Tiny tiny trade

Card Count: 49 (No Change)

So with this CardSphere trade I just got in a couple Amonkhet promo cards, nothing to crazy.

As you can see one of the cards is a Mythic Rare, so there is that.

Nothing too exciting, but needed to post it.  Hopefully I will get in some other trades.  There is a trade on Deckbox that I am a bit worried about.  It is a trader with only 10 trades, for a $5.00 trade, and I am pretty sure I am not going to get my card.  He has yet to mark it shipped and I think I am just going to be at a loss for that trade.  We will wait and see.

Always use a Toploader!

Card Count: 49

CardSphere and Deckbox coming through!  It does really hurt to get in a bunch of cards and only 1 card goes to the card count....

But on this episode of the greatest Magic the Gathering collecting blog, In The World, we go through why it is always necessary to use a top loader!

This.  This is what I found in my box, and there was a small sense of fear as to what I was going to find when I opened the envelope.  You can see that the envelope is in a Post Office envelope with a huge clear window to show you the package damage.

There was a massive tear on the left of the envelope, and I could see that there was a lot of black plastic warped inside the envelope.  I thought it was a sleeve that just got chewed up, but you will see it is much worse.

After I opened the package, this is what I found after removing the cards.

This was the top loader, and you can see the black plastic that got chewed up.  I was expecting that the cards were totally destroyed, and before I opened the package that is what I relayed to the sender.

To my surprise this is what was in the package!  They are a little bent up at the bottoms, but nothing to complain about for Promo cards.  The perfect sleeve on the Gidion pushed up all the cards and protected them from the roller at the post office.  So really the only thing that happened was the cards got bent a bit.

Always us a top loader!

Here we go!

Here is another promo trade I got in from CardSphere.  Really happy I am filling out all those Promo cards without having to buy them.

 Deckbox trade with my last Starter 1999 basic land I needed.

 This was the only card count addition I needed which brings us down to 49!

These additions were much needed cards toward the Portal playsets.  One to point out is the Devastation.  It was one of the high priced cards I needed and very excited to pick it up.  That finished my playsets!

So that is it, and I am really happy I could add the three cards in that top loader that got eaten up!

Commander 2017!

From the Best MTG Blog in the World - Love me some Commander!

Boo yeah!!  Today is a good day when a new Commander set shows up at your LGS!

So here is my set!

And I have another set setup with the other sealed sets.  I also have my speculation sets coming in from Alpha Investments.  Recall moment, we are Patreons for Rudy at Alpha Investments, and as such we get the opportunity to purchase items that come along his ownership at discounted prices. I was able to pick up a full set of Commander 2017 decks from Rudy for $94.99, and at my LGS I was able to get that same full set for $139.96, or $34.99 each (MSRP).

Now, with Rudy I was limited to only getting 2 full sets, and at my LGS I am pretty sure I could pick up as much as I wanted for MSRP, so that is why we open and display the LGS sets, and keep the Rudy sets in speculation territory for the lower cost basis factory sealed.  And honestly I only pick up 4 full sets in case I want to break them all open so I have a playset of all the first prints.

So yeah, that is going to be what I am doing tonight.  The whole opening, sleeving, inventory, making labels and dividers thing.  So fun!

But of course, since I was at my LGS I just had to see what they had, and so I picked up a couple of things.

Ohhh so sexy!  Beta Sinkhole!  Yeah, I totally needed this for the collection!  Crazy!

Yeah, Vintage staple and way overpriced, but picked it up anyway.  It is #5 and I do want to get 2 full playsets.  In hindsight this might be a bad buy considering they are coming out with Iconic Masters later this year, and I can see this being a reprint.  But, considering the low print run of the first Commander set, and they are doing reprints with Commander Anthology, there is a good chance this is not reprinted in any Master sets and will hold value for a while.  At least until they print the Commander Anthology, and by then I hope the price goes up further so the cost basis for this one will not be at a loss when they do.

Yep, same concept for these.  They were printed more than the first set, but they are becoming a Vintage / Legacy staple and I don't see them being reprinted outside of the Commander Anthology.

