Yu-Gi-Oh is a collectible card game that has been around for 22 years. These days there are multiple products in addition to the cards, from collectible duel disks to Funko Pops of some of the most well known monsters.
Even with the many collectibles, the cards often remain the most sought after part of Yu-Gi-Oh, with some commanding ridiculously high prices. This can be for multiple reasons, with cards that are particularly valuable in the current meta going for large sums. However, the cards that command the highest prices are almost always the ones released in limited supply, and one of these caused a huge stir at a Chinese auction.
The auction was for the possessions of a man sentenced to life for embezzlement. The card in question is a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, one of the most popular and well known cards in the game, to the point where it could be considered one of the faces of Yu-Gi-Oh. This particular Blue-Eyes is thought to be one of 500 printed and released in 2019 with a limited edition border as part of a promotion. If so, the card would be valued by collectors at $31,000-$46,000, a price range that makes it easy to see why some people decide to open collectible card shops. However, bidding for the card rapidly reached over $13.4 million, more than ten times its projected worth.
Because of the astoundingly high bids given in a short amount of time, the auction was shut down on suspicion of bad bidding behavior. While extremely rare Yu-Gi-Oh cards do command high prices, this amount of bidding seems particularly excessive. As of this article, there is no known reason why a single card should command such a high price among the general public or even dedicated collectors in China. Oddly enough, this was not the only article among the criminal's auctioned possessions that were unusual or commanded strangely high prices.
While the Yu-Gi-Oh card could still hold value despite Konami's shutdown of tournaments due to COVID-19, it is strange that it would eclipse the prices of the criminal's game systems, which were sold at a separate auction. These included a gold and diamond studded PS4 and multiple Nintendo Switch systems.
On top of that, a USB drive at the auction also commanded a ridiculously high bidding price, since bidders believed it held the key to Bitcoins held by its former owner. The fate of the Yu-Gi-Oh card is still undecided, as is the reason for its perceived value. For now, it's just another story that seems to prove that Yu-Gi-Oh is best at its most ridiculous.