Why in the hell would I think about trying to collect sealed product from each of the sets? Booster boxes? What is the purpose to take these products, put them in a glass case and stare at them?
I thought I would take some time and go through why I think this is important for the complete collection. Magic the Gathering is a playable game and keeping products like this locked up just seems silly. There is no way to enjoy the game if cards are in an unopened packs, but this is my rational as to why I want have a complete collection including sealed booster boxes.
Back in 1994, when I started to play this game, I could not get enough cards. I was opening packs for commons so I could build more decks. I was opening starter decks to get more land, so I could build more decks. I just wanted more cards, and the only way to get them at the time were to crack packs. Why would I spend $20 on a Shivan Dragon when I could get 8+ packs for that same cost.
I got a job working 1 day a week and my LGS on Sundays so I could get the 20% employee discount, and I would take my paycheck from that job to spend on sealed booster boxes to open. I was picking up as many packs as I could to crack. I was an addict... All the while, my father was also playing and buying up cards, but to my surprise he was also buying sealed product and not opening it.
He would throw local tournaments and need sealed product for the prize support. He would pick up sealed booster boxes and stash them away for the future prize support of those said tournaments. I recall seeing the stacks of booster boxes just sitting there, and drooling.
There wasn't anything like draft back then. We did have a sealed format, but that was normally played at pre-release tournaments, and the tournaments that he threw were not large enough to get WoTC support. We also did not run a gaming store, and would just rent out some space in a run down mall with a small sports card store that also sold Magic the Gathering cards. We would supply the judges, prize support, and players while the sports card store would supply the singles to sell to said players. The store owner would just speak with the mall, and get access to a store front that was close to his store, and we would setup the tables and bring the games.
Let's just say Apache Plaza mall was on it's last legs, and it was only a matter of time for it to get demolished for more housing, so they were quite open to allowing open spaces to use by anyone that would come to the mall. Or they were so broke that they did not care about people breaking the rules.
I remember the Sports Card shop owner also dabbling his hands in Bennie Babies, and how silly I thought it was to buy those, and how much it reminded me of Cabbage Patch Dolls. But I also remember how much pause I had about Magic the Gathering in considering it as a long term hold. At the time, it was considered a flash in the pan like Bennie Babies, and not considered a long term collectable.
I agreed with that rational in considering Magic the Gathering cards a non-collectable. It was a playful game to me, and not something to speculate on. I was just having fun collecting and playing, going back to thinking about how I could make money off of my hobby was just a bad feeling.
All during my Middle school and high school era I was big into sports cards. I had been collecting sports cards and followed Minnesota Twins since 1987 and their World Series win. I just loved buying packs and opening them. Collecting full sets. Sorting and organizing my cards so I could trade them to other kids collecting baseball cards.
My father could see what I was interested and felt like it was a good thing to do together. He and I started a company to go to sports card shows to sell cards. We would buy in bulk, open packs, and display our best cards to sell to people. We would also buy collections to build inventory for older cards. It was a real business and that was the problem. It took my hobby and turned it into something I needed to do to make money. It kind of took the fun out of it for me. Rather than spending weekend sorting my cards to see what cool new rookie I could follow, it was now something I needed to spend time to see what cool new rookie was out there so I could sell his card for cash.
I was not going to let Magic the Gathering cards get turned into some speculation play where I was interested in $$$ rather than playing and collecting. At this point it is 1996, we were throwing tournaments every weekend, Alliances was released and Mirage was coming out. I could care less if Magic cards were going to turn into a flash in the pan trend. If it did, I could just buy up more cards cheaper. If it didn't, then I could just keep collecting and be happy. I was just interested in playing games with people I enjoyed to be around, and have some fun.
On the other end, my father was interested in turning a profit. He had a Master of Business Administration degree and was constantly looking for the angle on how he could turn things into making money, almost to a fault. So he kept buying up sealed product for these tournaments, and started to expand the amount of tournaments he did hold.
He would team up with other comic book stores to hold their tournaments, and got a pretty big following. About that same time, other stores that sold Magic the Gathering cards started to do their own tournaments with prize support. It was not a thief of ideas but more of a evolution of the game, and the only logical step was to start doing more tournaments for the player base. This also brought in a new revenue stream for those stores. Not only could they make money on selling packs and singles, but now they could hold tournaments in their stores and charge a fee to each player. Then hand out prizes to the top folks and keep the profits.
This of course took players away from his tournaments and shifted them into the stores where they could buy their cards and get store credit for being the best store player. My father kept doing the mall tournaments until they shut the doors, as the sports card shop owner could not run his own tournaments, and liked the additional customer base he could try and sell his Bennie Babies to. I want to say that there were some parents of the MTG players that did actually buy some of those things.
My father's collection went right up to the Urza's block, trailing off at Urza's Destiny. He had sealed product from Revised to Stronghold. After that, he stopped collecting all together. There is no coincidence that Everquest was released in 1999 and that he stopped collecting Magic the Gathering cards at the same time. My father went from 100% in one hobby to 100% in another hobby, but he never got rid of the previous hobby.
So in a way I am really just trying to finish what my father started way back in the day. A playset of every card, and a sealed booster box of every set. Call me crazy or stupid. Keep telling me that it is going to be impossible to find someone that would buy my collection at list prices, and I will never actual see gains from all the hard work. I don't care. That is not the point of why I am doing this.
If you play Magic the Gathering, wouldn't it be cool to have every card at your disposal, for any deck you ever wanted to make? Or have any sealed product to run a draft from if you wanted? Or to make a bed out of Booster boxes so you can sleep on it? Or just to look at a rack with every single card and sealed booster box, with every card you would ever need. Just to say you did it. I was one of the lucky few to ever accomplish such a feet. I was that crazy fucker.
Isn't every crazy dream just considered stupid at some point in time. If I could only see his face at finishing his goal, priceless.
