TL;DR – It was the last set with original artwork, that was one of the last sets printed when Bella Sara was losing popularity (which meant less were printed), and the cards have been actively targeted for scalping. So, rarity, availability, and greed.
Sections:
This background is critical for understanding some of what makes the set so expensive. This section is split into three parts:
A) The Set Itself
Winter Festival, to reiterate, was the last set with original artwork that was mostly of horses (technically, Chibis was the last set with original artwork but most people, myself included, don’t count that). The set included the artworks of the standard herd (herd Elemyn) cards, the legendaries, various other horses, the human cast, and the story cards.
This was the first set released post-popularity boom that did not contain printed stickers in each pack. The packs also diverged from previous formats in that the fifth card in each pack was not guaranteed to be a story card. The foils in this set were a flat mirror effect, but the foil cards did not contain the standard “S" before the card number. Additionally, the story cards were not numbered at all.2) The Timing of the Set
Note: much of the following is speculation, which has not been officially confirmed in any capacity. It might be wrong. The many mishaps with the physical set itself (see above) seem to spell out the trouble that was ahead for Bella Sara. This has led many to theorize that the company already knew it was headed downhill, and thus, printed less of the cards. This seems to be upheld with the relative scarcity of them available for trade or sale.3) Scalping
Winter Festival was not particularly hard to find or expensive prior to 2020 and continuing into that year. There were less collectors and less market for Bella Sara in general.(above image taken from a good article).
However, Bella Sara has seen a steady increase of collectors returning since 2022, which was also a major card collecting boom for other card collecting hobbies. Many of those returning were also slightly younger than many of the more established collectors, and had more memories of the later sets, including Winter Festival.
With more people and more interest, Winter Festival cards began to get snapped up. Those that were available for trade disappeared pretty quickly, and fetched more of a high price. There was a person on Facebook in particular who had a large quantity of WF because they had bought a couple of booster boxes years and years ago, and this is where many of the older collectors got their WF (including me, though I don’t count as an old head).
Even that person ran out of WF they were willing to trade around 2023. This same individual decided to list most of their remaining WF cards as an Ebay Auction in Winter of 2023.
That’s when shit got expensive, and that’s what put WF on the map for scalping.
This picture was taken on December 29th, 2023, when this auction ended. This is one of the first times a large auction of WF had happened.
Now, at the math, that’s about 13 bucks a card. At the time of this lot, individual WF cards were selling for between 25 and 35 USD, so this lot was a steal!
But big numbers are big numbers.
People come and go in the Bella Sara community. Those who stick around tend to understand the actual rarity of cards, and thus some, like the above seller, have decided to cash out. Prices continued to creep up in 2024 and into 2025, and then-- Another influential bid lot.
As of the writing of this article (9/10/2025), here is a sampling of the average, normal Ebay price for non-foil Winter Festival cards:
Many of these that are being sold are from collectors, either ones that had extra cards, or those that are deciding to sell their collection. To reiterate: not many people have these, and someone who doesn’t know their cards or how to differentiate them is unlikely to list them like this.
So; the price has gone high and people have listed them high and people have bought them high. That’s kind of how it works and now we’re here.
So--
Surely you are looking at the price of WF and your eyeballs are popping out of your head and people would pay that much for some pretty paper? Well, people can and people do. And after all the justified griping about the cost, you might be left the feeling: you still want those cards.
And that’s okay.
Bella Sara is a consumption community at its core. I personally, though I have spent lots of money on this hobby, refuse to pay more than 35 USD for a single card. Because of that, even I still have a few WF I’m missing and I’m willing to wait for. But enough of me rambling, and “just wait lol" is probably not the helpful advice I’m supposed to be getting to in this section.
A) Buying
Well, it’s an option. You’re probably not able to afford paying 100-150 a pop for WF, and even if you can or there’s one card you really want I’d say it’s a poor financial decision. Card hobbies aren’t stocks and you’re probably not going to get that money back.
However, there are still good listings available on Ebay. The key to finding them is consistently looking at the site. I have periods of time were I check Ebay pretty much daily. And sometimes, you find steals!
B) Trading
Winter Festival are not often available for trading. But they are available, and that is an option if you have something the trader wants. Keep an eye out! I traded for almost all of my WF when I got back in to collecting.C) Lookalikes, Inserts, Flying that Black Flag
It isn’t known to that many people, but two WF artworks were reprinted into the much more cost-effective and readily available Herds of North of North set: Elemyn and Jubilee. That’s fucking awesome! The herd patron and the queen? And to show, these are basically identical cards in terms of quality:
Another option is to just print out the cards at home and cut them to scale! You can use images from the Bella Sara wiki to do this. However, do keep in mind that these fake cards (also called proxies) are only legal if they are for personal use. In the United States, it is illegal to distribute fake cards (this means either selling OR trading) whether you state that they are fakes or not. Obviously, some people aren’t comfortable with this morally and/or don’t have the tools needed to do this. This is an intensely personal decision that--given the absurd pricing of legitimate Winter Fest cards--some might not be comfortable with.
However, they can look pretty good for a fraction of the cost!
Here’s a print out I did using images from the wiki:
There isn’t much to be done outside of these options, however. A lot of collecting is patience and being in the right place at the right time. I hope some of this has helped and if so, I’m glad!!
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