Magic's serialised The One Ring seller interrupted bro's date to tell him about card

One does not simply interrupt a date, unless one is the bearer of Magic: The Gathering’s serialised The One Ring.

Earlier this month, the holder of Magic’s unique The One Ring revealed his identity in his TikTok video announcing the sale of the card to American rapper Post Malone - also one of the biggest fans of the decades-old trading card game.

And it turned out that the card wasn’t pulled by a ‘whale’ (a gaming slang referring to someone who spends a ton of money on games), but a humble 37-year-old retail worker from Toronto.

Speaking to Yahoo Southeast Asia on Monday (14 Aug), Brook Trafton, the former ‘ring bearer’, revealed that he interrupted his brother’s date to tell him about the card.

He recalled, “My brother doesn’t really know too much about Magic. I sent him the picture [of the card] and he’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool card.’ I’m like, ‘No, look at the Dave & Adams bounty and stuff like that.’

“I sent him the link, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even look at the thing. He’s like, ‘Cool, man. That’s a cool card.’ I had to call him - he was on a date - I’m like, ‘You need to hear this. Tell this girl I’m sorry but life’s going to change.”

Trafton then told his brother that the card was worth at least a million dollars.

“[He said] ‘That’s cool bro, that’s cool. And then I’m like, he’s not even listening. Then 20 minutes later, I get a phone call. He’s like, ‘Oh, do you need help?’ It finally clicked in and I’m like ‘Oh my god.’”

Trafton told a total of five people about the card, including his cousin, whom he reached out to because he was in disbelief.

“I took the picture, I sent it to my cousin. I’m like, ‘Am I crazy? Is this it?’ And then to a couple of my friends who played Magic… I didn’t even tell my dad. I kept it to that group of five until the sale.”

Trafton confessed that when the unique The One Ring card was announced, he didn’t intend to chase after it at all.

He would have been content just to pull the Collector Booster versions of Sol Ring, themed after the Rings of Power created for the Elves, Dwarves and humans of Middle-Earth.

Though he didn’t get multiple Collector Boxes, he did make a preorder for the Lord of The Rings set, but as luck would have it, he got paid the day of the prerelease.

So, he decided to purchase two extra Collector Boxes, which would go on to be the start of a life-changing journey for Trafton.

“I instantly knew it was life-changing. It was like, I would say, winning the lottery but to the extreme because I knew it was more crazy than that. I’ve watched videos of the odds [of pulling the card] and I know that there were the bounties out for a million dollars,” he said of pulling The One Ring.

Money was 'life-changing'

In case you were wondering, he would have kept the card if it wasn’t worth that much money.

He explained, “That card is the most gorgeous Magic card that you'll ever have in your hands. They put so much time and effort into making that thing, like it’s one of a kind… But I know that kind of money is very life-changing for me. I work retail. I live paycheque to paycheque and this will change that. It has changed that.”

Trafton confirmed that the card was sold to Post Malone for US$2 million (S$2,711,556). In a separate TikTok video uploaded on 5 Aug, Trafton also shared his experience meeting the rapper and how he sold the card to him.

Initially, the meeting was arranged just to meet the rapper with the card and take some photos, Trafton shared. However, upon seeing Trafton’s commander (a specific card which one’s deck is built around in the Commander format of Magic), Post Malone decided to buy The One Ring on the spot.

Trafton’s commander in question was Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin - a commonly used commander in the format.

He also confirmed that the meeting happened on Thursday (July 20), the day of Post Malone’s concert in Toronto.

When asked if he knew what about Krenko sealed the deal for Post Malone, Trafton replied, “I don't know if he was checking me to see if I was like a true Magic player? But yeah, it was wild.”

Trafton didn’t get to hang out much with Post Malone in Toronto because it was running late after the concert and he had to work the next day.

However, the rapper invited him to his concert in Philadelphia, which he attended, and he got to see Post Malone play some Magic after the concert.

And though Trafton’s dream was to sell it to Post Malone, as he shared on his TikTok, he also told us that they were considering other offers. In fact, he had planned to sell it to another party the day after the fateful meeting with the artiste.

“The whole thing was going to go in a different direction,” he shared. “Like we saw Post Malone on Thursday. We were just going to go see him and take pictures because we had the thing already lined up. I probably would have signed the papers on Friday and sold it to someone else… We were on the verge of selling it to somebody else.”

