Total Trade Count: 208,147
Total Foil Count: 3717
Ok yeah so I wanted to start out with this picture. I went way over board like I do, but I picked up 2 cases of Ultimate Masters. I really only pre-ordered 1 case from Lodestone Coffee & Games, but when I got there I asked if they had enough to sell me 2 cases and like always, they came through.
I ended up paying around $290 per box but with taxes it was closer to $310.
Let's call it a present for working hard all year? Or maybe it is cause there are so many good reprints in the set I figure I can offload all the cards with due time? How about I need to pick up all the Box Toppers, so I figured I would try and pick up some fodder to sell along with getting a chance of Box Toppers?
With what ever excuse I have, I did it and now I am trying to figure out how much I am going to open. Of course I will want to keep a large chunk around for the collection, and I think this Masters set will be a popular one in the years to come.
The clerk even had to take a second look at the price because it was the largest amount he had ever seen working there. Honestly I need to be very thankful that all my hard work throughout my younger years has paid off. I do not have a college degree, and I am a self taught IT professional, but I had to put in my time to get to where I am at. I spent a lot of time away from home, and I started my family late in life, but it was all worth it.
I started out as a consultant for a provider of contact center software, where they hired me to travel the world and help customers install and run their software. Things were good in 2000, but then the DotCom bubble came and knocked out more than half the company. I was a lucky one that got to stay on, but that was because my salary was so low, and they could charge $250 an hour for my services. I think at the time I was making under $31k a year.
I was gone 90% of the year, traveling for the company. I would fly out on Sunday, and get back in on Friday night. Doing installs and project work for my company. We were trained in a very specific set of skills, and could install new contact centers from the ground up. This was also the time that the older systems that had price tags in the millions, and we were upgrading them to the new IP based systems that were at a fraction of the price, so the companies were seeing an ROI upon purchase. We of course were raking it in on consulting and install fees, but it was a good purchase for the company because it was still cheaper than the older systems.
Now, most of those old system companies are long gone, or on their way out, but for three years I was traveling the world installing these systems for all sorts of companies. If you have ever seen the movie Up in the Air, that was my life. I lived out of a suitcase and worked nonstop. Don't get me wrong, I learned everything I needed in those three year, but it took a toll on me. For one, I do not like to travel for work.
But with all that hard work, I was able to get into some really crazy jobs where I could apply my skills and really make a name for myself. It got to a point where I finally got to my dream job where I was there from the ground up, making the money I needed to make to where my family was comfortable. But all that work took a lot of sacrifice. Now I can look back and say it was worth it, but I do need to catch myself and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Now, don't go and think I am irresponsible with my budget either. I mean, I do have my bills I need to pay for, but I also need to retire when I am 60 so the money I do spend on Magic cards is disposable income. I live off a budget, and am very well versed in personal finance. I have the emergency fund, the emergency emergency line of credit, and the oh shit line of credit. I never spend more than what I make in a year and I am saving over 20% of my gross income. I spend less on MTG cards than I make in Dividends in my investing accounts.
Now if you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you can see why I stopped buying MTG cards from 1999 to 2011. In the year 2011 was when I started my dream job and I was afforded more time to do things that I enjoyed, and I did not have to worry so much about work or chasing girls because I had found my wife I am with now. But in 1999 was when I was trying to get a career going, so there was very little MTG going on.
So yeah, I over spent a bit, but I think I deserved this little splash. I know! I still need older sealed product, but come on! Let's do a little chase here. The next update should be after I opened all this product to show you what I ended up getting, and the new counts based on the packs I opened.
I was also able to get some trades out today.
And this is what it looks like before I package everything up. I do the card pull and then put the addresses on all the envelops based on what is being shipped. Once that is done, I put every Send together and try and verify condition and what is being sent. This helps me catch mistakes, but I do have to admit I am really bad at condition grading.
Here is the end product!
With this send there was 13 packages, with only 1 international send. There really was nothing special with this send. Just a bunch of stuff people wanted.
119 cards
$99.54 worth
$0.50 Stamps: 13
$0.21 Stamps: 3
International Stamps: 1
I also wanted to add a picture of what it actually looks like in my bulk.
So this is my Legacy bulk, so any set before Mirrodin. Each separator is a single card, and I think this is from Visions. I organize them by Set, then Color, then Alphabetically. I use the little boxes in the back so I can just pull that box out and have space to grab some cards. This way most of the space is being used in the box, and it can decrease the possibility of curling or bending.
Well let's see what I get from the pull, and you will get an update in about a week.
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