The Most Expensive Me Card In The World

[Thrain II]

Hi,

I have started that topic to discuss a never ending question: What is THE MOST EXPENSIVE MIDDLE-EARTH CARD in the world???

I have talked about that question with some of my friends and we were not able to find an easy answer <_<

Here are some of the possible answers:

1.) The One Ring (Japanese Limited version)
That card is incredible expensive and nearly impossible to find. It is the most expensive "The One Ring" of all 11 different versions for sure.

2.) Fury of the Iron Crown (Japanese promo)
Officially, that card WAS NEVER PRINTED. Nevertheless, a few copies appeared somewhere in Japan
The number of copies is VERY LIMITED and that makes it really expensive...

3.) Spanish Specials from the Beginners Set (especially Boromir II, Ramaviva and Discusiones Oscuras)
These cards are searched by a lot of traders because of their different artwork which looks really beautiful (I have all five! Hooray!).

4.) Spanish Wolf-Riders (Galician or Bask version)
I think it is not that difficult to get the "spanish" and catalan Wolf-Riders (Jinetes de Lobos & Genets de Llops) but it is incredible difficult to find Xinetes de Lobos and Otso Zaldunak. I can't say which of them is more expensive... Any suggestions?

5.) French double-sided Merry / Fatty promo
That "promo card" (it is not a real card because it is made of normal thin paper - not like other cards) was released with a litte french magazine. You could send the "card" to Hexagonal to get the Merry AND Fatty Bolger promo in return. Most of the double-sided Merry / Fatty were lost because they were sent to Hexagonal in exchange for the real cards. I spoke with a former member of Hexagonal and he told me that it is nearly impossible to get any of these "promo cards"

How do you decide? What is the most expensive card of the 5 opportunities I have listed? Or do you have another suggestion?

What makes a card expensive? I think both number of printed copies and artwork of the card. The japanese Fury of the Iron Crown is expensive because of the few copies while the spanish beginners cards are searched because of their cool alternative artwork.

My own opinion: The japanese Fury is NUMBER ONE although I prefere the spanish cards

Thrain II

[Thrain II]

A short addition: When I was talking about "expensive" I meant the VALUE of a card = The price you can expect when you want to sell such a card.

I said the japanese Fury of the Iron Crown is very expensive but that does not necessarily mean that it is available. It just said that you can possibly get a better price for a japanese Fury than for a spanish Wolf-Riders (or that you have to pay a higher price (money or cards) to get the card).

Thrain II

[Treebeard]

Difficult to say. Timo really did pick the creme of the crop to think about. For all of these cards, there are not enough sold each year to really know. Actually, I can safely say that Jinetes de Lobos is about $50. The Bask is, say, $60, and Galacian and Catalan are $65. Those are pretty accurate prices, based on some volume I've had.

I bought and sold Japanese Fury of the Iron Crowns for around $30, but it should have been higher. As Timo says, there are only about 10 of them out there! So what is it "worth"? I just don't know. I think if I (had one to list and) listed it at $70, someone would eventuall buy it. Same with Limited Japanese One Ring. I think I actually sold one for $50. If I had it now, it'd be listed for more.

As for the special Spanish cards, I've twice sold a set of all 5 for $225. So, I figure you could consider Huida (x3 in the set) to be $30, Tumulario (x2 in the set) to be $40, and each of the rest to be $52?

I guess if I could have one more of any card to add to my collection/stock, hmmmm. Really hard to say. I suppose Fury of the Iron Crown (Japanese). Hmmm. Very close.

[Treebeard]

I forgot to address the French Fatty/Merry two-sided promo. Has anyone else gotten one? I did, traded through the nose for it. I was a bit disapointed. It's not on the regular card paper stock. It is really a piece of paper made to look like a card on both sides. Impressing to look at in a sleeve or card binder, but not to hold. If it was really a 'card', it might be king of the hill. As it is, I don't think so. If I had one to list, I'd be wondering if it was dishonest to bill it as a 'card'. If I did, I'm probably get $75 for it eventually. If I mentioned it wasn't quite a 'card', it's be less of course.

[Kolby]

I also have a French Fatty / Merry promo card and paid through the nose for it. I agree that the paper stock is very poor.

[Thrain II]

@ Patrick:
How do you value the different versions of the spanish Wolf-Riders? The castillian one is the "cheapest" version for sure: I value the card around $50.00 if it is in mint condition. I was able to find three catalan Wolf-Riders lately, so I would definitly call the bask and the galician version the most expensive ones and not the catalan. I think Xinetes de Lobos and Otso Zaldunak are equal (concerning their value).

I can't believe it: You sold a japanese Fury for only $30.00? I just asked Takao Suzuki and Akira Komachi from Japan about the availability of this promo and they just told me: "There is less hope to find the card..."

