Red-Eyes Black Dragon is the second most famous dragon card in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, coming after only Blue-Eyes White Dragon in terms of how iconic it is.
It was first printed all the way back in the first set, Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and has seen multiple different reprints over the years, yet has always remained firmly on the outskirts of relevancy.
You’ve never seen a Red-Eyes deck top a competition on a national level, and there’s a reason for that, but that doesn’t change that some of the cards are worth a fair bit of money.
Ultra Rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon (Retro Pack 1)
Back when Yu-Gi-Oh was just entering into the Synchro era with Duelist Genesis, Konami decided to print a collection of hard-to-find cards from earlier sets in a set that they dubbed a ‘Retro Pack’.
This pack was entirely made up of cards from the original Yu-Gi-Oh anime, with no focus given to the Yu-Gi-Oh GX era of Yu-Gi-Oh, and included cards such as Relinquished, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Dark Magician, and Red-Eyes Black Dragon.
As this was only the second time that Red Eyes had been printed in a European set (third if you count a Swedish Shonen Jump promo from 2005, but few do), it’s worth a decent amount of money and was considered one of the chase cards of this specific set.
If you want this printing of Red-Eyes Black Dragon, which features the original artwork for the card in an Ultra Rare printing, then you’re looking at an asking price of around $174. Of course, this price can increase depending on the quality of the card and whether the card has been PSA graded.
Secret Rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon (2002 Collector’s Tin)
Our second entry on this list is also the very first collector’s tin to ever be made (now, you might know these as the Megatin packs) which featured characters from the anime on the front of the box along with one of six promo cards in a secret rare printing. These six cards were:
- Dark Magician
- Summoned Skull
- Blue-Eyes White Dragon
- Lord of D
- Red-Eyes Black Dragon
- Black Skull Dragon
The cards that people went after the most were, as you’d expect, Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon due to how popular they are and how much they’re tied to the anime in extremely distinct ways, but the Red-Eyes Black Dragon tin was still popular, perhaps due to Joey’s natural charm.
These tins were indeed collector’s items, and sold out extremely quickly due to being printed at the height of Yu-Gi-Oh fever, meaning that getting your hands on one now is near impossible, and getting your hands specifically on the promo cards that were printed in this set can be even harder.
Still, if you really want a copy of that early secret rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon then you’re looking at roughly $95 for a 1st edition version of the card in a decent overall quality.
Ultra Pharaoh’s Rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon (Magnificent Mavens)
Magnificent Mavens was the very first set in the TCG to get Pharaoh’s Rare versions of popular cards, and due to this, they’re worth a small fortune. The following cards were printed in this new rarity, one of which will be extremely familiar to you if you’re reading this list:
- Gravekeeper’s Trap
- Millenium-Eyes Restrict
- Black Luster Soldier- Soldier of Chaos
- Change of Heart
- Lightning Storm
- Triple Tactics Talent
- Blue-Eyes White Dragon
- Red-Eyes Black Dragon
- Elemental HERO Neos
- Dark Magician Girl
- Reinforcement of the Army
- Necrovalley
- Gold Sarcophagus
- The Seal of Orichalcos
- Toon Kingdom
- The True Name
- Crystal Bond
- Mirror Force
While all of these cards are worth a decent amount of money due to the rarity boost that they gain, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon is the one we’re going to focus on as it’s worth around $185 for a 1st edition printing of the card.
Still, for that money, you get an absolutely beautiful printing of one of the most iconic cards in all of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Parallel Rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon (World Championship JPP Cards)
Yu-Gi-Oh is known for often giving out promo cards with various releases, something that is actually common among various different TCGs.
Pokemon also used to do it often with the releases of their movies (and Yu-Gi-Oh did the same thing back when the movie was released), but they also give out promo cards to people who enter official Yu-Gi-Oh competitions.
Sometimes these cards come in the form of actual packs, but sometimes they come in the form of individual cards. A parallel rare version of Red-Eyes Black Dragon was one of these cards during the 2019 World Championship in Japan.
It is worth noting that this card is printed exclusively in Japanese due to where the tournament was held, but even then it’s worth a small fortune.
You’re looking at around $500 to get your hands on a copy of this card, and that’s the lower end of the spectrum compared to some eye-watering options on the table.
Ultra Rare Red-Eyes Black Dragon (Legend of Blue-Eyes 1st Edition)
Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the very first set to be printed in Yu-Gi-Oh, and while it didn’t really contain any cards that remain relevant in the meta to this day, it did contain a lot of cards that are worth a lot of money due to being the first printings of those cards.
As you’d expect the main chase card from the set is a first edition printing of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, but the Red-Eyes Black Dragon’s first printing from this set is also worth a fair amount of money.
A PSA 10 gem mint condition graded copy of it sold for $10,600 in January 2021, and if you want a copy of this card then you’ll be looking at similar prices across the board.
Yu-Gi-Oh players are known for loving archetypes from the anime, so it’s not like this is ever going to go down in price, too.
