Natsume is minting it by sealing dusty old SNES games on eBay

Somebody paid $1,691.66 for a mint copy of Pocky & Rocky on eBay, sold not by a patient collector, but by the original publisher.

Natsume is making fat stacks of cash auctioning off rare, mint condition SNES games on eBay.

In a chat with Tiny Cartridge, community manage Cee Cee said the publisher first started selling on eBay because the storefront offers the flexibility Natsume requires to give its fans the exact bundles they want.

At some point, somebody thought about using it to clear out the huge stacks of games and merch that litter any publisher's offices.

"We’ve kept copies around of games for a variety of reasons. Review copies before digital distribution was a thing, warranty needs, etc," Cee Cee explained.

"Over time, these copies slowly added up until we had a fairly extensive collection of classic titles, just not in large numbers for any singular game.”

And that's why you can go onto Natsume's eBay Store and pick up complete, factory sealed copies of, for example, Lufia 2 Rise of the Sinstrels. You'll want to know your budget fist, though; mint SNES cartridges are rare enough that collectors will sometimes pay thousands of dollars for them.

Visit Tiny Cartridge for more details of this cunning plan, plus a sneak peak behind the scenes at what might be hitting the store in the near future.

Natsume isn't the only games company to take advantage of eBay's flexibility. Nintendo uses its storefront to sell refurbished hardware as well as brand new items.