[haggy]

> A high rating is not enough to guarantee a high auction price - although it helps. Another copy of Super Mario 64 in the same auction with a 9.6 A++ rating sold for a comparatively affordable $13,200

This seems to reinforce some kind of laundering/tax evasion scenario. There is little logical reason for one cartridge to go for $13K and another to go for $1.5mm when both are certified excellent condition. It appears that the one going for far more is a product of timing. Someone needed to move a large chunk of money quickly and decided on the Mario cartridge.

[cinntaile]

If the normal buyers are only willing to pay $13k I don't see how it makes sense to pay $1.5 million to launder money. That's a big loss you'll have to take.

[rightbyte]

The seller is a co-conspirator? The loss is only the auction house fee in that case.

[cinntaile]

But if you use dirty money to buy a good, it doesn't magically turn into clean money. A possible scenario could be where the buyer has clean money and wants to pay the seller for services by bidding way too much for a rare game. It doesn't make too much sense though because now your transaction is under scrutiny by the entire world?

[MiddleEndian]

Hiding in plain sight! The perfect plan!

[herbst]

Not when you have bazillions of ways to do that without being in plain sight. NFTs seem to better fit this need, and even then I don't get why people always assume it has to do with black money

[ipaddr]

That's hundreds of thousands of dollar to pay in fees.