Mox Diamonds vs. Actual Diamonds

It's 1998. If you had put $10,000 into Mox Diamond Magic: The Gathering trading cards, an S&P 500 index fund, or "investment grade" natural diamonds, what would each investment be worth today?

As of November 5, 2026, the Mox Diamonds would have been worth $865,803 at the quoted card price, the S&P 500 fund $114,453 with dividends reinvested, and the natural diamond position $6,762 at current retail asking prices.

Historical comparison

The card position includes $10 of uninvested cash. The stock position reinvests dividends. The diamond position tracks a price list normalized to $10,000.

Position	End value	Multiple	CAGR
Mox Diamond · original Stronghold printing	$865,803	86.58×	16.83%
S&P 500 · SPY with dividends reinvested	$114,453	11.45×	8.87%
Natural diamonds · one-carat F/VVS2 retail quote	$6,762	0.68×	−1.36%

Returns are nominal. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) covers approximately 28.7 years. The SPY result reflects fund expenses. Figures exclude taxes, trading costs and the costs of holding physical assets.

The card and the entry price

Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game. Players build decks and use mana to cast spells. Land cards are the usual source of mana, and players can normally play only one land per turn. Mox Diamond, first printed in Stronghold on March 2, 1998, costs zero mana to cast. To put it into play, you discard a land card from your hand. Once in play, it can produce one mana of any color, including on the first turn. That lets players cast spells earlier at the cost of a land card they could have played later.

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A March 17, 1998 trade list valued two mint or near-mint copies at $15 each. Other launch-month auctions showed bids of $15 and $16. An August auction recorded three copies sold at $15.50 each. These observations support $15 as an estimate for a small purchase. The calculation assumes 666 copies could be sourced at that price.

March 21 auction · March 11 auction

The chart uses dated price observations for the early years. Usenet sellers asked $13.50 in June 1999 and $7.50 in December 2000. Scrye reported median prices of $11.75 in July/August 2002, $12 in April 2003, and $15.50 in February 2004. A May 2010 forum price guide recorded a $49.99 Star City Games quote. The daily MTGGoldfish series begins in November 2010.

1999 Usenet listing · 2000 Usenet listing · Scrye #52 · Scrye #58 · Scrye #68 · May 2010 price guide

At $15 per card, $10,000 buys 666 copies for $9,990, leaving $10 in cash.

Valuation and execution

MTGGoldfish quoted $1,299.99 per copy on November 5, 2026. The estimated portfolio value is the quote multiplied by the number of cards, plus any residual cash. To match SPY, sale proceeds plus residual cash would have to equal $114,453. The table holds the November 5 quote fixed. “Exit per card” is the sale price needed to match SPY.

MTGGoldfish tabletop price history

Entry per card	Copies	Ending value	Exit per card
$15	666	$865,803	$171.84
$20	500	$649,995	$228.91
$25	400	$519,996	$286.13

At the base entry price, the break-even sale price is about 87% below the quoted price, before fees. That gap measures how much room the modeled position has to absorb a lower sale price. It gives no estimate of market depth or how long a sale would take. Card condition, dealer spreads and the effect of bringing hundreds of copies to market all matter. There is also selection bias: the analysis picks one collectible after observing its performance, while SPY tracked a diversified index throughout the period.

Benchmark construction

S&P 500. SPY was already trading in 1998. The return uses the ratio of its dividend-adjusted closing prices on March 2, 1998 and November 5, 2026, approximately $64.04 and $733.00 in the same series. The calculation uses the unrounded prices.

State Street fund profile · SPY historical prices

Natural diamonds. “Investment-grade” describes a sales category. GIA grades individual stones on attributes such as color, clarity, cut and carat weight. This comparison uses a 1.00-carat round natural diamond with F color and VVS2 clarity. Rapaport quoted $7,500 per carat at both year-end 1997 and year-end 1998. Its published annual series gives $8,000 at year-end 2025, the last point on the historical line.

GIA grading reports · Rapaport annual price table

On November 5, 2026, Brilliance listed four in-stock, GIA-certified natural stones matching that weight, shape, color and clarity at $4,756, $4,973, $5,170 and $5,195. The median asking price was $5,071.50. Scaling the $7,500 entry benchmark to $10,000 gives a current value of $6,762. The grade has held up better than the investment. One whole stone bought at the entry benchmark plus $2,500 held in cash would be worth $7,572 at the same mark. The chart shows the retail quote separately from the Rapaport series. Resale proceeds depend on what a buyer bids for the stone.

