Post Malone pays $2 million for one-of-one Magic: The Gathering card
One Ring to rule them all – and all it cost Post Malone was US$2 million. The one-of-one Magic: The Gathering card smashed the previously held record for most expensive card from the franchise.
So, is the card worth US$2 million, or is this a case of the rockstar singer blowing the budget?
The One Ring card
Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop card game that since 1993 has captivated tens of millions of Planeswalkers. In March 2023, Magic’s parent company, Wizards of the Coast announced The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth, a crossover series bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic world to life in the game.
Hidden amongst one of the Tales of Middle Earth’s packs was a one-of-one The One Ring card. The announcement, despite occurring three months prior to Tales of Middle Earth’s release, caused well known collectors the world over to try and secure the ultra-rare card.
Cassius Marsh, the CEO of trading card buying and selling company Cash Cards Unlimited, placed a US$500,000 bounty on the card. Ahead of the release, this offer was doubled to US$1 million by Dave and Adam’s Card World. The bounty was then upped to US$2.1 million by a Spanish gaming operation.
One way or another, pulling The One Ring would be a life changing move for one collector.
The newly minted millionaire
That collector was Toronto native, Brook Trafton, a 37-year-old retail worker and lifelong Magic player.
Trafton had preordered a box he was due to collect on the 16 June release date, but woke early on that Friday and ‘had a feeling’ he should head to Toronto’s Face to Face Games early. Trafton picked up his box and enquired about any that weren’t accounted for – of the eight leftovers, he picked up two of them.
It was the second leftover box that contained The One Ring card. Trafton said of the discover that he was ‘instantly filled with adrenaline’.
It was a minor miracle the card fell to an avid fan of the game, as packs were shipped across the globe. It could easily have landed in the hands of a player on which the significance was lost, or, if the series wasn’t the success Wizards of the Coast had hoped, suffered a similar fate to many of the famed 1952 Topps series.
Trafton, however, knew the significance of what he was now in possession of. He handed the card over to a bank for safekeeping and sought a lawyer who put him in touch with marketing agency, the Notable Group.
Notable Group CEO, Carli Posner, asked Trafton what he wanted to do with the card. After all, this was perhaps the most sought-after card Magic has ever produced and the money on offer from collectors across the world was life changing.
Trafton told Posner he wanted to meet noted Magic player and music superstar, Post Malone.
Posty pays up
Prior to the US$2 million purchase of The One Ring card, the highest sale price for a Magic card was US$800,000 for a rare ‘Black Lotus’ card that was signed by the artist who drew it. The person to hold that record? Post Malone.
There was good reason Trafton was hoping to meet Malone. Malone is such a prolific Magic player that he has his own one-of-a-kind promotional card in the game – Post the Enchanter.
Over the next month, a buyer had been lined up for the card, until 20 July when Posner called Trafton and told him to drop everything – Malone, who was in Toronto for a concert, wanted to meet him.
What Trafton described as what was initially just a meet and greet turned into far more.
“As soon as he saw [the card] he said yes. I said ‘pardon, like, what do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘yes, I will take the card.”
After shaking hands, Malone and Trafton shared a beer to celebrate, with the sale finalised the day before Trafton’s 37th birthday.
“It was so magical. I’m not going to lie, I cried a little bit. I cried a lot.”
Therein lies the magic of trading cards.
