A card from the Magic: The Gathering trading card game recently sold for an eye-popping $87,672 in an eBay auction, an overwhelming amount of money for a piece of cardboard.
Magic: The Gathering cards have different rarities and prices, ranging from cents to hundreds of dollars, and in certain cases, up to the thousands. Here's why that specific card reached nearly $100,000 on eBay.
Black Lotus From 'Magic: The Gathering' Sold For $87,672
A card named Black Lotus, from the very first Magic: The Gathering set released in 1993, was recently put up for auction on eBay. The bidding ended at a whopping $87,672, a crazy amount for a small piece of cardboard.
For those who are unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering and its history, the trading card game started with three sets that were printed in 1993: Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited. Alpha contained a total of 295 cards with black borders, Beta came with seven additional cards and some error fixes, and Unlimited was a reprint of Beta but with white borders. Black Lotus was included in each set, which were mostly sold in packs of 15 random cards.
Unlimited has a massive print run compared to Alpha and Beta, so Black Lotus cards from that expansion is more common. An Unlimited Black Lotus reaches prices of $8,000, which is still very expensive but nowhere near the ending price of the Alpha Black Lotus.
The Alpha Black Lotus, meanwhile, saw a very limited print run. Only 1,100 copies of each rare card in the Alpha set were printed, including Black Lotus. It is unknown how many of those Alpha Black Lotus cards have survived to this day, but it is very rare to see one of them being sold in the open market.
Making this particular Alpha Black Lotus even more rare is that it has been graded 9.5 Gem Mint by the Beckett collectible grading service. It would be difficult to find one of just over 1,000 cards released 25 years ago, but even more difficult, and perhaps nearly impossible, to find another one in top condition like the $87,672 card.
Will The Alpha Black Lotus See Play?
Black Lotus is not an expensive card just for its rarity, as it is also one of the most powerful cards ever printed for Magic: The Gathering. It is considered to be part of the Power 9, which is generally accepted by players as the nine most powerful cards in the game.
There is practically no chance that the $87,672 Alpha Black Lotus will ever see its true purpose of being played in a Magic: The Gathering game though. Aside from the fact that the card is legal only in Vintage, Magic: The Gathering's most limited and expensive format, players around the world will get a heart attack if they see the Alpha Black Lotus taken out of its hard case and being shuffled like a one-cent card.