Revealing his identity

In another TikTok video on 9 Aug, Trafton spoke about having to go incognito to collect his graded card from the security detail he hired to transport it to grading service PSA.

He even donned a disguise of sorts, and wore “a big, goofy sweater” (in the middle of July, which is summer for Toronto), aviators and a John Deere hat.

“I didn't want anyone to know who I was. Obviously, it's such a niche thing that we probably wouldn't have so much security, but at the same time, if one person knows, you know what I mean? It's a big thing, like, you know, people have done crazier things for less. I just had to remain anonymous,” he told Yahoo.

Despite maintaining his anonymity when the news of the discovery of the card broke, Trafton said that there were rumours going around in his workplace.

This was due to the fact that media reports then revealed the finder to be 36 (which Trafton was when he pulled the card), located in Toronto, and who was working specifically in retail and as a forklift driver/cashier. It didn’t help that Trafton had also taken leave during that time to manage everything that was going on.

He recalled, “When I went back to work, they're like, ‘Hey, so like, there's this card. Did you win it in like a poker game or something like that? I'm like, ‘I have no idea what you're talking about. I just took some leave of absence.’

“My HR lady pulled me into the office and she closed the door. She’s like, ‘Hey, there’s rumours going around.’ I’m like, ‘I don't know what you're talking about.’ She's like, ‘Oh, yeah? On the news, there's a 36-year-old forklift driver/cashier that just so happened to have the million-dollar card?’”

Trafton, who had just turned 37 when this occurred, deflected by using his age and insisted he didn’t know who she was talking about.

It was only after the sale that Trafton felt comfortable about revealing his identity. He had kept it secret for safety reasons, he admitted.

“Now, I feel more safe. Transaction’s done. I don't have a piece of cardboard that could potentially get me in trouble,” he said, adding that even he can’t touch the money at this point.

As for what happened to his US$2 million, Trafton said he’s met with a financial planner and has enough to cover his rent and bills every month while the rest goes into investments.

He said, “The premise is, if I go down to part-time [work] immediately, I can retire at 55. But if I continue to work full-time, it could be sooner.”

Amid the speculation of how much money The One Ring seller can actually get due to Canada’s tax laws, Trafton confirmed that he’s looking into that.

“I'm doing the right thing and looking into taxation lawyers. Once I know anything that I can make public, I will,” he assured.

Wants to open an Alpha pack

Unlike most people who might immediately splurge on big-ticket item(s), Trafton is a lot more prudent with the money, as he confessed to only giving himself a budget of US$5,000 to spend.

Trafton isn’t interested in snapping up old, valuable cards with that sum of money, though. He wants to open old boxes or packs and said it’ll be “wild” to open an Alpha pack.

The Alpha set is the first core set for Magic and was released on 5 Aug, 1993. The notable and valuable cards in this set are the Power Nine (of which the famous Black Lotus is a part of) and the original 10 dual lands.

While out of stock, an unopened Alpha pack on Troll and Toad is priced around US$7,000.

Trafton also said he’s played Magic since he was a kid, with a brief break in university. His favourite colour in the game is red and his first tournament deck was full of burn spells and four Ensnaring Bridges.

Said Trafton, “When I was little, I remember going to hockey rinks and they had these little card machines and you could put a quarter in and two cards come out. I didn't even know what Magic was back then…

“From that, I just started buying more packs and learning how to play during tournaments when I was a kid. Then in university, I kind of phased out of it a little and then probably about three years ago I got back into it? Just probably [during] Ikoria or just before Ikoria.”

Since some of the old cards are now really, really valuable, we wondered if Trafton kept any of his old collection.

And like most people who took a break from Magic way back when, he said he gave it away - to his manager at his part-time job during his university days.

He shared, “I had a manager who was really into Magic still, and he just had a baby, so I just gave him all my old collection… There must have been like 10 or 20 Lotus Petals in that box. Back then, it wasn’t worth anything. There was a bunch of medallions - stuff from like Tempest and Urza’s Saga.”

The Lotus Petals aren’t too much of a loss, we pointed out. After all, it’s about US$24 per piece. Urza’s Saga, however, has some really expensive cards.

“I try not to look at the pictures of what I used to have,” he said with a laugh.

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