Quote 1 · Quote 2 · Quote 3 · Quote 4

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What if you bought the other 43 rares?

The median Stronghold rare excluding Mox Diamond turned $10,000 into $10,000 in nominal dollars. Twenty-one of the 43 fell below their starting bids, and six beat SPY. The best of the other rares were Volrath’s Stronghold ($282,240) and Sliver Queen ($275,027).

One March 11, 1998 Usenet auction listed a bid for every rare in the set. I used those bids and MTGGoldfish’s November 5, 2026 tabletop quotes for the original Stronghold printings. Each card’s ending value is $10,000 multiplied by its quote divided by its bid. These are marks before costs. The auction records show bids for individual copies, and actual prices for buying or selling a large position could differ.

March 11 auction · MTGGoldfish Stronghold prices · SPY adjusted prices

$10,000 invested on March 11, 1998	End value
Median rare excluding Mox Diamond	$10,000
Equal-dollar basket of the other 43 rares	$42,223
Equal-dollar basket of all 44 rares	$59,729
SPY, dividends reinvested	$112,148
Mox Diamond alone at the auction’s $16 bid	$812,494

The baskets divide the starting money equally by card name. Buying whole copies and keeping the leftover cash would put the basket of 43 at $42,038. The SPY comparison here starts on the auction date, nine days after the release-date comparison above. Hermit Druid ends at $112,200, just $52 ahead of SPY on the auction-date comparison and below SPY on the release-date comparison.

All 44 prices and returns

Rank and card	1998 bid → 2026 quote	End value
1. Mox Diamond	$16.00 → $1,299.99	$812,494
2. Volrath's Stronghold	$5.00 → $141.12	$282,240
3. Sliver Queen	$11.00 → $302.53	$275,027
4. Burgeoning	$2.00 → $35.66	$178,300
5. Grave Pact	$2.00 → $33.52	$167,600
6. Dream Halls	$3.00 → $35.79	$119,300
7. Hermit Druid	$1.00 → $11.22	$112,200
8. Mortuary	$1.75 → $18.30	$104,571
9. Horn of Greed	$2.00 → $17.99	$89,950
10. Awakening	$1.00 → $7.73	$77,300
11. Volrath's Shapeshifter	$3.00 → $15.01	$50,033
12. Ensnaring Bridge	$3.00 → $13.55	$45,167
13. Jinxed Ring	$1.00 → $3.00	$30,000
14. Shaman en-Kor	$2.00 → $6.00	$30,000
15. Thalakos Deceiver	$1.50 → $4.09	$27,267
16. Intruder Alarm	$2.50 → $6.37	$25,480
17. Hidden Retreat	$1.00 → $2.39	$23,900
18. Ruination	$3.00 → $5.18	$17,267
19. Soltari Champion	$2.00 → $3.34	$16,700
20. Reins of Power	$2.50 → $3.79	$15,160
21. Sacred Ground	$3.00 → $4.05	$13,500
22. Mogg Infestation	$2.50 → $3.36	$13,440
23. Crovax the Cursed	$1.00 → $1.00	$10,000
24. Invasion Plans	$1.50 → $1.49	$9,933
25. Evacuation	$2.00 → $1.52	$7,600
26. Stronghold Assassin	$2.00 → $1.32	$6,600
27. Portcullis	$3.00 → $1.95	$6,500
28. Shard Phoenix	$2.50 → $1.61	$6,440
29. Rolling Stones	$2.00 → $1.28	$6,400
30. Sword of the Chosen	$1.00 → $0.54	$5,400
31. Skeleton Scavengers	$1.00 → $0.50	$5,000
32. Silver Wyvern	$2.00 → $0.99	$4,950
33. Spitting Hydra	$1.00 → $0.46	$4,600
34. Spike Breeder	$1.00 → $0.42	$4,200
35. Amok	$1.00 → $0.40	$4,000
36. Carnassid	$1.50 → $0.45	$3,000
37. Flowstone Mauler	$1.50 → $0.40	$2,667
38. Mindwarper	$1.50 → $0.40	$2,667
39. Warrior Angel	$3.00 → $0.64	$2,133
40. Verdant Touch	$2.50 → $0.50	$2,000
41. Volrath's Laboratory	$2.50 → $0.50	$2,000
42. Pursuit of Knowledge	$4.00 → $0.75	$1,875
43. Volrath's Gardens	$2.50 → $0.45	$1,800
44. Revenant	$3.00 → $0.43	$1,433

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The winners and losers

Original Stronghold card images via Scryfall