Lord of the Rings collector boosters have been a hot commodity since their release. Lots of people were looking to purchase collector boosters specifically. A big reason for this was because of the potential, albeit miniscule, to find the unique serialized copy of the One Ring. The One Ring was set to appear in collector booster packs only. Of course, this included gift bundles as well collector booster boxes. Interestingly, The One Ring has recently been found. As such, it’s reasonable to assume that interest in these collector booster packs would diminish a lot, with the big-ticket item out of the way.
While early price trends following the One Ring’s confirmation for collector booster boxes suggested this was indeed true, there appears to be more going on than just a steady decrease in price. What exactly is going on with the prices of collector booster boxes? Have they retained their high level of demand? Let’s take a look and start with early trends in the price of Lord of the Rings collector booster boxes.
Before the One Ring
Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth officially released on June 23. While the One Ring was pulled relatively quickly, it was not confirmed to the public until June 30. During this period of time, prices for collector booster boxes actually remained relatively consistent. According to TCGplayer sales, collector booster boxes typically were sold between $475 and $500. For reference, this is a massive amount compared to Standard boxes like those for March of the Machine, which typically sold for about 40% of the price of Lord of the Rings boxes.
It makes a lot of sense that during this time, as players were still searching for the One Ring, that collector booster boxes would maintain a high price tag. Unsurprisingly, once the One Ring was found, prices quickly began to drop. This becomes apparent when looking at TCGplayer sales data for June 30.
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Immediately After the One Ring
On June 30, the news of the One Ring being pulled became a massive story. Players were searching for confirmation, and soon an image of the card receiving a PSA grade of 9 all but guaranteed that the card had been pulled. This caused an almost immediate drop in prices of collector booster boxes of Lord of the Rings. According to TCGplayer sales, the price of boxes plummeted from $480+ down to under $350, all on June 30.
This clearly indicates that the One Ring, at least in part, drove the price of collector booster boxes up a significant amount. After all, a drop in price of nearly $150 is no joke. Yet, with the One Ring pulled for good, one might assume that the price could go down even further and possibly plateau after a certain point. Surprisingly, this is not the trend that followed in the next couple days.
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A Rebound in Price?
Not only did the price of collector boosters not go down in the next 48 hours, but it even rebounded back up to over $400. Collector booster boxes have been steadily increasing during this period, with the latest TCGplayer sales being for roughly $409. This is certainly different than a lot of people expected. Does this mean that players are still super interested in buying Lord of the Rings collector booster product? Well, there’s likely a multitude of reasons why this trend is happening.
Sol Rings and Beyond
The first thing to note is that The One Ring is not the only serialized card that can be opened in collector booster packs that holds significant value. Obviously, as a one-of-one card, the One Ring is far and away the best thing that can be opened and should end up selling as the highest-value MTG card ever. Still, there are lots of serialized copies of Sol Ring that have yet to be opened. Supposedly, at least one copy of the card had already sold for $13,000. While obviously not close to the value of the One Ring, these cards still hold significant value and there are more of them that can be opened.
Between Elf Sol Rings, Dwarf Sol Rings, and Human Sol Rings, there are 1900 foil serialized copies of Sol Ring and 19,000 non-foil non-serialized copies of Sol Ring available within collector booster packs, with Elf being the rarest, followed by Dwarf and then Human. These cards are sure to keep demand up for collector booster product even beyond the finding of the One Ring. Not to mention the fact that cards like Delighted Halfling, Orcish Bowmasters, and normal copies of the One Ring are seeing significant play across multiple formats and are in high demand. Still, there’s potentially more going on here than just demand.
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The Future of LOTR Collector Boosters
In addition to the Serialized Sol Rings keeping demand for collector booster boxes up, it’s likely that, due to the abundance of product being opened in the first week as players hunted The Ring, supply was for Collector Booster products overall. This seems to make sense, since, even if the demand is ultimately lower than before the One Ring was found, lower supply could cause a rebound in price, even if briefly. After all, its the relationship of supply and demand that has a major part in dictating MTG prices on the secondary market.
Even with the rebound in price, LOTR collector booster boxes are still down about $75 from where they sat before the One Ring was found. As more copies of Sol Ring are found and the set becomes less of a hot commodity, it’s reasonable to assume the demand for LOTR collector booster boxes will diminish.
All the hype around LOTR has, in part, caused a drop in March of the Machine collector booster boxes in recent days, which is interesting to note alongside the rebound in LOTR collector booster box prices around the same time. I’d expect the price of LOTR product to go back down soon, but the rebound in price is certainly significant and something to keep an eye on as more product continues to get opened.
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