Yu-Gi-Oh! Blue-Eyes White Dragon LOB-001 1st Edition PSA 9

Kaiba's dragon

Kazuki Takahashi created Blue-Eyes White Dragon for his manga Yu-Gi-Oh!, which began in Weekly Shonen Jump in September 1996. He wanted a striking monster for Seto Kaiba, the hero's rival, and named it so readers could picture its colors from the name alone.

In the story it is the rarest card in the world. Kaiba takes one from the grandfather of the hero, Yugi Mutou, and collects the other three through extortion and blackmail. The anime's first episode, The Heart of the Cards, set the number at four copies in existence. The card's own text calls it 'virtually invincible.'

In the real game, it led the first English set as card LOB-001, a Level 8 LIGHT Dragon with 3000 attack and 2500 defense, printed as an Ultra Rare.

From Shonen Jump to Upper Deck

Takahashi, born Kazuo Takahashi in Tokyo on October 4, 1961, ran Yu-Gi-Oh! in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1996 to 2004; the manga sold more than 40 million copies. He died on July 4, 2022, off Nago, Okinawa, reportedly while helping three people caught in a rip current.

Konami launched the card game in Japan in 1999. Upper Deck Entertainment announced exclusive North American distribution rights on February 11, 2002, and released Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon less than a month later, on March 8. Upper Deck kept the license until it lost the rights at the end of the decade. In 2009 Guinness World Records named Yu-Gi-Oh! the top-selling trading card game in the world.

The first English set

Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon combined 126 cards from two Japanese sets of 2000, Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon and Phantom God. Packs held nine cards, boxes held 24 packs, and the set had 2 Secret Rares, 10 Ultra Rares and 10 Super Rares. A typical box gave up only two Ultra Rares, and five of the ten Ultra slots went to the pieces of Exodia.

1st Edition and Unlimited versions went on sale the same day. The European English version, coded LOB-E, followed in the United Kingdom in December 2002 with only 103 of the 126 cards, and Asian-English, Oceanic and many language versions followed. The set was reprinted repeatedly in tins and collections, so the '1st Edition' marking and the LOB-001 code matter.

That year Americans watched the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the first Spider-Man film and the first season of American Idol.

Why a 9 is the copy people trade

A 1st Edition card has '1st Edition' printed on it and a gold Eye of Anubis seal; other prints have a silver one. The North American 1st Edition run was printed on two card stocks: a glossy one and a rippled foil collectors call 'wavy.' A 2019 survey by the grading company reported that wavy cards are believed to be about a third of the 1st Edition population, and they often carry a premium.

Production was rough. Collectors cited centering problems, ink splotches, factory lines, square-cut corners and edge dings straight from the pack. That makes Gem Mint 10s scarce and puts most of the high-end trading at the PSA 9 level. The same survey noted that Legend of Blue Eyes had the highest submission rate of any Yu-Gi-Oh! set and that demand was strong for cards below Gem Mint.

PSA's CardFacts page lists 309 LOB-001 1st Edition copies at PSA 9 and 106 at PSA 10, with 202 at PSA 8. A PSA 9 here is the North American 1st Edition only; the European LOB-E001 and other regional printings have their own population entries and their own prices.

A market bellwether

PSA's sales record shows a steady run of PSA 9 auctions. In 2023 copies sold between $4,630 and $6,100, apart from a June sale at $630 that sits far below every other result on the list. Through 2024 they settled between $3,383 and $5,106. In 2025 the range widened, from $3,100 to $8,201 in August.

Some slabs come back again and again. Certification 80417767 sold for $4,348 in October 2024 and $4,538 in March 2025. Certification 96720943 sold for $4,808 on April 6, 2025, and for $3,100 three weeks later.

Prices kept rising in 2026. Pricing records show PSA 9 copies selling between about $7,600 and $12,500 in the first nine months of the year, with wavy copies near the top, though those records do not say whether each was an auction or a fixed-price sale.

The card that started it

Blue-Eyes has been reprinted for more than two decades, in Kaiba decks, collector boxes and a 25th-anniversary Quarter Century Secret Rare. None of those replaces the 2002 1st Edition, the card collectors describe as the base from which every other Yu-Gi-Oh! set begins.

Because PSA 10s are scarce and trade rarely, the PSA 9 is the copy that changes hands often enough to show where the market stands.

The numbers

Set

Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon (LOB), 126 cards; 2 Secret, 10 Ultra, 10 Super Rares

Packaging

9 cards per pack, 24 packs per box; about 2 Ultra Rares per box

Card

LOB-001, Ultra Rare; Level 8 LIGHT Dragon, Normal Monster, 3000 ATK / 2500 DEF

PSA population (1st Edition LOB-001)

PSA 10: 106; PSA 9: 309; PSA 8: 202; PSA 7: 102 (PSA CardFacts)

European version

LOB-E, released December 2002 with 103 of the 126 cards

Timeline

1. Sep 17, 1996

   Yu-Gi-Oh! begins serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump.

2. 1999

   Konami launches the Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Card Game in Japan.

3. Feb 11, 2002

   Upper Deck announces exclusive North American distribution rights.

4. Mar 8, 2002

   Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon goes on sale in North America.

5. Dec 2002

   The European English version of the set is released in the United Kingdom.

6. Oct 14, 2003

   Upper Deck announces the original booster packs, including LOB, will be retired.

7. Jul 7, 2009

   Guinness World Records names Yu-Gi-Oh! the top-selling trading card game.

8. Jul 3, 2019

   A grading-company survey describes wavy and glossy stocks and LOB's high submission rate.

9. Jul 4, 2022

   Kazuki Takahashi dies off Okinawa.

10. Sep 27, 2023

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $6,100.

11. Apr 2025

    One PSA 9 slab sells twice in three weeks, for $4,808 and then $3,100.

12. Aug 12, 2025

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $8,201.

The world in 2002

• Jan 8, 2002

  President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act.

• Feb 3, 2002

  The New England Patriots win their first Super Bowl.

• Feb 8, 2002

  The Winter Olympics open in Salt Lake City.

• May 3, 2002

  Spider-Man opens in theaters.

• Sep 4, 2002

  Kelly Clarkson wins the first American Idol.

• Oct 27, 2002

  The Anaheim Angels win their first World Series.

• Nov 25, 2002

  The Department of Homeland Security is established.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Yu-Gi-Oh! Blue-Eyes White Dragon LOB-001 1st Edition PSA 9 is number 78 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (85 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• In the anime's first episode, only four Blue-Eyes White Dragons exist in the world.
• The European version of the set left out 23 of the North American set's 126 cards.
• Five of LOB's ten Ultra Rares are pieces of Exodia the Forbidden One.
• The same PSA 9 slab sold twice in April 2025, losing $1,708 in three weeks.
• Upper Deck announced the deal to bring Yu-Gi-Oh! to North America less than a month before the set came out.