This One-of-a-Kind ‘Lord of the Rings’ Trading Card Could Be Worth $2 Million
The Lord of the Rings film series has been quite lucrative. But a single trading card related to the franchise is also garnering some serious cash.
An exclusive “One Ring” card for the tabletop game “Magic: The Gathering” is fetching offers of more than $2 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. If it ends up selling for that much, it would become the most expensive “Magic” card ever sold.
That eye-popping price is due to the rarity of the card: Only one is being made, and there’s a less than 0.0003 percent chance of finding it in the brand’s new card set, Hasbro told the WSJ. But the $2 million is worth it to some, including Francisco Rubio, the owner of the card shop Gremio de Dragones in Valencia, Spain. He’s offering 2 million euros ($2.2 million) for the card, along with a trip to Valencia and paella from a local restaurant.
“This will be the most exclusive card for ‘Magic,’” Rubio told The Wall Street Journal. “We would love to have it, and we are making a big effort to try to get it.”
Click here to read the full article.
Rubio’s bounty doubled an earlier offer of $1 million from Dave & Adam’s Card World, a store near Buffalo, N.Y. Other interested parties have also made bids along the way, but none yet tops Rubio’s. Adam Martin, the owner of Dave & Adam’s, told the newspaper that at one point he may have tried to best Rubio, but the “kinder, much gentler” version of himself may just let Rubio claim the card if someone comes across it and is willing to sell.
While the rarity of the card is likely one of the main reasons for collector’s mad dash, it also plays into the larger cultural phenomenon surrounding The Lord of the Rings. You don’t necessarily have to be a big fan of “Magic” to be interested in the card, collectors told The Wall Street Journal. (But there are a good deal of “Magic” enthusiasts out there; the game brought in $1 billion for Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast division last year.)
Plus, one-of-one cards aren’t as common in games as they are with sports cards, driving up the novelty of the “One Ring” edition. But that may change, the collectibles expert Eric Whiteback told the WSJ. “The sort of fear that I would have if I was buying this card at $2 million is that this is going to become commonplace,” he said.
Rubio and the other bidders, though, seem to think any potential risk is worth it.
