Australian Trade!

Card Count: 48

Yeah, no change in the card count after this trade, but fuck all this thing came all the way from Australia!  That Continent Island Country on the other side of the world from the US.  This is the first time I have ever traded with Australia, and I can only thank CardSphere for it.  I know, it is not that big of a deal, but to me it is a big deal.  Having grown up before the internet and cell phones this is just insane to me.

Just to know that I can post cards that I am looking for on a website and just wait for people around the world to send me the cards.  The whole concept is just interesting.  Without the community I do not think it would be possible.

Here we go!

Promo's all around!  It is nice to be able to pick all these up just for sending cards.  I have been sitting over my balance for quite some time, so it is nice to know that I can just keep building the balance up in order to pick up these cards here and there.  Within Aether Revolt, I am missing a bunch of common cards, so I might pick those up from the LGS, but I do feel that at some time I will hit someone that will send me the cards I need for these Promo cards.

I have yet to add my Standard needs on either trading sites and the plan is to wait until after rotation to get those on there, so I could see those get filled out once I add those.  I really feel that I am not getting those cards because of the cost to ship cards.  So most people wait to get above $1 to $2 cards before they ship, just because stamps are close to $0.50 each.

So yeah, let's just wait and see how this all goes!

A Lost Trade

Card Count: 48

So, it is Tuesday so I head on up to the PO Box to check the cards that might have come in over the weekend.  I really have only been expecting a couple CardSphere because one of my Deckbox traders sucks and is not responsive, and the other Deckbox trade had not come in for a while so we kind of gave up on getting them, and he was going to buy the cards I was looking to get.

Well low and behold, the cards showed up!  Now, I know people say you need to wait a good long while from time to time, but the cards were marked shipped on Aug 14th, and on Sept 3rd we had agreed that they would not be coming.  Normally 2 weeks is enough time to get cards, but in this case it looks like we should have gave it one more week.

So yeah, he had already went out and purchased the cards that I was looking for in the trade, but since I got his package today I am going to be getting another set of cards because we thought it was lost to the USPS monster.  I am actually checking to see if he wanted another $11 card instead of me sending back the cards he bought, that way I can get some more cards for trading fodder.  Also I would not be wasting a stamp!

Here we go!

So yeah, this is one of the cards that I really needed, so was one of the two reasons I went through with the trade.

This was another reason I went through with this trade.  This would make #4 in my playset, so I am really happy about that.

Fodder!  So yeah, this is all speculation for future trades.  But why?  Why do you want to pick up Mythic Rares for Fodder.  Rarity and First print.  I like some of these Mythic Rares for those two reasons.  I am not saying that these are going to be $1000 cards, but I do think that they will increase in value based on what I traded for them

This is a nice card I got from a CardSphere trade.  This is the only card that is going against the card count...  I know, I know, but come on we are 48 away!

/sings-high-pitched Unhinged!!!!!  I think I am going to finish my full set sooner than I think.

So yeah, that is what I picked up today.  I keep sending out cards through CardSphere since Deckbox has dried up.  It is not so much that it has dried up, but having to always match cards that I want for cards that are wanted, it is just getting that much harder to find something work.  I think it would be much easier if I was going for a lot of fodder cards, but trying to get cards that I really need is getting harder.  Just because I am able to find a single card along with a lot of fodder for cards that the other person wants.  I do find myself forcing trades on Deckbox just to get those 1 or 2 cards I need, but it is getting more an more harder to get done.

CardSphere it is a lot easier, since I have that balance and all I need to do is wait around for new traders to join and send me cards.  I do feel that at some point CardSphere will completely dry up because there will not be enough cards for people to send to make it worth their while.

Tiny tiny trade

Card Count: 49 (No Change)

So with this CardSphere trade I just got in a couple Amonkhet promo cards, nothing to crazy.

As you can see one of the cards is a Mythic Rare, so there is that.

Nothing too exciting, but needed to post it.  Hopefully I will get in some other trades.  There is a trade on Deckbox that I am a bit worried about.  It is a trader with only 10 trades, for a $5.00 trade, and I am pretty sure I am not going to get my card.  He has yet to mark it shipped and I think I am just going to be at a loss for that trade.  We will wait and see.

Always use a Toploader!

