After reading various news stories all over the web, I had the chance to speak with JJ Hendricks myself. In case you haven’t followed the story; JJ is now the proud owner of a $17,500 video game. After you hear his entire gut wrenching tale (Read it here) of the process involved in aquiring the game, you will understand the passion he holds for it.
The game in question is the Nintendo World Championships Gold (he also owns the Grey version). There were only 26 made back in 1990 and they were handed out to the winners and runners up of the Competition. The game holds just over six minutes of play and features three games. Let’s begin the interview.
- Thanks for joining me. Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into collecting?
- My name is JJ Hendricks. I’m 28 years old. I am not a very big game collector compared to many game collectors. I own a few of the really rare games but not that many of the regular games. I got into game collecting through game selling. I started JJGames.com when I was in college and started selling a bunch of out of print retro games. People kept asking for really hard to find games so I would look into them and talk with people on message boards about them.
- What was your first system? First game that got you hooked?
- My first game system was the Nintendo NES. I have many fond memories of the NES games like Contra, Punch-Out, A Boy and His Blob, etc. The first one that I vividly remember playing and who I was with and all the details around it was Super Mario Bros 3. One of my friends got it. I couldn’t get it myself but I remember playing that game every day at his house.
- What was your most valuable game before purchasing the Nintendo World Championships Gold Cartridge?
- Right before buying NWC Gold, I also bought the Nintendo World Championships Gray cartridge. I got a bunch of memorabilia from the event too, like a trophy from a winner, a t-shirt, a hat, the official guide, etc. That is the next most valuable game in my collection. After that is Starfox Super Weekend for SNES, which was a special game used by Nintendo for competitions at local Blockbuster stores.
- Out of the 26 made do you know how many are still around?
- I don’t know for sure, but I have talked with some people who are “NWC Experts”, one is writing a book about the event, and he says that there are 12 that are accounted for. I’m sure some of them have been destroyed at some point, but there are probably a few out there. It’s like the “Golden Ticket” in Willy Wonka. At some flea market or in some attic there is a Gold NWC cartridge waiting to be found.
- Do you collect anything else?
- I used to collect coins when I was a kid, but haven’t collected them since I was 10 or 12. Now video games are the only thing I collect, but I have fewer than 40 of them in my personal collection.
- You have a couple of cool websites, tell us about them?
- I own two video game websites. One is JJGames.com, which is a retailer of used video games. We focus on the retro stuff and sell everything from NES to Playstation 2. The other website is called VideoGamePriceCharts.com. That website is a partnership with my brother and it provides daily updated prices from across the internet for nearly 14,000 video games. It is a great source for video game collectors and game shoppers who want to know how much a game is worth.
Awesome, thank you so much JJ! Good luck with your collection.
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