Nintendo Superfan Recreates Company's 19th Century Office To Store His Collection [Update]

Fabrice Heilig, a Nintendo collector from France, has been amassing stuff for so long that his house was running out of space to store it all. So he decided to expand, and when he did, he had one hell of an idea.

As this wonderful story on Before Mario explains, having built an enormous collection of Nintendo video games and merchandise, he has recently switched his attentions to the company’s playing cards, which for much of Nintendo’s early years was its bread and butter. Heilig initially planned to simply build an extra room on his house, but soon upgraded that to “rebuild the facade of Nintendo’s now-destroyed original office building from the 19th century”.

With the original Kyoto building having been demolished and turned into a parking lot in 2004, Heilig only had photos to go off, but was able to base his measurements on some surviving elements of the old office that were incorporated into the current Nintendo HQ.

The end result is an an incredibly faithful recreation, at least on the outside, though the interior—which will feature the card collection across its walls—has also been tastefully done to match the traditional Japanese style (and with its tatami mats also serve as a guest room).

You can read more about the process, and see loads of pics of the building, at Before Mario.

UPDATE May 2: Fabrice was kind enough to get in touch with us to let us know that the latest episode of Collector’s Quest is all about the inside of his recreation, showing off his enormous collection of Nintendo playing cards, some tasteful furniture and even recreations of the famous plaques found outside Nintendo’s old headquarters building.

You can watch the episode below, which is in French but with proper English subtitles so you can follow along.

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