This was a CardSphere trade, and it is a foil only promo for the set, so I am pretty happy about getting my hands on it for the set.  The number is 141/140 so it is outside of the printed set.  Lets see where it goes from here.

And another CardSphere trade.  Yep, these are more of those stupid Planeswalker deck cards.

All in all a good day, and I am off to crack some commander decks!

Collector vs Speculator

Card Count: 50

That is right, there is a card count on this one!  So take note of the date, and what is going to be talked about in this blog.  Also take note, that I am mainly a collector of Magic the Gathering cards, but as a means to elevate my purchasing power to get the items I need, I have from time to time speculated on cards based on their playability.  Basically, I will pick up cards that I think will increase in value at some point based on what that card can do.

Now, I also had collected based on rarity.  If you recall back in the day I started with the Vintage / Legacy side of things because of the scarcity of cards out there, I wanted to pick up all the older cards first because the prices were still low, and I only assumed that the cards would increase in value.  In no way was that a prediction of what is occurring at this moment in time.

Right now, in the Magic the Gathering market, it is a fucking shit show.  I can say that I assumed that this shit show was going to happen at some point in time, and values of older small print run cards would go up by a lot.  I cannot say that the point in time was going to be 2017 and the prices were not anywhere close to what is showing up right now.  I mean, I figured that a Power Artifact from Antiquities would go from $15 to maybe $30, not $15 to Ninety fucking three dollars!

I would like to add that with the current market trends in older Reserve List cards, short term speculators will be losing their ass.  I feel that if you are a true collector and are looking for the card in your collection, and plan to hold the card for 10+ years, you should see a return on your investment.  But then, I did just watch an HBO documentary on an Andy Warhol "Brillo Box", where the first owner paid $1000.00 for it, and it had just recently sold for $3.2 million dollars.

Same concept, rare pop culture item, with specific properties.  Add some time and boom crazy prices! With all these very rare and low printed cards, in an unregulated market, we could be seeing the same thing happen.  Like those old comic books that are found as insulation for homes built in the 40's and 50's.  The only reason the Brillo box went for such a high price, because the availability of the piece was considered a once in a lifetime chance.

The item was bid up to such high prices because there were no other ones out there to purchase.  That is what is happening right now to the older ABU and AAL sets.  ABU had been first to the game because of the nostalgia of those first core sets, but it was only a matter of time before the AAL sets were to follow.  And what we are seeing right now is a removal of all those products from the market by collectors and speculators.

The true collectors that have removed the cards from the market did so long ago.  Those were the folks who held onto their precious cards for their collections and have no intention of putting them back into the market.  You might see them become available when the owner has hit a ruff patch in their lives, but for the most part those cards are never going to circulate again.

Speculators on the other hand, are the ones that are picking up all these cards to remove them from the market on purpose for monetary gains.  They see that at some point the scarcity of these cards will bring them value.  Like the Brillo box, the scarcity and once in a lifetime opportunity is what they are betting on.

Call it what you like, but they will be right in the end with those ABU and AAL cards.  There are kids that played with those cards way back when, or heard about the glorious power of the Power 9, and those kids will grow up.  They will be flush with disposable income and want to relive that childhood memory, or finally have the financial means to buy that Black Lotus.  Think I am wrong? You are reading this blog, but would you ever buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle?  I am pretty sure you would drop some cash for some Power 9 cards if you could.

And that is the bet.  The bet that the popularity of the game that so many kids love, growing up and finally having the means to purchase something that was unattainable when they were younger.  They are buying into the memories of those kids, the dreams and wishes.  Just like Comic books, or baseball cards, or even old currency.  It has been going on for decades, and the bet is that it will continue into the future.

I am not saying that the cards will be worth $3.2 Million dollars, but it will have a higher price tag then where they are being removed from the market right now.  And I am not saying every kid that used to play will want to spend thousands of dollars on cardboard, but the ones that do will have more than enough means to do so, and in the end all you really need is a small percentage of folks to have those means.

