- The 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' card was originally custom-made for Tyler Gressle as part of a Make-A-Wish request.
- Gressle said he has cherished the card for a long time (18 years!), and he's finally ready to sell it.
The world's rarest 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' card is set to be auctioned on eBay later this month. There's only one known copy of the card in existence, as it was created in 2005 as part of a Make-A-Wish fulfillment for Tyler Gresse, who had an extremely rare form of liver cancer.
The card, called "Tyler the Great Warrior," was custom-made for Tyler Gressle when he was 14. Gresse was diagnosed with a "rare liver cancer that only had 200 cases in the entire country," he said in a recent YouTube mini-documentary produced by Alex Cimo, a creator known for his trading card content. Gresse joked that he initially wanted a Porshe through Make-A-Wish, a nonprofit that realizes requests for children with critical illnesses, but he wasn't old enough to drive at the time.
In the documentary, Gresse also announced that, after 18 years, he's finally ready to part ways with his personalized card.
"I've cherished it for a really long time and I think it would be nice for others to be able to cherish it ... or someone who's going to really truly value that card and the history and everything that came to create it," Gressle said.
Next to a Porsche, 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' was his biggest obsession at the time. Make-A-Wish flew him and his parents out to New York City and introduced him to the show creator, Kazuki Takhashi, its art designer, and various voice actors.
Gressle said in the video that he got to choose between a couple of designs for the card that incorporated sketches he made. He also said he got to watch the process of creating a card, which included stamping the design out and pressing the card into a sealed protective case. Until a professional recently had to assess the card, it had never been touched by anyone's bare hands before.
Gressle is choosing to sell it today because he wants to start a family and own and operate his own business. He also said the anticipation surrounding this card and its potential sale was making avid collectors antsy.
Although Gressle has finally decided to sell it in 2023, he has seriously contemplated it several times over the last decade. In an Instagram interview from 2015, he said he was tempted to sell it at one point because he was "very poor" and had just lost his first job and house.
"The highest serious offer I had ... exceeded a little over $75k USD," he said at the time.
According to Kotaku, the auction organizers don't have any specific expectations for the card's selling price, since a card this rare has never been sold before. However previously rare cards — both for its place in tournament history and its limited printing — have been valued at tens of thousands of US dollars, if not millions. In 2013, a card called the "Tournament Black Luster Soldier," which was created as an exclusive prize for a 1999 tournament, is reportedly valued at $2 million.
The eBay auction will begin on April 19. Insider reached out to Gressle for comment.