Retro a late localization build of The Legend of Zelda, most notable for being sold on eBay way back in 2012, has finally been dumped.

[Krvavi Abadas]

Hello and thank you for viewing this one of a kind item. This is not a joke, I take listing this item very seriously. This is THE single most impressive item in video game collecting in my humble opinion. I do not take listing this item lightly as it truly is a piece of gaming history. What you are looking at is a Prototype for Nintendo's Flagship title The Legend of Zelda.

The simple label reads "HP NOA 2-23-87 Legend of Zelda." The actual release of the game was August 22nd 1987.
This is without a doubt the pinnacle of my collection and I challenge anyone to come up with anything more important in the video game collecting scene. Stadium Events? How many carts are out there? Hundreds. NWC Gold Cart? Again how many? There is one Prototype in the world for the NES Zelda, one prototype that started the launch of a generation of gamers and you are viewing it.

(the original eBay listing)

the fact it was being sold on eBay lead to the cart getting a ton of attention on gaming sites back then, though the description suggests it previously had a noted history of moving from collector to collector.
it ended up selling for $55,000, which was considered a ridiculously high price for the time. but since the anonymous buyer never dumped it, it quickly faded into obscurity, particularly once people realized that a much older build of the FDS original had already been recovered two years prior.

the cart continued to shuffle around for years, until it finally ended up in the hands of one Frank Cifaldi. who became the first person to actually share the data included on it.
of course, the dates (and the fact it was made months after the game launched in Japan) make it clear that this build only has a few minor differences compared to the final English release. such as slight changes to the opening crawl...

(proto on left, final on right.)​

and a few minor bugs that were fixed. but it's clear the history behind the cart is what makes it truly special!