One Collector Puts $25,000 on Rare 1998 Pokémon Red Prototype

A development cartridge for the 1998 Game Boy release of Pokémon Red is currently listed for sale at Goldin Auction. As of October 23, 2026, a single bidder has placed a bid of $25,000 on the item.

Specialists at PSA authenticated the physical cartridge and read the first 32KB of its internal data. The company described this specific data segment as technically unique. Beyond that initial section, PSA states the game data is completely identical to the U.S. retail version. The authentication team expressed confidence that the remaining unreadable portions match the standard release.

The PSA report identified two specific differences in the ROM header data that do not impact gameplay. At offset 0x014C, the Mask ROM version is set to 55 instead of 00. This error changes the calculated header checksum at offset 0x014D, which reads CB rather than 20.

The cartridge bears a sticker with the label DMB-MBC-16M-FLASH and the part number DMG-(F)KGDB-01. Retro Dodo, which first identified the item, interpreted DMB as Dot Matrix Game, the internal codename for the Game Boy. The label suggests the device uses a 16-megabit flash memory chip. The physical unit is longer than a standard Game Boy cartridge.

The auction listing calls the board previously undocumented, although the part number has appeared in other records. The Rare Gaming Dump wiki lists the same part number for a 2000 development cartridge that used a similar 16-megabit Sharp flash chip. Close-up images from the Goldin listing show a design nearly identical to that wiki entry, though the stickers differ slightly.

Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue launched the global franchise in the 1990s. The combined U.S. versions of Red and Blue have sold more than 31 million copies. Several days remain before the current auction closes, allowing the final price to potentially rise above the current single bid.