Card Count: 49

CardSphere and Deckbox coming through!  It does really hurt to get in a bunch of cards and only 1 card goes to the card count....

But on this episode of the greatest Magic the Gathering collecting blog, In The World, we go through why it is always necessary to use a top loader!

This.  This is what I found in my box, and there was a small sense of fear as to what I was going to find when I opened the envelope.  You can see that the envelope is in a Post Office envelope with a huge clear window to show you the package damage.

There was a massive tear on the left of the envelope, and I could see that there was a lot of black plastic warped inside the envelope.  I thought it was a sleeve that just got chewed up, but you will see it is much worse.

After I opened the package, this is what I found after removing the cards.

This was the top loader, and you can see the black plastic that got chewed up.  I was expecting that the cards were totally destroyed, and before I opened the package that is what I relayed to the sender.

To my surprise this is what was in the package!  They are a little bent up at the bottoms, but nothing to complain about for Promo cards.  The perfect sleeve on the Gidion pushed up all the cards and protected them from the roller at the post office.  So really the only thing that happened was the cards got bent a bit.

Always us a top loader!

Here we go!

Here is another promo trade I got in from CardSphere.  Really happy I am filling out all those Promo cards without having to buy them.

 Deckbox trade with my last Starter 1999 basic land I needed.

 This was the only card count addition I needed which brings us down to 49!

These additions were much needed cards toward the Portal playsets.  One to point out is the Devastation.  It was one of the high priced cards I needed and very excited to pick it up.  That finished my playsets!

So that is it, and I am really happy I could add the three cards in that top loader that got eaten up!

Commander 2017!

From the Best MTG Blog in the World - Love me some Commander!

Boo yeah!!  Today is a good day when a new Commander set shows up at your LGS!

So here is my set!

And I have another set setup with the other sealed sets.  I also have my speculation sets coming in from Alpha Investments.  Recall moment, we are Patreons for Rudy at Alpha Investments, and as such we get the opportunity to purchase items that come along his ownership at discounted prices. I was able to pick up a full set of Commander 2017 decks from Rudy for $94.99, and at my LGS I was able to get that same full set for $139.96, or $34.99 each (MSRP).

Now, with Rudy I was limited to only getting 2 full sets, and at my LGS I am pretty sure I could pick up as much as I wanted for MSRP, so that is why we open and display the LGS sets, and keep the Rudy sets in speculation territory for the lower cost basis factory sealed.  And honestly I only pick up 4 full sets in case I want to break them all open so I have a playset of all the first prints.

So yeah, that is going to be what I am doing tonight.  The whole opening, sleeving, inventory, making labels and dividers thing.  So fun!

But of course, since I was at my LGS I just had to see what they had, and so I picked up a couple of things.

Ohhh so sexy!  Beta Sinkhole!  Yeah, I totally needed this for the collection!  Crazy!

Yeah, Vintage staple and way overpriced, but picked it up anyway.  It is #5 and I do want to get 2 full playsets.  In hindsight this might be a bad buy considering they are coming out with Iconic Masters later this year, and I can see this being a reprint.  But, considering the low print run of the first Commander set, and they are doing reprints with Commander Anthology, there is a good chance this is not reprinted in any Master sets and will hold value for a while.  At least until they print the Commander Anthology, and by then I hope the price goes up further so the cost basis for this one will not be at a loss when they do.

Yep, same concept for these.  They were printed more than the first set, but they are becoming a Vintage / Legacy staple and I don't see them being reprinted outside of the Commander Anthology.

This was a CardSphere trade, and it is a foil only promo for the set, so I am pretty happy about getting my hands on it for the set.  The number is 141/140 so it is outside of the printed set.  Lets see where it goes from here.

And another CardSphere trade.  Yep, these are more of those stupid Planeswalker deck cards.

All in all a good day, and I am off to crack some commander decks!

Collector vs Speculator

Card Count: 50

That is right, there is a card count on this one!  So take note of the date, and what is going to be talked about in this blog.  Also take note, that I am mainly a collector of Magic the Gathering cards, but as a means to elevate my purchasing power to get the items I need, I have from time to time speculated on cards based on their playability.  Basically, I will pick up cards that I think will increase in value at some point based on what that card can do.

