I Flipped a UNION ARENA Card for $1600
While everyone is looking to the Umbreon ex Special Illustration Rare as the defining chase card right now, unbeknownst to many, one of Bandai’s latest TCGs, UNION ARENA, has several insanely valuable cards that you can get from packs collecting dust at your local game store. Some of these are worth even more than the Umbreon ex SIR.
Just as the frenzy for the latest Pokemon TCG set: Prismatic Evolutions was beginning to take the world by storm, I had what could be a once in a life time experience of pulling a serialized UNION ARENA card from the Demon Slayer set.
Found in one of two boxes that cost me only $80 each, pulling a card that is totally unique like a serialized UA card was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my TCG collecting career. And while there’s nothing that can really match the feeling of pulling something rare like that, flipping the card for $1600 online a few days later came close.
What is a UNION ARENA Serialized Card?
Serialized cards are a unique card released in UNION ARENA of which there are a limited run. The Serialized triple star SR Tanjiro Kamado is the rarest and most valuable and rare card in the entire Demon Slayer set. Indeed, this print run is so limited and so rare that there are actually only 100 of these cards in existence in the entire world.
Being one of these limited print run cards adds an insane amount of value to the card that otherwise would only go for a little over $300 in their basic triple star SR form.
It’s a really unique and collectible feature that drives a lot of excitement for cards in UNION ARENA, and not something you’ll find in Prismatic Evolutions despite how valuable and exciting those cards are as well.
How much are UNION ARENA serialized cards worth?
Given the limited number of these cards and their rarity, it’s very hard to find reliable market data for them. However, if you browse the “sold” listings on eBay you can get some clues to see how much these cards are worth. For the most part, data seems to point towards serialized cards being worth somewhere in the upper 1000s, hovering around 1700-2000. There is one Lelouch Serialized card from Code Geass on eBay that shows up in the “sold” filter for these cards. However when I looked further into that one it seems the card was not actually sold but rather the sale ended, meaning you should probably ignore that one if you come across it.
Realistically, I would put the monetary value for a serialized UNION ARENA card at right around $1800.
While I probably could’ve eked out another hundred dollars or so from the card, I felt like the buyer I was in negotiations with was serious about purchasing and after several offers back and forth that brought up his original offer by $400, we settled on $1600 as a final price.
Not a bad sum of money from tearing a few packs open!
While these serialized cards are probably a bit too rare for most collectors to chase seriously, there are plenty of other valuable cards in the UNION ARENA lineup that are comparatively easier to pull. Still, it feels a little strange that while people are raiding stores for Prismatic Evolutions sets like UNION ARENEA: Demon Slayer that have cards which are just as valuable as the most expensive in modern Pokemon sets are going largely unnoticed.
Yet the fact that UNION ARENA serialized cards command the kind of value that they do on in the TCG secondary market and the widespread player base growing up around the game certainly bodes well for the fledgling anime TCG.
Meanwhile, this flip from two booster boxes to a card sale worth $1600 in value two days later is my biggest TCG flip of all time, and one that I’ll remember fondly – even if I do miss my Tanjiro #75 just a little bit.