Takao explained that there were once 1000 copies of the japanese Fury but they were never officially released! Most of them were destroyed and he thinks that "between 20 and 100" copies exist! That is not very much...

I spoke with a lot of traders about the value of the "Cartas del set especial de iniciacion"... I value the set about $300.00 like Chris Cable does:

Boromir II: $70.00
Ramaviva: $70.00
Discusiones Oscuras: $70.00
Huida: $40.00
Tumulario: $50.00

I know that such a set of the five cards was sold for about $500.00 on Chris' Page...

For me it is quiet simple to decide: I have the japanese limited One Ring, all five spanish beginners cards, the spanish Wolf-Riders and the french Merry/Fatty (which I also would not call a "real" card).

I only miss the dam... japanese Fury

Thrain II

[The Dead Dwarf]

I forgot to address the French Fatty/Merry two-sided promo. Has anyone else gotten one? I did, traded through the nose for it. I was a bit disapointed. It's not on the regular card paper stock. It is really a piece of paper made to look like a card on both sides. Impressing to look at in a sleeve or card binder, but not to hold. If it was really a 'card', it might be king of the hill. As it is, I don't think so. If I had one to list, I'd be wondering if it was dishonest to bill it as a 'card'. If I did, I'm probably get $75 for it eventually. If I mentioned it wasn't quite a 'card', it's be less of course.

Yup, that card was an insert in a french magazine a true promo! Send it in and get a french fatty and merry in exchange. It was never meant for 'play' (how could it be - with no back?) and it's just paper stock rather than card, as it's just a voucher to exchange for the real cards.

Brian Wong also had an oversized Dwar the Ringwraith that was a Canadian Promo - I don't see many of them on offer for trade.

Finally I have a promo jigsaw (by ICE) - Hobbit Lore, signed by Elmore, never even seen another of the promo jigsaws. ICE shipped them out to retailers to promo their line of Middle Earth jigsaws - I picked mine up in a store in San Diego a while ago, and got it signed by Elmore at GenConUK.

Nigel

[Gwaihir]

Brian Wong also had an oversized Dwar the Ringwraith that was a Canadian Promo - I don't see many of them on offer for trade.

Broadening the topic, he? I guess that makes the pins worth mentioning too. There seem to be about 10 simple ones spread on small scale by ICE in the states, one for each wizard and some different ringwraiths. And there's one that, for what I've heard belongs to Men In Black, but looks remarkably like "our" burning eye.

Finally I have a promo jigsaw (by ICE) - Hobbit Lore, signed by Elmore, never even seen another of the promo jigsaws. ICE shipped them out to retailers to promo their line of Middle Earth jigsaws - I picked mine up in a store in San Diego a while ago, and got it signed by Elmore at GenConUK.

Is there any other promo jigsaw than Larry Elmore's Hobbit Lore image?

[The Dead Dwarf]

Finally I have a promo jigsaw (by ICE) - Hobbit Lore, signed by Elmore, never even seen another of the promo jigsaws. ICE shipped them out to retailers to promo their line of Middle Earth jigsaws - I picked mine up in a store in San Diego a while ago, and got it signed by Elmore at GenConUK.

Is there any other promo jigsaw then Larry Elmore's Hobbit Lore image?

Dunno - I meant I've never seen another copy of the Hobbit Lore Promo jigsaw, let alone any others

It comes in a card 'envelope' with the picture of the jigsaw on the front.

Nigel

[rrb]

Dunno - I meant I've never seen another copy of the Hobbit Lore Promo jigsaw, let alone any others

It comes in a card 'envelope' with the picture of the jigsaw on the front.
Nigel

Hey cool, I've got one of the Hobbit Lore jigsaws. Are they really that rare or is it that noone ever talks about them or trades them? Mine came as a surprise in one of those partially described eBay auctions where somebody dumps their kid's cards in a box and gets a few bucks out of them. The box also contained a set of Warlords backed decks from the starter set!

Since I'm at it, I may as well put in my two cents on "expensive" cards. Bottom line is the number of the item available. That means the Japanese FotIC Promo is going to be king. Even if there aren't many sold or traded in a given year, when they DO come up for sale they will command the best price. Same goes for the Merry/Fatty promo... it may not actually be a card, but it looks like one and will be collected like one and since most copies of it have been destroyed it will command a price beyond what one would expect.

As for me I would love to get my hands on the cards you guys are talking about but shelling out more than $30 a card is just not gonna happen. So I will keep scrounging around eBay and hoping for those treasures in the half-described auctions.

[Lievens the Slayer]

Hello to the guys with the ultrarare cards. While I was reading this, I was wondering what you do with your cards. Do you collect them just to have them or do you use them to play.

