Disney TCG Lorcana isn’t out yet, but autographed cards are already fetching serious money at auction
As a mint condition Mickey Mouse signed by the game’s creators goes under the hammer for the first time.
Disney Lorcana won’t see a full release until next autumn, but cards from the upcoming trading card game are already fetching a steep price under the hammer.
Announced over the summer, Lorcana is effectively a Disneyfied Magic: The Gathering, as players pit various heroes, villains and other characters from the House of Mouse’s films and properties against each other in a head-to-head battle.
Seven cards from the game’s debut set The First Chapter were revealed at Disney’s D23 Expo in early September, revealing artistic twists on familiar faces such as Mickey Mouse, Cruella de Vil, Maleficent and Frozen’s Elsa.
The cards shown at D23 were offered to attendees in a Collector's Set bundling together six of the cards in a foil variant exclusive to the event, alongside a separate promo card for Mickey Mouse, Brave Little Tailor, inspired by the Disney icon’s 1938 short film. The Collector’s Set sold out during the event.
Three months later, the limited-edition cards are already being traded for money as copies graded in a perfect ‘gem mint’ condition appear at auction. According to auction house PWCC, copies of the Mickey Mouse, Brave Little Tailor D23 promo card have been sold at public auction 40 times since its release in September, while card grading specialist PSA has rated 256 copies of the card at its highest level of Gem Mint 10 to date.
Even rarer are cards signed by the game’s creators, including co-designer Ryan Miller, known for his work on licensed card games such as Godzilla, My Hero Academia and the Digimon Card Game. PSA has reportedly graded 17 autographed Lorcana cards.
Among them is a copy of Mickey Mouse, Brave Little Tailor signed by Miller, fellow Lorcana co-designer Steve Warner and art director Edgar Pasten, which is currently due to sell for over $1,000 at an auction running until this Sunday, December 18th. PWCC claims it marks the first time that an autographed Lorcana card will sell at public auction.
“Only a handful of these first-edition Lorcana cards have been signed by the game’s developers and still managed to receive a PSA 10 grade,” said the firm’s TCG manager Peter Petipas.
“This Gem Mint example presents an interesting opportunity to see how the community will value autographed, first-edition Lorcana assets. We’re looking at an item with true scarcity here, so it will be exciting to see where the demand sits right now.”
Despite the early interest among collectors, Lorcana has a way to go before it reaches the figures achieved by the most valuable Pokémon cards and rarest Magic: The Gathering cards, which sell for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction - with the very rarest Pokémon card, Pikachu Illustrator, said to be worth over $5 million.
Edit: A previous version of this story referred to Edgar Pasten as co-designer of Disney Lorcana. He is art director for the game. This has been amended.