That one-of-a-kind Magic: The Gathering card is already worth $1M and it's not even out yet

Remember that one-of-a-kind Magic: The Gathering card that was unveiled in March as part of the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth crossover set? If you've got it, Dave and Adam's Card World wants it, and they're prepared to give you $1 million for it.

This particular Magic card is literally as unique as it gets. Only a single copy of the 1 of 1 Ring, as it's known, will be printed; it will then be tucked away inside an English-language Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth collector booster pack, and fired off into the world. That means whoever finds the card will be the only person on the entire planet to own the card.

That extreme rarity gives it a certain inherent value, particularly to collectors—collectors such as, for instance, Dave and Adam's, a collectibles company that deals in cards, comics, and "autographed memorabilia," which is offering a $1 million bounty on the card. Simply put, if you find the card, Dave and Adam's will give you a million bucks for it.

Of course, Dave and Adam's deals in Magic cards, and all of this is a ploy to sell them. And holy cow, they are expensive: "Booster Boxes" of the Tales of Middle-earth set—12 packs per box, 15 cards per pack—are currently pre-selling for $425, which works out to roughly $35 for a single pack of cards, or $2.33 per card. Two bucks would buy me 10 packs of baseball or Star Wars cards when I was a kid, and I'd get some goddamn chewing gum in the bargain, too.

It's outrageous—obscene, even—but, apparently, not out of line. Philip Palmer, one of our resident Magic: The Gathering experts, told me that while $35 per pack is on the high side of the pricing scale, it's not really an outlier. "Collector boosters are more expensive [than set or draft boosters] because every card in the pack is guaranteed to be a foil, full art, or special showcase frame, and they have multiple rares or mythic rares," he explained.

And in this particular case, there's also that one very unique card that's worth a lot of money. The odds of you finding it aren't great, but if you do, you'll be in good shape for a very nice summer.

Believe it or not, Dave and Adam's isn't the only one offering money for the 1 of 1 Ring card: Yesterday, NFL linebacker and card collector Cassius Marsh offered $500,000 for the card. I'm afraid he's going to have to up his game if he wants to stay in the hunt.

This isn't the first time Dave and Adam's has offered a bounty like this: Earlier this year it paid $250,000 to a collector who found a 1/1 Druw Jones Superfractor baseball card. 

There is one catch: The $1 million 1 of 1 Ring bounty is only valid until July 17. That gives hopeful collectors a little less than a month to find the card and claim the prize—the card set is scheduled to go live on June 23—but it also means that Dave and Adam's can use the promo to encourage card sales without necessarily having to pay out the bounty, if the card goes unfound until after the bounty expires.