Magic’s Lord of the Rings booster boxes top $500 as collectors hunt for the Ring of Power

polygon.com:

In March, Magic: The Gatheringpublisher Wizards of the Coast announced a splashy promotion to support its first set of cards based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: A singular card representing the One Ring has been hidden among thousands of packs of cards. The promotion encouraged at least one reseller to place a multimillion-dollar bounty on that card. As of Friday — launch day for The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth— boxes of cards are selling for a whopping $518.45. That’s roughly twice what past sets of cards have cost per box. So… how did it come to this?

In January 2019, Wizards released a new kind of booster pack with its Ravnica Allegiance set. Known as Collector Boosters, these packs include more rare cards than any other kind of booster pack. They are also priced much higher than other packs, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $12.99 for 15 cards. Then, one month later, Wizards of the Coast stopped listing an MSRP for its products. The reasoning that the company gave at the time was to simplify international pricing.

“We’re making this change to streamline our communications around new products,” wrote communications director Blake Rasmussen. “MSRPs are not favored in many parts of the world, which led to some confusion among our global player base. As Magic becomes more and more global, it makes less and less sense to suggest a retail price.”

But that change in policy also enabled the increased commodification of Magic cards — especially unopened boxed product. Now it’s easier than ever for would-be investors to purchase boxes of booster packs and either cellar them, waiting for their price to go up after a set launches, or quickly flip them on a global secondary market.

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