In 2021/1, Magic: The Gathering had 1 of the moments that became mainstream. The sale of a single Black Lotus card, an extreme rarity from the game's first set of cards, reached the final amount ofeBay511,100 at an eBay auction. An example of the previous Alpha Black Lotus (the first series of MTG cards is called the Alpha series) had gone for much250K as well, but this makes the record more than 2 times and is not a general anti-that magic: gathering cards can be valuable, it has long been established, but a single card can be used. It is worthド50 million.

That particular transaction was given legitimacy by the organizer, the trading card investment company and the exchange PWCC. Currently, however, the Alpha Black Lotus appears to be selling for3300 million, according to the Certified Guarantee Company (CGC). This 6x jump in value has a community that doesn't care about headline numbers and is in shock, disbelief, and wondering what the heck is.

The news initially came from an Instagram post by CGC, a Florida company that specializes in card grading.According to an instagram post, cgc specializes in card grading. Grading is an important part of any collection or sale, where an independent expert assesses the condition of a particular item and assigns a descriptive slash value that reflects this.For CGC, the numerical scale is top at 10. Here is the company's statement:

"The Alpha Black Lotus graded by Cgc Card has just got a jaw drop of 3 million and it has become the highest priced Magic The Gathering card." Its sky-high price shows a high value collector's place in the pristine 10 grades of CGC cards.

The "primitive 10 grade" is as good as you get, but still, the値札300 million price tag is worth noting. The seller is Adam Cai of Pristine Collectibles, noting that the CGC has broken various records for previously certified cards."Including the 1952-12 SCP auction for実現1,253,185 for the 1952 Topps#311Mickey Mantle Type1graded CGC8."

"This is one of the most amazing Alpha Black Lotus I've ever seen," Kai said, perhaps unsurprisingly.1 "It will definitely be the centerpiece of anyone's TCG collection.

Magic: The Gathering Card's previous record may seem close to the2200 million paid for the "One Ring" card from the Lord of the Rings crossover set by rapper Post Malone. But in this case, there was literally 1 copy of that card, and a celebrity, apparently worth more than55000 million, decided that he wanted it.

On the other hand, there are multiple copies of Black Lotus, albeit in various conditions, and theoretically should be counted against such a huge spike, keeping ratings within each other's limits.

A certain sense of anxiety permeates the reaction of magic fans to this news. Redditor CardOfTheRings accused the cgc of "trying to justify a second rating service in a publicity stunt," reasoning that "no one will pay this value if a record of a BGS card of similar quality is capped at -500,000.""Many others have expressed similar sentiments less politely, and some call it "blatant laundry," not in the sense of money laundering, but more generally in the sense of artificially pumping the value of the card to inflate the market.

But that the CGC has moved so hard on the CCGs in recent decades is a long-established force in grading, best known for having a comic world gathered in vice grip, with a long-term interest in trading cards (initially sports-related). In a recent example, we saw YouTuber's "factory-damaged" Pokemon card was incorrectly graded and in fact the owner was damaging the card itself. Such "gotcha" moments aside, this is a huge and generally reputable company that most of the card collection market is willing to trust.

And there is a real kicker. The buyer was initially anonymous, but now he has an Instagram page and, among other very popular cards, posts a photo showing the Black Lotus in question. Benjamin.be Style himself as a "Holy Grail Collector" has an interest in other card games other than MTG, including Pokemon, and told Kotaku that he believes this Alpha Black Lotus is among the "top 2 in existence." There are only bgs10 and this CGC10 2 pristines."

I reached out to Benjamin, but Benjamin is amused that he started by highlighting the suspicion of community shenanigans. "When I bought aシ90k serial Luffy card, people also called it a shenanigans," Benjamin says via DM. High-end magic cards go for much more than people realize. They do not trade frequently and prices are not published."

I ask Benjamin about these levels of card transactions where sales are private and tend to be publicized only in rare cases. One can understand this on a simple level: Most people advertise in a world where they have small and portable assets worth millions

"Most of the ultra-high-end and fluid things don't go well and therefore don't go on public auctions," Benjamin says. "The seller needs to find 1 buyer who will evaluate it correctly. There may not be a 2nd buyer who has the means and desire for that item. The auction requires at least two people to bid it. The market for such high-end pieces is very thin.

It is clear that Benjamin collects cards at a rare level, and they use another Black Lotus purchase example that was not published, but broke the world record at the time. "I bought Lotus BGS[-graded] 9.5 years ago for Lotus880k, but it wasn't published, so the public only knows about Lotus selling for ~5 500k."

Regarding this current purchase in that context, "This Lotus I got is much better than my previous Lotus." So a higher price tag," Benjamin says. It also added some value because it is also only the second pristine lotus."

Nevertheless, some have problems with grading, and it's a bubble under every other community talk about this trade," Benjamin said, "CGC has a reputation problem, but I like them so much." I think they are more consistent and fair than other grading companies."As for the CGC, which uses sales as a propaganda tool, they are completely cool with it. "CGC is ecstatic about this deal and I'm sure announcing it will help them," Benjamin told Kotaku. "They asked me permission to do it, and I was fine with it. I like CGC a lot and I hope they do well."

When it comes to the wild value attached to the card, the buyer is sober. "It's really hard to set a price for these high-end cards, but I feel3300 million is right. Maybe I overpaid a bit, but I'm not buying to flip it. In the long run, it should work."

It's my big question that exactly手数料300 million of fees are made up, and when something is suspected about this, there's one thing they're right about.1 "The card was paid in BTC with 2 payments," Benjamin says."

The値札3 million price tag is one thing, but what is paid in bitcoin is another: BTC is the most stable value crypto asset on the market, but still generally crypto Of course, many consider this as a Laddite perspective, but it's hard to draw a 1:1 equivalence between the value of Bitcoin and the value of the US dollar." Feeling

Benjamin adds that the deal is part of the broader goal of building a CGC-grade set of "Power Nine", rare and OP cards from the first Alpha MTG set, including Black Lotus. They have already completed their Beckett grading service - graded Power Nine sets, you see.

This is collecting cards on a scale where the sums involved sometimes seem unfathomable: an interesting world where conditions and rarity mean a single trading card, to some, anyway, is on paper worth as much as a mansion. This collection is of true beauty and who knows what drives someone to these things.

Benjamin calls himself the "Holy Grail Collector" and evokes the mythical treasures that everyone in history has sought, from the Crusades to Monty Python, and perhaps in an era defined by pop culture, it makes sense to create our own relics and imbue them with mystical status and value. I don't think anyone is going to start praying to Hololizard or asking for life advice from the text of the black lotus flavor. But every time these grails are called, somehow, many of us go far and genuine flect.