There is a chance that this hobby will turn into classic cars, or paintings.  There is a chance that a perfect 10 Alpha Black Lotus will fetch millions of dollars.  Think about it, 20 years ago I bought my first Beta Black Lotus for $300, and right now they are priced out around $17,500 and selling on eBay for around $8,000.  This is not just a flash in the pan event.  This feels like it will only gain more and more steam as we move forward.  People will sell off their collections, and other people will buy them, with the inventories that are currently out there will get dwindled down to nothing and the forces of supply and demand will do what they do.  And if someone tries to sell a Beta Black Lotus for $1 Million dollars and someone buys it, then that is the price of the card.

I watch and follow Rudy from Alpha Investments, and also I think the trick is to not think that the Magic cards that are being printed today will ever hold the same value as the ABU and AAL sets. Don't get sucked in thinking that you can make a profit on doing the same thing with the recent sets. And I also agree the sets that were released right after the AAL sets will not hold the value of the first 6 sets as the print runs were just too great.

Anyway, Here we go!

Yes the Traumatize is the only card that goes toward the Card Count, but it is a card.

And these were just delightful to grab, now I have the full set of Welcome Deck cards.

Unhinged and Starter 1999!  Really getting tight on those Starter 1999 cards.

CardSphere Portal!!

Another CardSphere trade.  They do keep coming in slowly.

Deckbox Unhinged!!!  Only thing that sucks is the cards that I sent him are nowhere to be found, so I need to go out and pick-up the ones I don't have and send them back out to him.  I do have to say that this is the first time this has happened to me.  I hope to have these sent out to him in the next couple days.

I do want to add that I am pretty lucky to have kept all the cards I do have, and worked on finishing the AAL sets first.  I could call myself smart for doing this, but I consider it the same as selling my AT&T stock to buy Google back in 2013, pure luck.

Keep an eye out for the bargain bins at your LGS's and the cards that were considered bulk trash. Looks like the shore is coming up, and when it drains you don't want to be the one without pants.

The suck....

In this edition of the Best Magic the Gathering Collector Blog in the entire World!

Phase 1 has slowed down to a crawl, and I added Phase 2 to see if I could pick up some more action. And there was a small spike up with cards that I was looking for, nothing to crazy, but I feel that I acquired all the cards I was looking for from the traders that are on Deckbox and CardSphere.  Since then, I am pretty sure this slowdown is because of the lack of traders on CardSphere.

Right now the number of Traders on CardSphere is 3185 folks.  That is not a lot.

So with this waiting game, I decided to just throw in the Planeswalker Deck cards I am looking for. What the fuck are those you ask?

These fucking things....

So WotC has come out with some pre-constructed decks that focus on a Planeswalker.  The Planeswalker is a push over of a Planeswalker, but none the less we still have this sacks of shit.  They are meant for beginning players, to have an easy entry point for playing.  The power of these decks are very minimal, by design.  WotC is basically trying to not put a lot of power in these decks, because they are for beginners, and therefore wanted to keep the sharks away from buying them up.

This is where I have issues with this product.  With complete selfishness, I complain about having to acquire the cards printed just for these decks.  Most of the deck is built from expansion set cards, but they also included a Land, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare in each deck that is only found in the deck.

You might be able to predict why I hate these things, but let's just state it for the record.  These things MSRP around $19.99, and they do come with a couple of booster packs, but mostly contain fodder. The cards that are only found in the decks suck, the expansion cards in the decks suck, and in general having to pick up these cards just suck.

I have come to the internal agreement within myself to just purchase a single deck, keep it sealed, and then just pick up the deck cards in trade or just buy them after rotation.  Of course with that "after rotation" statement I never wait for the actual rotation before I pick them up, but that is my own personal problem, and I am working on it...

So let's see if I can bring this around again to what I was talking about in the beginning of the blog. Phase 1 has been posted, and then I added Phase 2.  There was a lull, so now I have decided to add these Planeswalker Deck cards just to see what I could possibly get off CardSphere.  I was not too disappointed with CardSphere, but one trade did fall through.  Lets see what I picked up.

Here we go!

