Anyone who has ever played the Magic: The Gathering card game will probably remember the high price of the game’s original beta print run. These cards are basically the same as the first set regular edition cards except for some sizing differences. Collectors, on the other hand, must have them.
If you’ve got $89,000 collecting dust in some savings fund, you can head on over to eBay to bid on a Beta Black Lotus with a grade of 10, which is allegedly the only one in existence.
For anyone that doesn’t play Magic or has never played it, a mint condition Beta Black Lotus card is the equivalent to an Amazing Fantasy #15 for comic book geeks. If you don’t know the significance of either of those two items then you need to keep reading our site for further knowledge of geek culture.
Oh, and if you want to buy the card you must pick it up according to the seller’s information. Then again, anyone who has $89K for a Magic Card probably isn’t sweating a trip to the northwest United States.
[Source: TheCid via reddit]
If I was independently wealthy, I would buy this card, and watch everyone cry as I slipped it into my artifact deck and shuffled.
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Comment by Clint — April 15, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
The reason beta run is more valuable than alpha run is those “sizing differences” mean that betas can be played with any subsequent set. Alphas have rounder corners than all other sets so cannot be mixed in a deck with non-alpha cards. Although generally a non-issue as this card rarely gets played anymore, it’s an important point the expert writing this article obviously didn’t understand.
Comment by Chris D. — October 11, 2010 @ 3:25 pm