Disney Lorcana TCG cards are already demanding five-figure price tags at auction

Despite the several months between now and Disney Lorcana’s official release, promotional collector sets for the trading card game are auctioning at thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars on eBay and related platforms.

Don’t worry - you didn’t miss some secret midnight retail drop. Attendees of Disney Expo 2023 were the only ones able to acquire the collection of seven promotional cards by visiting Ravensburger’s booth during Disney’s annual celebration of its own massive brand-owning corporation. The set included Robin Hood, Captain Hook, Stitch, Cruella De Vil, Elsa and Mickey Mouse cards, along with two commemorative pins - it’s not yet clear if these same card versions will eventually appear in Lorcana’s first main set.

Update: A representative for Ravensburger reached out and confirmed that all of the cards in the D23 Expo Collectors Set will also appear in the initial set, Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter. The only difference will be the lack of unique foil treatment and two promotional symbols marking the promotional cards as 1st Edition D23 Expo exclusives.

An undisclosed but limited quantity was given away during D23, and now some of them are popping up on eBay and other online auctioning sites asking for the kinds of money that already established trading card games, such as Magic: The Gathering and the Pokémon TCG. Many of the listing include individual cards or complete sets graded PSA Gem Mint 10, and successful sales have brought in $19,000 at its peak in January.

First reported by ICv2, the auction prices have fluctuated slightly since the Lorcana card listings first started appearing in the wake of the D23, which took place in September 2022. As of publication, eBay shows an ambitious complete set of Gem Mint 10 promo cards listed for a whopping $35,000, and single cards (graded PSA 9 and up) can be found for $600 on the low end and several thousand on the high end. Several signed cards are also mixed within, bearing artist signatures on the grading boxes from figures such as co-designer Ryan Miller.

Disney Lorcana cards cracked the professional collectibles auction space even earlier. Dicebreaker previously reported on graded single cards - specifically the Mickey Mouse, Brave Little Tailor card - appearing at PWCC auctions more than 40 times as of last December, while grading house PSA reported at least 256 copies (17 of them signed) around the same month.

This fervour and asking price for Lorcana’s scant available stock of cards can likely thank the sheer collectibility of anything Disney at the moment. Fans of the multinational conglomerate regularly shell out exorbitant fees for official merchandise, limited edition prints and artwork that holds both a sentimental and monetary value, often referred to as Disneyana. Combine this with an inflated interested in collectible TCGs' rarest targets spurred by the pandemic and, while nowhere near its peak, maintaining a fair bit of popularity on streams and YouTube.

Cynically, it’s not difficult to imagine Lorcana’s creators banking on this extra attention to drive excitement for its upcoming trading card game, which is due to release the first of an apparently regular set release schedule this autumn. The creators have also maintained that Lorcana’s mechanics and gameplay will both draw in those new to trading card games while also giving veteran cardboard collectors new and satisfying strategies to chew on.