aussie copy of the game, a soundtrack CD, a T-shirt, a watch, two pins and even a Certificate of Authenticity

This one was #0982

eBay Price: $4,512.65

VIRTUAL BOY SUNGLASSES

Looking for the perfect status symbol? You've found it

eBay Price: $99.93

JOHNNY CAGE SUNGLASSES

A promotional item for video rental stores stocking Mortal Kombat: The Movie. The very style Johnny Cage wears in the film!

The seller threatened to throw it out if it didn't sell this time (evidently it had been on the block before). Someone finally showed pity

eBay Price: $3.49

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV HAND GRENADE

Sent to members of the press in 2008 heralding the arrival of the game

It's a real grenade, just deactivated. But maybe you can reactivate it

eBay Price: $265.00

LEGEND OF ZELDA GAMECUBE CONTROLLER

The Legend of Zelda Gamecube Controller would have been released by Nuby on the occasion of Twilight Princess, in this special box

Never made it past prototype stage. Only two exist in the whole world

eBay Price: $2,500.00

"THAYER'S QUEST" ARCADE LASERDISC

Just the laserdisc? Not the whole machine? Would that play in a regular laserdisc player?

Turns out it works. I wonder if you can do this with Dragon's Lair

eBay Price: $129.99

FIBER-OPTIC "GAME BOY" SIGN

You could paint glow-in-the-dark constellations on your wall....or you could do something far more classy

eBay Price: $999

SUPER-AUTOGRAPHED XBOX 360

Signed by all the members of the Foo Fighters, plus Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, Diana Krall, Duane Eddie, Sergio Mendes, Katy Perry, James Taylor, and Neil Young.......but no Jane Lynch

Whose scrawl is whose? Good luck with that puzzle

eBay Price: $860.00

EARTHBOUND STORE POSTER

Seriously? The game itself sells for much less than this

eBay Price: $2,499.00

CHRONO TRIGGER STORE POSTER

Some posters cost even more than that. This was the most expensive of the lot

eBay Price: $3,499.00

WILD GUNS

You should have no problem finding the US version of this Super Scope shooter. In Europe, it's another matter

eBay Price: $394.91

DREAMCAST GD-R

AHA! Remember all the way back in Volume One when a burner for the Dreamcast's disc format was sold? We've finally found a disc to use in it! Somebody find that guy and tell him!

At over sixty bucks a disc, I hope he doesn't need another

eBay Price: $65.60

PHILLIPS IN2IT KIDCOM

One of the rarest handhelds ever made; in 1996 under a hundred were produced and tested in Finland

The handheld was aimed at girls and had a touchscreen, a calculator, an alarm clock, and drawing and music programs

Not too exciting, huh? That's what they thought

eBay Price: $399.00

MINI RACERS

The prototype for a long-delayed and eventually-shelved N64 game

It's not like there was a dearth of racers on the system....there was even a "Micro Machines" game very similar to this

The back of the cartridge is the most interesting part

eBay Price: $2,938.00

"DS DOWNLOAD STATION" CARDS

Guess what? The things you download from specially marked "DS Download Stations" don't come from a special wi-fi transmitter. They come from another DS

Expect these cards to become the hottest items in 10 years when the nostalgic DS Collectors are roaming the Earth

eBay Price: $200

VGA-SEALED NINTENDO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS GOLD CART....in pieces.....

This guy had it in his head that if he unscrewed the cart and laminated both halves of its casing and the EPROM board separately, it would be better preserved. This is only theory, not science

What I can tell you is that this sale is a good thing, because THE WRONG PERSON OWNS THIS

eBay Price: $77,000.00

UNOPENED SHIPMENT OF LUNAR 2: ETERNAL BLUE COPIES

There are twelve pristine Lunar 2s in each box (two were available). Or a box full of weights equivalent to twelve Lunar 2s

From the same account: sealed boxes of Lunar 1s, Persona 3s, Persona 4s, SMT Nocturnes, Odin Spheres, Shadow Heartses, Dirge of Cereberuseses, and Dragon Quest 8s. I would have grabbed screens but....they're all cardboard boxes, people

eBay Price: $20,018.01

"RATCHET AND CLANK: GOING COMMANDO" BOXER SHORTS

Talk about a paradox

eBay Price: $124.52

"TIME OUT" VERSION OF FLAGMAN

Before Nintendo had enough confidence to start releasing Game and Watch devices in the US, they temporarily licensed out four of their earliest games to the toy company Mego, who relabeled them under their own brand "Time Out." These versions of the games are rarer than the G&W ones

eBay Price: $201.00

"THE FLINTSTONES: SURPRISE AT DINOSAUR PEAK" COMPLETE

You'd never know just by looking at it, but next to Stadium Events, this is the second-rarest NES cartridge that was available for commercial use. It was only available as a Blockbuster rental at the tail end of the NES's lifespan

eBay Price: $1,324.99

GAME GENIE ADAPTOR FOR TOP-LOADING NES MODEL

Because the 1993 model of the NES had a slightly smaller cartridge hole, people had a hard time sticking the Game Genie into it. Anyone who wrote Galoob to complain was sent back a special adaptor to make the task easier

They were only given to those who asked, and nobody knew they could ask. It all equals RARE

eBay Price: $255.00

NINTENDO 1995 PRESS SOURCE BOOK BINDER

The pages inside are missing, sadly, but it's not a total loss. The binder cover contains the only official glimpse of the planned Kirby spinoff character....KID KIRBY!

eBay Price: $57.15

TMNT GAME AND POSTER, BOTH SIGNED BY KEVIN EASTMAN

I'm a little bit miffed at Eastman right now for being the silent one in the room when Michael Bay said "Let's make them aliens." I'm not paying for his autograph anymore

eBay Price: $249.99

METAL GEAR SOLID 2 SHAREHOLDER EDITION

Shareholder Edition? That's right, Konami printed up a completely different label just to give to their rich friends, each one personally signed by Hideo Kojima

"Sorry about the lousy game. Will a free copy placate your nerves?"

eBay Price: $212.71

NINTENDO M8 DISPLAY UNIT

Push the small red button to cycle through 16 of Nintendo's earliest home console games. Pat the NES Punk will show you how it works

This is the first of two models Nintendo used to promote the NES. The second will show up eventually

eBay Price: $3,299.99

SEGA GENESIS DS-16 DISPLAY UNIT

Sega's demo machine was a little different. You needed a Genesis to run it and it fit inside a large kiosk seen in an earlier chapter

It had to be plugged in twice -- once through the Sega CD port and again via the attached cartridge. The store had to supply the six games

The customer would hit a large button to cycle through them, which is missing here

eBay Price: $199.99

INSTANT SUPERCOLLECTOR IN TEN SECONDS KIT

Mint copies of nearly every game prized by any serious game librarian are included in this collection

But you know the one thing he doesn't have? Gitaroo Man. The set is worthless

eBay Price: $35,000.00

"FAT GUY GOES NUTZOID" ON VHS

eBay Price: $15

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