So yeah, there are thoughts of just walking away from the blog and spending more time on other things. There are thoughts of just cashing out on the collection and paying down my home. There are thoughts just giving up and putting it all in cold storage until my son gets older.
As of right now I am just chipping off more and more of what I was doing until I can get back to a balanced hobby. I did put out feelers to see if anyone would be willing to buy my collection and if you can guess I got very low offers for a collection like mine. The only real offer I did get was from Alpha Investments.
ABU Games did not take me seriously. Card Kingdom was pretty awesome to talk to, but the whole not being in Seattle really hurt my chances. And a local player Dreamers could not fund an offer that I could take seriously, to the point where they did not even reply once I sent my spreadsheets. And that is another thing, NO ONE asked if I had an inventory. It was like they did not even want to take the time when I gave them a summary. It was just stupid.
And no, I did not go to Channel Fireball or Star City Games because I feel that ABU and Card Kingdom are higher quality LGS's and would take me more seriously. And really, Card Kingdom is the only large retailer I think I would deal with in the future.
So yeah, selling to a big buyer is out of the picture and I am heading back down the path of just finishing the collection of all my phases and then if my son does not like the game I will try and sell it all on eBay in one big deal.
One really cool thing that I found is that Card Kingdom buylist. I have been sending them bulk for the last couple of weeks, and I am doing my first cash in for some sealed product. Picking up a sealed booster box of Scourge to finish that block, and then a Judgment box. I know, I should pick up more expensive boxes while I can, but with the reprint cycles that Masters sets are providing, I am just going to wait for them to reprint the good cards in those sets to grab them at that time. I could be wrong, but really I just want to get as much of the older stuff as I can. Just like I did with getting Legacy cards before Modern.
So that still leaves me with a huge issue with how much time I was putting in towards collecting. I have removed my Deckbox Inventory, and that had cut down on the time of maintaining that site. I have also cut back on sending on CardSphere to only 10 or less packages a week. This frees up my weekend and I can manage that part of collecting much better. I have also not been getting as much as I was, but the site is picking up on users more everyday.
I do think that CardSphere is going to be my main venue to trading cards, since I just can't give up on that sweet deals people keep sending me.
<Cough>
And since I am not giving up on the collection, I still want to maintain the blog as a history of my collection for the time I do sell it. That way there is more proof that it is all real. So the thoughts of just giving up on the blog is out the window.
I mean look, how else are you going to see really cool pictures of the new product like these?
So, not selling, keep blogging, and keep trading. Nothing is changing!!!
In reality it still is changing. I will be updating the blog less since my trading has been cut down. And with just focus on CardSphere I will not be getting in as many cards as I will be sending out. I am also only bulk sending to Card Kingdom once a month or so, so new pick ups from there will be slow going. Really I am just getting back to the day when I could just play and collect. I am not worried about staying on top of all the pricing, or doing massive sends.
I am just going to concentrate on getting rid of all my extra bulk, finishing the collection, and get playing again. Taking more time to spend with the family, and less time staring at the screen.
I am still going to be buying the new product, but I am cutting it down a lot. I am only getting 4 boxes and 2 bundles to open per set. We are officially going into the least cost model that I had spoken about before. Let's see how I do on this...
This will cut down on the sorting and inventorying by a ton, and I will be cutting down my inventory in general with the thought of getting rid of cards and not adding more to my bulk. I will also be spending more time dumpster diving to finishing my collection instead of spending a ton on sealed product to open. This will also get me out of the house and away from the glow of my computer screens.
One thing that I figured out is that it does not matter how much of a complete collection I do have. Selling to an LGS will never even pull 40% of the value of the thing. If I am not successful with selling the whole thing on eBay, I will need to sell it slowly over time on CardSphere.
In the end, it is just better that I keep everything and wait another 20 years to see where we are at.
So yeah, expect the updates to the blog to be slow going, but I am still here and will update when I can. Let's just focus on the hobby and not all the other crap that makes it not fun to do. Get back to slinging spells and good laughs. No more min / max.
/hugs!
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