This Rare Magic: The Gathering Card Sold For More Than A Porsche

Now, that’s a neat card trick: A rare card from Magic: The Gathering recently sold on eBay for $87,672, according to Digital Trends.

The Black Lotus card wasn’t just any ordinary game card, though. There were four factors that made this card so pricey: Printing, rarity, condition, and the card’s power when used in the popular trading game.

According to Digital Trends, when Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering launched back in 1993, the first printing, or Alpha printing, of the full set of 295 game cards had black borders. Then, a limited Beta printing added more cards and corrected errors on some of the originals. An Unlimited print edition of the same cards with white boarders followed this Beta printing and continues today. Therefore, only 1,100 Alpha Black Lotus cards were printed. That might sound like a lot, but two billion Magic cards were sold by April 1997; and between 2008 and 2016, more than 20 billion cards were printed. While Black Lotus figures are worth four figures, the Alpha Black Lotus is the most valuable of the all, according to Digital Trends.

The card sold on eBay was also in top condition. In Magic, the Black Lotus card is very powerful and is banned from most competition and tournament play.