For me the most expensive cards were the ones I didn't have.

And for the guys that play, do you keep all your cards in deck-protectors?? Do you also play with UL cards from the wizards.

For me it is all the same black, blue or grey, as long as I have them ready to play it's ok. Although I would have second thoughts if they were pink.

[Thrain II]

@ Lievens: I will never play these expensive cards. I have my binders with all the collections on the one hand and my "playing pool" with the rest of the cards for my decks on the other hand. It's the PRECIOUSSS that makes these cards interesting. I really like to hunt them and finally put them into the binders.

I do not care which cards I use for my decks. That doesn't matter. I am a collector and player - but collector comes first.

Pink borders? Thanks...

@ Richard: I have to know what the "Hobbit Lore jigsaws" is! I never heard about it. Maybe I missed to search for that card?

I got a spanish "card" by my friend Alejandro Ortiz from Spain. It is a double sided Legolas/Indur Dawndeath card with the size of a normal sheet of paper. Looks really cool but it is too large for my binders.
Guess I will better buy a pictures frame for it...

Thrain II

[Gwaihir]

@ Richard: I have to know what the "Hobbit Lore jigsaws" is! I never heard about it. Maybe I missed to search for that card?

That's not a card. It's a small promotional jigsaw, a puzzle, made to promote the series of seven Middle-earth puzzles that ICE made.

I have no clue how valuable (or not) they are. I believe a good number was made but they are not seen for sale much nowadays. That it shares with the Spanish two player starter set (i.e. that plenty were made) and we all read higher in this thread how expensive they have become.

[Thrain II]

Now I got it... I did not know the word "jigsaw" since we only say "puzzle" in Germany. I thought it is the same in english.

However, sounds interesting. BTW, does anyone know something about the "big promotional cards" with the size of a normal sheet of paper? I have heard about nine different versions of them, double-sided, with the nine companions / the nine Nazgul on it. I got the spanish Legolas / Indur Dawndeath copy by my friend Alejandro from Spain and would like to know if they are also available in other languages / versions.

Thrain II

[Earendil]

Hi @ all!

This is my first message on this forum... A "Ciao!" to all I know (and I don't know yet )

I think this topic about the most expensive cards in the world is quite interesting, but not complete. You were all speaking about cards you have to sell, or you would like to get... But I think there is another point, that could be called "Willingness to pay". This is the real factor that helps to get a price of the cards.

My english is bad, and I'm not-so-able to explain myself, so here is an example:
The 5 spanish special beginners set super extra cards with different artwork (and so on... ) are wanted by all the collectors who would like to get all the artworks (even by those, like me, who do not collect ALL the languages).
In these years, REQUEST was high, so the cards became hard-to-find and OFFER started ask higher prices. Marco, a good friend of mine, once evaluated a complete sp. beginners set 800-1000 Euro.
The problem is that, when you dream to sell a set, you can ask 1000 Eu; when you dream to get a set, you could be willing to pay 1000 Eu... But when you really decide to sell a set or when you really decide to get a set, you are NOT willing to pay NOR you can pretend to get those $$$.

There were two cards from sp. beginners set on sale on eBay today:
http://cgi.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 5902982936
And they weren't sold because the offers arrived at 33$ but the seller (he is another friend of a lot of us ) had put a reserve.

What does it mean?
-first, they real price is 33$. Of about 120 contacts, the higher bidder decided to bid that price. His "willingness to pay" is that one!
-second, you can decide to give a valour to a card, but seems to me this would be quite different if you're trading or selling. I will gladly trade a italian One Ring for a Spanish special card, but I will not buy that card for 40$. This because I payed that card 2$ (the booster in which I found it), though it is worth 40$. Using 40 REAL $ seems no good for me.

So:

As for the special Spanish cards, I've twice sold a set of all 5 for $225. So, I figure you could consider Huida (x3 in the set) to be $30, Tumulario (x2 in the set) to be $40, and each of the rest to be $52?
Treebeard

seems to me more real-life quotation (probably even high) then:

I spoke with a lot of traders about the value of the "Cartas del set especial de iniciacion"... I value the set about $300.00 like Chris Cable does:

Boromir II: $70.00
Ramaviva: $70.00
Discusiones Oscuras: $70.00
Huida: $40.00
Tumulario: $50.00
Thrain II

That is the value decided by a lot of traders... But NOT during a REAL sale!

This message because I've seen a lot of spanish traders that would like to sell their cards for a lot of 100$ notes... If you can find a buyer at those prices, I will be very happy for you all , but it is more probably that, if you REALLY want to sell the cards, you'll have to get lower prices.

just my 2 cents