It’s no secret that Secret Lair drops can be worth a lot of money. Now that they’re mostly all limited-run products, scalpers and investors are having a field day. If you can get in early enough, there can be serious money to be made. This is especially true for old Universes Beyond drops or those that really pushed the boat out creatively.
Unsurprisingly, given that Secret Lair is all about pushing the boat out, we’ve seen all manner of prized drops recently. That being said, few drops have come close to the desirability of The Strange Sands: Island. Released as a Chaos Vault drop, this Secret Lair took the MTG community by storm. Now, two months later, it’s selling for a serious premium.
Secret Lair Drop: The Strange Sands: Island
It’s no wonder that MTG players were intrigued by this specific Strange Sands Secret Lair. From the moment it was revealed, everyone noticed that this island looked a little, or rather a lot, like a vagina. This immediately caused a huge amount of buzz in the MTG community, which carried through all the way to the drop’s release.
Unsurprisingly, when this Chaos Vault drop went live, the Strange Sands: Island was the first to sell out. Both the foil and non-foil drops were snapped up far sooner than any others even came close to selling out. To this day, only one other Strange Sands drop has sold out, which is the foil Swamp.
Clearly, for this bundle of Islands, there was significantly more demand than there was supply. This persists even now, as the prices for this bundle have been steadily increasing on the secondary market. In particular, the foil edition of The Strange Sands: Island drop has become incredibly expensive in recent weeks.
If you were fast enough, this drop could originally be picked up for $39.99 from the Secret Lair website. Unfortunately, this price really didn’t last long, as upon hitting the secondary market, sellers began listing sealed copies for $86+. Since then, the price has doubled again, as recent sales have topped out at over $175!
Notably, the price for this sealed product is at a steep premium compared to other variants. Currently, the non-foil edition of this drop sells for just $66 on average. You can also pick up these Islands individually, however, you don’t save much. With average prices of $6.64 for non-foil and $13 for foil, it’s clear these Islands are expensive no matter what.
An Expensive Trend
Unsurprisingly, this Strange Sands Secret Lair drop isn’t the only one to become more expensive post-release. A lot of Secret Lairs, especially the ones that sell out, tend to end up going this way. Sealed copies of the Artist Series: Jesper Ejsing drop, for instance, is now selling for $45 and $52 as non-foil and foil, respectively.
Clearly, not every sold-out Secret Lair is automatically worth a massive premium. If there is enough ongoing demand, however, then prices can absolutely soar. Unsurprisingly, the Hatsune Miku: Sakura Superstar drop is a perfect example of that. Post-release, sealed foil copies of this drop were going for $71, however, that’s only increased as time has passed.
Since sealed Secret Lair products are, obviously, sealed, the available supply only decreases over time. Anyone who purchases one of these sealed products to open it themselves takes it out of circulation, essentially making all remaining products more expensive. This has caused the price of the sealed foil Hatsune Miku: Sakura Superstar drop to hit $164.
No Sure Things
Given this trend of sold-out Secret Lair drops being more expensive than the purchase price, you might think this is a real-life infinite money glitch. Sadly, this isn’t the case. Not only does selling Secret Lairs require time, capital, and effort, but there’s no telling what will sell out. For better or worse, Wizards of the Coast has seemingly become quite good at knowing what players want.
Following the switch to the limited-run printing model for Secret Lair drops, everything sold out incredibly quickly. Now, however, even drops that are seemingly in ultra-high demand don’t sell out instantly. The recent SpongeBob SquarePants drops are the latest example of this since demand was expected to be through the roof.
This demand was evident as soon as the Our Boss Is On Vacation Superdrop began. Past problems with exceptionally long queue times and crashes returned in full force as fans flocked to the site. Despite this literally overwhelming demand, the SpongeBob Secret Lairs took a good few hours to sell out.
At the time of writing, the non-foil Legends of Bikini Bottom drop is even still available for purchase. From this, we can obviously assume that Wizards is bumping up the print volume for Secret Lair drops they know will be popular. This makes predicting what will sell out first rather difficult, as it often ends up being a surprise.
Due to this, accurately predicting which Secret Lair drop will have the most long-term demand is a real challenge. While it may be hard to recommend sealed Secret Lair products as a reliable investment, there’s no denying they can get expensive.
