With a Black Lotus sold at $500k, Magic: The Gathering hits a new level

An image of the Black Lotus card from Magic: The Gathering — (Image credit: PWCC via YouTube)

An alpha Black Lotus, the most infamous Magic: The Gathering card ever produced, was sold at auction on eBay for $511,100. Organized by trading card investment firm PWCC, it's the first single Magic CCG card to sell for over half a million dollars at open auction. Other collectible card game cards may have sold for more, usually unique single-printing cards, but if they did there's no public record of it. Past Alpha Black Lotus cards have gone for as much as $250k.

To top it off, the case is signed by now-deceased Magic artist Christopher Rush, who painted the art for the card. Rush's artwork set the tone for not just the first Magic set, but for the series as a whole. He died in 2016.

The Alpha series of Magic cards are the very first set ever printed, in 1993. It's infamous as a powerful card, the most powerful in the first set of cards, and has been banned from play for years. Only 1,100 copies of the Alpha Black Lotus ever existed, with many lost to time or wear, and this one is of exceptional quality. It was graded a 10 by PSA, one of the most respected valuation services in collectible card games. The auctioneer, PWCC, said that the card was “by all counts the single finest Alpha Black Lotus we’ve had the pleasure of brokering."

It's a wild ride in terms of the collectibles world, and it's more proof than ever that nerd stuff has taken over the world. Black Lotus' rarity practically ensures that it's going to remain, for as long as Magic remains, the most valuable CCG trading card ever printed for sale. I'll update you when we hit $750k and a cool million, respectively.

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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.