Donkey Kong Arcade Flyer Art Sells for US$329,400 at Landry Pop Auction
A 1981 Donkey Kong arcade flyer original sold for US$329,400 at a Landry Pop Auctions sale, far above its pre-sale estimate of US$100,000 to US$150,000.
The artwork is by Leslie Cabarga and is executed in ink and acrylic. Nintendo commissioned it for Donkey Kong promotional material, and the flyer art was used as the basis for posters distributed across the country. The original is preserved in its painted form. Landry Pop Auctions lists it as lot 102 in the auction, titled "Jumpman: The Beginning of an Icon, Important Original Art and Artifacts from Nintendo History."
The auction total was US$471,683. Landry Pop reported that every lot sold and that the sale reached 231% by value. The lot ships from Millville, Massachusetts.
The story of how the art survived starts decades earlier. Donna Darbous worked as an advertising executive at Nintendo of America. During a late-1980s office expansion, she noticed original illustrations among materials being thrown away. With her supervisor's permission, she rescued several pieces.
Her work at the company covered advertising, sales collateral and packaging for the US launches of Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Tetris, the NES, the Super NES and the Game Boy. She kept the salvaged art in the flat drawers of a coffee table, next to prewar lithographs she had collected on trips to the Czech Republic.
Nearly four decades later, while sorting through her belongings, she found the Nintendo works again. She contacted Travis Landry, the founder of Landry Pop Auctions, because she believed the material was too historically significant to stay out of view.
Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first successful arcade game. In it, a character called the Plumber jumps to dodge obstacles, and the game's early advertising reached players through posters like the one this original was used to make. The New York Times reported on the rediscovery earlier this month.
For anyone who grew up with arcade cabinets, the flyer is a direct link to how those games were first sold. For collectors, the sale shows how far original game promotional art has travelled from the rubbish bin. The buyer's identity has not been named in the auction listing.
