The history of The Lost Vale, the never-released expansion for Ultima 8, should be well-enough known to Ultima fans. It was cancelled at the every end of its development, supposedly after the gold master had been prepared, and to this date there has been precious little material pertaining to it that has come to light. The plot documents were unearthed a couple of years ago, and one single box for the game popped up for sale on eBay a number of years ago. Just the box, mind you; the only one known to exist.

(The process of verifying the authenticity of the box was rather interesting, at least at the time. Ultimately, Stephen Emond was able to verify the validity of the UPC code with EA proper.)

At any rate, the box for The Lost Vale has once again appeared on eBay, for the none-too-reasonable price of 10,000 Euros (although the seller is evidently willing to entertain other offers). It is the same box that was put up for sale back in 2005, and…well, it’s probably one of the rarest pieces of Ultima history in existence. It’s quite the piece for any Ultima collection — any gaming collection, really — so, if you’ve a pile of cash to spare, you might consider contacting the seller and seeing about arranging a deal.