Alpha Black Lotus card signed by original artist sold for $511,100

The Black Lotus is perhaps the most powerful card in Magic: The Gathering—and its most perfect version was just claimed by a new owner.

The Black Lotus card that sold for more than half a million dollars was auctioned off on eBay yesterday morning by PWCC, one of the world’s largest trading card marketplaces.

This particular card wasn’t just one of seven “virtually perfect” PSA GEM Mint 10 Black Lotuses in existence, though. It was also signed on its plastic case by the card’s original illustrator, Christopher Rush, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 50.

This version of the card shattered the price record for the sale of a Black Lotus single, last set in 2019 at $166,100.

Collectible trading cards have always enjoyed a significant secondary market, but the Alpha and Beta sets of MTG‘s first edition and its Power Nine are particularly revered.

Other TCG games, such as Pokémon, have also enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and price due to multiple content creators picking up on the activity toward the end of 2020. Streamers like xQc, Mizkif, and Cr1TiKaL have jumped on the hype train over the past few months, even setting viewership records by pulling some of the rarest cards in the world.