These are the Mythic Rare cards that came in, and I do have to day that I am the happiest about these. They are the most expensive cards, and are foils, so it is really nice to just pick these up when I can.  I can usually go out and buy the other cards pretty easy, but these Mythics are a little harder to find. There is also one 1 of these in each deck, while the other cards that are only in these decks usually come in more than a single card.

Here are the other cards that I picked up after adding the Planeswalker Deck cards, but still happy to get them!

I also got in some Unhinged cards!  I really do want to finish this set.

And Starter 1999 along with a Portal card.

Expansions Complete!

Card Count: 51

Fifty-One.  Fifty-One.  Less than a deck.  Less than a deck of poker cards.

So.  Considering I am so close to the end game here, I am really letting things go with how trades are going through.  I am not really complaining about issues with cards, and I am accepting trades that I normally would not be.  It is really affecting my state of mind, and I am becoming more bothered by it.  I just need to keep looking at that end game number I am sitting at.

I am only bringing this up because I am accepting new trades with new traders, and forcing them to send first.  They are sending me trash, but I am not complaining too much about it, when I completely should.  I am doing "even" trades for cards I should be asking for a little more for.  My drive to end Phase 1 through trades I think might be causing me too much pain, and I should just buy the cards straight up.

The thing is, since it is such fodder I am looking for, there is nothing to say that the seller won't send me trash too.  So now, I am resorting to venting on my blog while I just chug along.

Here we go!

These are listed as NM.  This is why I don't want to do trades with new traders.  This piece of shit card is what the trader thinks as NM.  I know, I should just give them a bad score, and in reality the card is not worth that much, but you just have to love how shitty people can be.

These were the standard cards I got with the trade as well.

Here is a fodder card I decided to pick up with the trade

And then these other Commander cards that would fill out the playsets for first prints.

The trader decided it was a good idea to send me this card, I assume to make up for the shit Commander card, but if you look close enough, you almost see the big fucking teeth marks in the top left corner.  Let's just say I won't be trading with this Deckbox person, ever, again.

This was another trade that came in from Deckbox.  Here are the cards that are going toward the Card Count.

And this beauty came in too to Card Count Phase 2!  I just get happy to get Starter 1999 cards.

Then I got this one in!  This is the last Natural Order I needed for the playset.

These card were very appreciated from CardSphere.  All these cards are from Planeswalker decks.  I seriously hate having to get these cards, and it is pretty great that there are folks that want to send me these cards.

This came from another Deckbox trade, and here are the Standard cards that were included with this trade.

 Fodder...

 Phase 2 needs, but yeah nothing special.

And here are the Modern cards.  What was that?  Saviors of Kamigawa?  BOOM!!!  I have all the expansion playsets.  All Expansion playsets.  It is completely insane.  Completely insane!

Ok ok ok.  Little story time here, because it is completely insane that I actually finished gathering a playset for every Magic the Gathering expansion.  So a bit ago, I found out that a co-worker of mine plays Magic.  I was at my LGS and ran into him.  Which is great for me, because now I have a new person to talk to about playing the game.

So today at work, I asked him if he traded because I was looking for some Core set cards to finish up my playsets.  He explained that he did not really trade much anymore, and a lot of his collection was not sorted.

I then mentioned that I have playsets of all the expansions and I was looking for my last core set cards, and he took a long pause.  An awkward long pause.  The look that he gave me was of shock and awe, almost like he thought he mistook what I heard.  He then asked, "Playset, of every expansion?"  At that point I knew how crazy it sounds.

Think about it, from The Dark to Aether Revolt I have a playset of every single card.  Mythic Rares, reprints, rares, everything...  I just can't believe I was able to do it.  Only took me 5 years.

Moving on!

CardSphere Planeswalker deck cards!!!

More CardSphere Planeswalker deck cards!!!

CardSphere Phase 2, and I know I added the Phase 2 cards to CardSphere, but I really needed to considering how much I was not finding on Deckbox.

And a great pick up from a new CardSphere trader!

So yeah, I was pretty happy with all these pick-ups, but it has slowed down again since adding Phase 2 to CardSphere.  I did have to force all the trades on Deckbox, and it is really getting hard to keep trading on that site.

Hope to have more updates for you soon.