A little over a year ago, Hallmark filed a UDRP against the Mahogany.com domain name. Not surprisingly, the domain registrant prevailed in the UDRP and was able to retain the domain name. Though I was expecting to see a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, the outcome would have been the same.
I just noticed that Mahogany.com is now owned by Hallmark Licensing. Using the Whois History tool at DomainTools, I can see that the domain name appears to have changed hands in August of 2021. Mahogany.com is being used by Hallmark’s Mahogany brand. Prior to the acquisition of the domain name, I believe Hallmark had been using a page within its Hallmark.com website for this brand.
I reached out to the prior registrant who defended this asset to see if he can share the sale price of Mahogany.com. Although I did not hear back, I do see there is a listing on Sedo for Mahogany.com with a $350,000 minimum offer. My bet is that this is a legacy listing that hadn’t been removed by the former registrant after selling the domain name.
Although I think it was a bad decision to file a UDRP before buying the domain name, I think Hallmark made a wise decision to acquire the Mahogany.com domain name asset. Mahogany.com is now essentially a standalone brand for Hallmark, and having its own brand match domain name shows that Hallmark places great value on this brand.
In light of the acquisition, I have added Mahogany.com to the Embrace.com list of domain name upgrades.