So this is going on, and I enjoy heading up there to visit with the vendors and grab some artist stuff. Last year I went up there to play in side events, but my friend could not make it so I just ended up shopping. I mainly purchased singles and other higher end cards I was looking for to finish up some decks I was trying to build.
This year, my plan was to pick up some sealed product. And with trying to pick up said sealed product, I tried to implement the plan of trading away the extra older sealed product for the stuff I have been missing. So I grabbed my backpack, loaded it up with sealed boosters of Visions, Weatherlight, Portal Second Age, and sealed tournament deck boxes of Mirage and Tempest.
First thing you should always do is check out every vendor. This gives you a high level of visibility of who is providing what. You can assume that most vendors have a ton of Standard and Modern staples, and if you are looking for Vintage or Legacy staples you will need to look at inventories and ask more of the vendors.
Since I was going for sealed product, I took a quick glance to see who had what. Alter Reality Games again came to the GP prepared with pretty much every Modern set with a sealed booster box. There were a few other vendors there that had some sealed product, but there was not much outside of standard sets.
So Alter Reality Games it is!
There is a lot of waiting in line when you need to trade in product, and ARG had a good setup. There were a couple buyers off to the side where they sit and go through what you have to give you a quote. Once I got to the desk, I let them know what I had and what I was looking to get to see if they were interested. He agreed to the booster boxes, and passed on the Tournament decks. This hurt a little bit because I was really hoping to turn that Tempest box into a Lorwyn box. Anywho, I pulled out all the boxes, and he proceeded to check them out. A little typing on the computer he came out with some prices.
I ended up getting $730.00 for the three boxes.
Visions: $185
Weatherlight: $225
Portal Second Age: $320
Some of you might be thinking "$730! That is it!!! WTF!"
You need to remember that I picked these boxes up back in the 90's when I was working at the Source, and I had a 40% employee discount. I was pretty much pickup booster boxes at vendor prices. I think I might have paid $40.00 per box at the time? If it wasn't that price, it was pretty close to that price.
What did I do with that balance? Well let me show you!
I think I could have got more product if I were to pick out less expensive sets, but I really wanted these boxes. I could have tried for a Future Sight box, but I am planning on buying that one next year after I pay off the Urza's Saga box I got.
I still had the 2 Tournament boxes that I wanted to get rid of, so I went over to the other vendor that had a large amount of sealed product. I think it was Pink Bunny Games? But after talking with the vendor we settled on $450 for the Tempest box, and $225 for the Mirage. Again, I don't care because my cost basis on those were $40 - $60. With a little haggling and $25 cash I was able to pick up these!
As you recall, I opened up my sealed FTV sets in order to put my Vintage Cube together. Where is that Cube now? Yup, no where. At some point I think I will put one together again. So I basically have all my FTV opened up, and no more sealed ones. I am trying to pickup those FTV sets again, so I can have them sealed as well as opened. What I show as list prices on these, and considering I traded in $100ish, I think I came out ahead on this one.
Issue
So, when I left the convention center I got an e-mail from my purchase / trade-in with ARG. The price that they charged was something a bit higher than what I thought we agreed to. I was very puzzled as to why it was so high, and so I called the number on the receipt. I ended up talking to one of the guys at the actual event in Minneapolis.
I told him that the price they charged was a bit off, and I just wanted to clear it up. He went through what was traded in, and what was priced out in their system. He found out that the cashier did not include the trade-in value that I had, so they had overcharged me.
Many hugs out to ARG for being able to resolve this really quickly. With their inventory system, they could see that the trade-in value had been inventoried, and they saw the purchase total I was looking to get, and they could find out that there was a mistake that occurred. No argument, no hassle, just quick resolution to an issue that a customer brought to their attention. I have to give it to them, great customer service.
I have no problem being charged for the items that I want, and I am willing to pay for anything that I want. It is just comforting that they feel the same way with how they sell. Just all in all another great experience with this vendor. They will keep my business for now. Let's hope that the refund happens soon.
**Edit Update** They did the refund all is well!
Art
Also at GP Minneapolis I was able to stop off at every artist that was there and picked up some prints and playmats.
Jason Felix
Victor Adame Minguez
Zack Stella
Aaron Miller
So yeah, I picked up all those playmats, but I did not have anything to keep them in. I then saw that the Pastimes booth had the tubes for playmats. Went over there, and they were selling them for $5 each! That was cheap, so I decided to grab some more Invocations!
Ugh! Ok, it was a long day, and now I am done writing. All in all it was a good pickup day. Put in a huge dent on the sealed booster boxes I need.
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