And it begins

So I began playing Magic: the Gathering (MTG) back in 1995, right after Homelands was released.  I was more of a player then, and just bought and traded cards to build decks to play.  I played and collected cards up until Exodus, and had to stop because I had found the pastime of drinking and partying, so my budget switched from MTG to last call.

Since I stopped collecting, I kept playing with the cards that I did own.  Finding a few friends to teach, and other friends that still played but did not buy any new cards.  Since then, I have plunged back into MTG as a player, but more as a collector and I have found that there is not a lot out there on how people buy, sell, trade, or collect the cards in general.

For the past couple years I have been trying to fine tune my collecting as not to waste my budget on cards that will not have value in the years past standard play, but also figure out a way to stock up on the cards that I feel will hold value in the coming years.  As a collector, it is necessary to sort your cards in a manner that will allow you to inventory your cards as well as make them easy to find when you build decks.  In this blog I hope to add insight for other collectors/players so that they find it easier to keep up with this pastime we call MTG.

What I hope to cover in the coming days is getting my collection in order, how I sort my cards, what categories I keep my cards in, where I spend my money, what I save as sealed for future trading, and what I think is important in a set.  Again, I am not so much a FNM player, but someday I am hoping to find the time to get into playing more at a competitive level.

Some people might think I am foolish in spending money on some of the things I do for my collection when I could be spending money on more cards.  From my perspective it is just about the cards themselves, but the collection as a whole.

I also hope this helps other collectors out there, or wanna be collectors of any card game.