Total Foil Count: 3,772
Core 2020
Ok so I am just going to start out with this picture.
This means I got my Core 2020 Bundles and have now opened everything that I will open for sealed product for this release. I am only opening up a single Bundle and a sealed Booster Box. I am also only picking up a single Bundle and a Booster Box to keep for the collection. Here are my numbers.
Added to Trade Count: 79
Added to Foil Count: 15
Added to Collection: 669
So in opening up just the Bundle and Booster Box I was able to fill out my playsets with 669 cards. I still need 508 cards to complete my playsets. That adds up to around $906.13 right now, and you have to remember that I am tracking the cost required to complete my playsets until next year when I will start picking up the cards I need. This is all to track the trends of the release of the product and how much a full playset costs. After rotation the price of the set drops significantly and the right time to pick up those cards is a year from now. I am expecting the cost of the cards will drop to -$500 to finish this up.
That means that I am going to save $400 if I bought the cards out right, but also I am not buying and opening a ton of sealed product to get my playsets. I am becoming more surgical and just picking up the cards I need outside of the couple of sealed products I will open. I used to buy 10 Sealed Booster Boxes for every set, opening up 8 of those boxes and keeping 2 sealed. I would also pick up 3 Bundles, and keep one sealed. The problem this gave me is all the bulk that was left over.
So instead now I spend around $300 on sealed product, open $150 worth of packs, and then only spend around $500 after rotation on the cards I need. That changes my total spend per set to around $800 when I was spending closer to $1200 for sealed product and also left with +3000 bulk cards that I would need to get rid of. I would also not get a complete playset, so I would still need to trade for around 80 Rares and Mythic Rares to finish what I was looking for. That would add close to $200. So really I would be spending around $1400 on every single set.
This has cut down on my trading fodder, but at this point in my collecting I am trying to minimize how many cards I am storing, and right now I have been able to get that down to 205,557 cards! Now I am only spending around $800 per set for all the cards within a couple years. I am also able to trade for the cards that I am looking for as well, so that cuts down on my costs too. I am able to minimize the costs to get the Playsets, minimize the amount of bulk that builds up, and still get all the cards I need.
Ultimate Masters
And this is another reason you support your FLGS. For months I have been going up to the store, pulling out my list and rifling down to see if they were able to bring any of the cards in. Since the workers know me, they remembered what I was looking for, and then they were able to pick up my needs because they knew I was looking for the card and willing to buy it from them. It is a win / win. I am able to pick up the cards I need, and they know they will make a profit on this cards because I was looking for it.
This is the last card I needed for my Ultimate Masters set, and it is such a good feeling to get this set done. Of course I will be happy when I get the Box Toppers done, but this is a pretty big step in my mind.
CardSphere Issues
Now, I wrote about an issue with another trader I had on CardSphere, and I just wanted to share what happened now that I am finished with what that was all about.
So I sent some older cards to this one trader that consisted of some Invasion - Opt. He opened a dispute on the entire trade and suggested that I had sent him a re-backed Opt from Invasion. As soon as I asked for pictures and proof that it was a fake card he said there was no way he could send me a picture. He then started saying some of the other cards I sent him were fake too. Quirion Rangers with "Weird" corners.
At this point I questioned what he thought was fake because I knew the Rangers were not fake since I opened them back in the 90's, which led me to question how he thought the Opt was fake. He then responded with the light test failed, and kind of went nuts on me. My response was to just wait for the admin to deal with him.
He just kept bringing up Chinese fakes, and things were re-backed. But he could not answer how he thought that someone would fake an Invasion card that was sub $1 and it was just reprinted at Common in Dominaria. Why in the hell would someone "Chinese fake" the Opt and then re-back it? It would either be re-backed or a Chinese fake. No one would do both.
Once the admin got involved things got weird. They were basically asking him for the proof I was looking for, and he came back with "he could not prove it with a picture and that pictures could be faked too." Why the hell would you fake a picture of a fake card that was not worth $1? At this point I was done with the trader and just wanted him to go away. I was willing to cancel the trade on my side and just take the $10 hit. I just knew I was dealing with someone that had no idea what they were talking about, and constantly thought people are trying to take advantage of them no matter how stupid is sounds, and I was someone trying to take advantage of him.
In the end the admins asked him to send the cards to them so they could verify the validity of the cards since the pictures that he did send did not show anything. They were not close up, and poor quality. Let's just say that he never sent the cards to the admins, and when asked on why he did not send the cards, he got upset. The admins ended up just pushing the trade through since there was no proof of the fakes, and I got the full amount. I of course blocked him so I would never have to deal with him again.
This is the first time out of +13,000 cards sent I had an issue with a trader this bad, and I have to say the utter professionalism that was shown by the admins throughout all this was amazing. Everything was fact based, and things had to be proven. At one point I just gave in, and wanted to give the trader anything he wanted to just get away from him, but the admins would not let it go. Basically, they were saying that if you want to say another trader was sending fake cards, you needed to prove it. That just saying cards were fake, no matter the price tag, would not be acceptable on their site.
It is just a big comfort that the admins want accuracy on their site, and that is a good feeling. Of course if the cards I send end up being fake for some reason, I will take responsibility for them. It is a great feeling to know that the admins expect that same responsibility from traders that claim cards that were received are fakes, and they will not just let it go in order to just walk away from a crazy person like I would.
War of the Spark: Mythic Edition
Fuck Yeah!!!!!
So I have been able to build up my balance on CS to over $1400, and I was really debating on pulling those funds out to buy the WAR:ME boxes on eBay. I have been watching them for a while now, and the cost of the boxes have dropped down to a Buy It Now price of around $700. I also raised my ask price on CS from $650 to $700 so I could avoid the 10% withdraw fee from CS, and that way I could maybe just get them on my favorite trading site. It had been about a week and I was not getting any nibbles so I figured in the next couple of weeks I would just pull out the cash and pick up those boxes on eBay.
Then on a whim I was checking the Discord and noticed that someone was asking where I lived, but without tagging me, so I did not get a notification. Of course I asked if there was something that they wanted, and he said he was looking to see where I lived so that he could drop off the WAR:ME box instead of shipping it to me. I then told him that I would be more than happy to meet up with him for that box, and I was looking for 2 boxes (1 to hold and 1 to open). He then said that he did have 2 for sale, and would be happy to get them to me at the $700 price!
So yeah, he is moving back home, and will be driving through MN on his way back, and will be dropping off those boxes at the end of the month! I can now open my WAR Bundle and I will have that WAR:ME box for the WAR playset I am looking to get. Remember that I am only opening 1 Booster Box along with 1 Bundle from every set, so needing to wait for the ME box is crucial in order to not have a bunch of packs sitting around that I wont open.
So I am pretty excited to be able to get both of these boxes in from CardSphere at the $700 per box mark, and I do not need to worry about eBay sellers, or have to pay the 10% withdraw fee. I really can't wait for the day that I start to deposit funds into CardSphere rather than withdraw, and use CS as a primary source for getting cards.
I will be sure to share pics as soon as the boxes get in. Also there are some more items coming in, so there might be another quick update after this. I just did not want to wait to long before sending an update, so here it is...
Come Trade with me:
https://www.cardsphere.com/ref/711/e4031f
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