One card to rule them all: How an Ontario man sold a Magic: The Gathering card to Post Malone for millions

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When makers of the hugely popular card game Magic: The Gathering announced in May that its special series of Lord of the Rings cards would produce one, and only one, card featuring the Ring of Sauron, players and collectors knew it would mean a fortune for whoever found it.

The announcement was essentially Willy Wonka telling the world about his golden tickets.

But where would the card turn up, and just how much of a fortune would it be worth?

Brook Trafton, meanwhile, had other matters on his mind. He couldn’t sleep. It was the end of June and the 36-year-old was still grieving the loss of his mother, who passed away in April. He called in sick from his job as a cashier (Mr. Trafton declined to say where he works for privacy reasons, adding only that his job is in the retail sector).

A MTG card collector since childhood, Mr. Trafton says he likely owns about 20,000 cards in total. He had preordered a collector’s box of the Lord of the Rings Magic cards that he was planning on picking up from Face to Face Games in Toronto. He picked up the box he had ordered (which cost $550) and, in a spur of the moment decision, paid $1,300 for two more.

The first box had nothing of interest. Halfway through the second box he found it. There it was, the gold ring against a backdrop of what looks like swirling lava, with the Black Speech of Sauron in Tengwar letterforms, one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional languages ­­in the series, below it.

Mr. Trafton went from shock to disbelief to thrilled to cannot-believe-this-elation in the blink of an eye.

“I was like, there’s no way this is real,” Mr. Trafton said.

He called Face to Face Games thinking they might be able to verify it. They hung up on him.

“They thought it was a prank call,” Mr. Trafton said.

Friends and family convinced him to hire a lawyer, who connected Mr. Trafton to Carli Posner, head of Toronto-based The Notable Group, a marketing and public relations firm.

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Released in 1993, Magic: The Gathering is a global phenomenon. More than 40 million people play the game. There is a professional circuit. This year’s MTG World Championship has a prize pool of US$1-million.

In March, a Black Lotus card from the game sold at auction for US$540,000.

Last year, the rapper Post Malone, a huge fan of the game, told Howard Stern he paid US$800,000 for the same card.

That had been the most expensive card in the game’s history, until now.

As news of Mr. Trafton’s find spread throughout the internet, offers began pouring in to Ms. Posner’s office.

One collector, who she declined to name but said was “credible,” offered US$1-million for the card. The prospective buyer wanted to drop it in to an active volcano. It might have been a fitting tribute to Tolkien’s fable, but Mr. Trafton didn’t want the card to be destroyed.

He wanted it to go to someone who loves the game like he does. And he wanted to meet Post Malone.

First, though, he would have to prove that the card is real.

Professional Sports Authenticator, the gold standard for ensuring trading cards are legitimate, has one representative in Canada: Brad Hartley, who lives in Halifax.

When cards like this hit the market, false claims of ownership quickly surface, Mr. Hartley said. But there was something about Mr. Trafton’s giddiness in the videos shared by Ms. Posner that convinced Mr. Hartley this was the real deal.

He was asked to come to Toronto to meet a member of a security detail hired by Mr. Trafton’s lawyer, and fly the card to PSA’s headquarters in California to verify its authenticity.

At the time, PSA was already dealing with about 20 people who all said they had the card, Mr. Hartley said. But they had confirmed Mr. Trafton’s card was indeed the one.

Back in Toronto, more offers were pouring in, and the bids were getting higher.

One potential buyer contacted Ms. Posner and offered to buy it for €2-million (about $2.9-million) and a trip to Valencia, Spain.

At Mr. Trafton’s request, Ms. Posner contacted Post Malone’s team. There were discussions about the card, but there was no offer on the table.

As fate would have it, Post Malone arrived in Toronto to play a concert on July 20.

When Ms. Posner learned of the concert – the day of the show – she reached out to a friend who has contacts with Post Malone’s team to suggest they bring the card down to the venue for the rapper to look at it. That way, at least, Mr. Trafton could fulfill his dream of meeting him.

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The team agreed, and said to meet backstage.

Ms. Posner called Mr. Trafton, who had just punched in to work 10 minutes earlier. Leave right now, get the card and hurry down to the Budweiser Stage, she told him.

He raced to the bank, got there just before closing, put the card in a backpack and sped off to the concert.

Mr. Trafton met Post Malone backstage and the two chatted about the game and the cards in their collections. Then, the rapper said, “Let’s see it.”

“He took one look at it and he’s like, yes, I’ll buy the card,” Mr. Trafton said.

How much was the current offer, the rapper wanted to know. US$2-million, Ms. Posner told him.

Deal.

“This is the craziest day of anyone’s life,” Mr. Trafton recalled thinking.

On the drive home from the concert, midnight struck. It was his 37th birthday.

The next day, he had to race to get his passport renewed because Post Malone had invited him to his concert in Philadelphia.

After the concert, Mr. Trafton hung out with Post Malone and three professional Magic players backstage, chatting and laughing and drinking beer late into the evening.

Mr. Trafton aims on investing the money. He wants to be smart with it, he says. He’s also thinking of getting a tattoo of the card on his leg.

He has no plans of retiring as arguably the luckiest millionaire in trading card history.

“I’m only 37, I can still work,” he said. “I have a fantastic job. Why would I stop?”