The luxury brand reseller known for Birkin bags and designer jewelry lands its most expensive item ever with collectible card.
(Bloomberg) — The RealReal Inc. has landed a rare consignment haul that stretches the upper price limits of its secondhand marketplace, blasting far past the luxury fashion for which its best known. A six-card collection of Magic: The Gathering cards from the original Power 9 set, considered some of the most powerful cards in the game, are available for a total of $845,000.
Produced in 1993 in limited quantities during its early launch, the listing includes the hotly sought Beta Black Lotus card, which is an artist proof from Christopher Rush, one of the game’s original designers. Valued at $750,000, the card is graded 8 by the RealReal’s authentication provider, Beckett Collectibles. Last year, a Christopher Rush-signed PSA 10 Alpha Set Black Lotus card sold on EBay for $511,100, according to HypeBeast. And there’s been hype across social media about such celebrities as hip-hop rap star Post Malone collecting such cards, much to the dismay of hobbyists.
Five additional cards from the original Alpha set are up for sale as well, including the Alpha Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister.
“This is the RealReal’s most expensive consigned item in its history,” says Matthew Rogers, lead valuation manager of comics, trading cards, and collectibles, in an interview. “Only a handful of these cards are known to exist.”
Noted for luxury handbags and vintage watches, the RealReal launched its collectibles vertical in July 2021 and has seen a 72% increase in sales growth and 61% increase in consignment growth since the beginning of 2022, with search demand doubling, Rogers says. This is in line with the boom in all sorts of collectible markets—from sneakers to baseball cards—since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Consigners can earn up to 85% on the item’s selling price.
The trading card game was launched by Wizards of the Coast in 1993 and acquired by Hasbro Inc. in 1999. The Magic: The Gathering franchise continues to be one of the company’s most profitable; in the second quarter it grew 11% across all platforms, compared to that period a year earlier. The game is played competitively and is estimated to have about 40 million players worldwide.
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