Snapcaster = Loupe

So I totally got caught up with the Modern blitz on prices.  I tried to get Blood Moons, Oblivion Stones, Snapcaster Mages, and what ever else I saw spike up that I did not have.  The story with Snapcaster Mage, I checked Twitter and MTGStock.com update one morning and saw the pop of the price to $74.99, then the next morning I do my normal check and it is $80.99, then on the third straight morning I check and the price is up to $84.99.

At this point I am freaking out.  Knowing full well that I have my play set, and I had just bought a playset for $50 each so I can trade for Modern staples I still need.  Now, what is going on in my head in one simple word: Tarmogoyf.

Back in 2012, I said fuck it, and bought the last three Tarmogoyfs that I needed, at the same time, for around $85 each.  Not really knowing that it would spike up to $200, I just wanted to knock it out of the park and call it good.  I did the same thing with Jace, the Mind Sculptor.  Normally the way that I look at those high priced cards is that they are no longer in print, and people still want the card to play with, so it is just silly to try and time the market and get it at a lower price.

Now I am pretty lucky that I can afford this type of mentality, that my wife is pretty cool with me spending on my hobby, and we are DINKs, so this is not something everyone can do without going into debt.

So with 4 in the bank, and 4 on the trading floor, I am just thinking to myself that these are going to go the way of the Tarmogoyf and I should get some more trading fodder.  Now my rationale is that I could have spent $300 on a box of boosters and hope I get trading fodder, or I can just grab some sought after staples and know that over time I can trade them away for anything I need.

I know what you are saying, why don't I just spend $300 on the cards I actually need rather than buy trading fodder?  Well, go fuck yourself...  :-)

Really though, it is trying to buy a MTG Staple in the hopes that it will go up in price, so I can get a better return on my investment.  I could have spent my $300 on all the Commons/Uncommons I needed for Betrayers of Kamigawa, but the chances that those cards would increase in value as much as Snapcaster Mage might, it is well worth it to spend the cash on the staple and hold it for a while to get larger leverage on future trades.

And, it is pretty cool to find someone with $200 worth of commons that is willing to trade it to me for a single Snapcaster Mage.  Not only do I get to double the value of my original purchase, acquire a large amount of cards I would rather not spend money on, but I get to trade a very expensive card to someone that really wants to get the card and only has commons to trade away.

You can't go into any LGS and plop down $200 worth of commons and expect to walk out of there with a Snapcaster Mage.  Maybe with 340,000 commons they could get something like this from an LGS.  Most standard Common buys from an LGS is 1000 for $0.25.  $85 / $0.25 = 340 * 1000 = 340,000.  For me, you figure a common is close to $0.10, and you take $200.00 / $0.10 = 2000 cards.

Soooooo, with this buy.  I picked them up on TGCPlayer for $72 a piece and they are going for $85 currently.  But with all those Reddit posts on fake staples, I decided to get me a Loupe and start trying to figure out what to look for with "Proxies" that are floating around.

It was not that bad, I was able to find one on Amazon pretty easy, and it only cost me around $10.  If it saves me that investment in not buying / trading for cards that are not real, I consider it a win.

All in all I am thinking that it was a good move, and hopefully it gets me closer to finishing my goal, but the question that racks my brain now is "What am I going to do when I accomplish said goal?"