Now, I also had collected based on rarity.  If you recall back in the day I started with the Vintage / Legacy side of things because of the scarcity of cards out there, I wanted to pick up all the older cards first because the prices were still low, and I only assumed that the cards would increase in value.  In no way was that a prediction of what is occurring at this moment in time.

Right now, in the Magic the Gathering market, it is a fucking shit show.  I can say that I assumed that this shit show was going to happen at some point in time, and values of older small print run cards would go up by a lot.  I cannot say that the point in time was going to be 2017 and the prices were not anywhere close to what is showing up right now.  I mean, I figured that a Power Artifact from Antiquities would go from $15 to maybe $30, not $15 to Ninety fucking three dollars!

I would like to add that with the current market trends in older Reserve List cards, short term speculators will be losing their ass.  I feel that if you are a true collector and are looking for the card in your collection, and plan to hold the card for 10+ years, you should see a return on your investment.  But then, I did just watch an HBO documentary on an Andy Warhol "Brillo Box", where the first owner paid $1000.00 for it, and it had just recently sold for $3.2 million dollars.

Same concept, rare pop culture item, with specific properties.  Add some time and boom crazy prices! With all these very rare and low printed cards, in an unregulated market, we could be seeing the same thing happen.  Like those old comic books that are found as insulation for homes built in the 40's and 50's.  The only reason the Brillo box went for such a high price, because the availability of the piece was considered a once in a lifetime chance.

The item was bid up to such high prices because there were no other ones out there to purchase.  That is what is happening right now to the older ABU and AAL sets.  ABU had been first to the game because of the nostalgia of those first core sets, but it was only a matter of time before the AAL sets were to follow.  And what we are seeing right now is a removal of all those products from the market by collectors and speculators.

The true collectors that have removed the cards from the market did so long ago.  Those were the folks who held onto their precious cards for their collections and have no intention of putting them back into the market.  You might see them become available when the owner has hit a ruff patch in their lives, but for the most part those cards are never going to circulate again.

Speculators on the other hand, are the ones that are picking up all these cards to remove them from the market on purpose for monetary gains.  They see that at some point the scarcity of these cards will bring them value.  Like the Brillo box, the scarcity and once in a lifetime opportunity is what they are betting on.

Call it what you like, but they will be right in the end with those ABU and AAL cards.  There are kids that played with those cards way back when, or heard about the glorious power of the Power 9, and those kids will grow up.  They will be flush with disposable income and want to relive that childhood memory, or finally have the financial means to buy that Black Lotus.  Think I am wrong? You are reading this blog, but would you ever buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle?  I am pretty sure you would drop some cash for some Power 9 cards if you could.

And that is the bet.  The bet that the popularity of the game that so many kids love, growing up and finally having the means to purchase something that was unattainable when they were younger.  They are buying into the memories of those kids, the dreams and wishes.  Just like Comic books, or baseball cards, or even old currency.  It has been going on for decades, and the bet is that it will continue into the future.

I am not saying that the cards will be worth $3.2 Million dollars, but it will have a higher price tag then where they are being removed from the market right now.  And I am not saying every kid that used to play will want to spend thousands of dollars on cardboard, but the ones that do will have more than enough means to do so, and in the end all you really need is a small percentage of folks to have those means.

There is a chance that this hobby will turn into classic cars, or paintings.  There is a chance that a perfect 10 Alpha Black Lotus will fetch millions of dollars.  Think about it, 20 years ago I bought my first Beta Black Lotus for $300, and right now they are priced out around $17,500 and selling on eBay for around $8,000.  This is not just a flash in the pan event.  This feels like it will only gain more and more steam as we move forward.  People will sell off their collections, and other people will buy them, with the inventories that are currently out there will get dwindled down to nothing and the forces of supply and demand will do what they do.  And if someone tries to sell a Beta Black Lotus for $1 Million dollars and someone buys it, then that is the price of the card.

I watch and follow Rudy from Alpha Investments, and also I think the trick is to not think that the Magic cards that are being printed today will ever hold the same value as the ABU and AAL sets. Don't get sucked in thinking that you can make a profit on doing the same thing with the recent sets. And I also agree the sets that were released right after the AAL sets will not hold the value of the first 6 sets as the print runs were just too great.

Anyway, Here we go!

Yes the Traumatize is the only card that goes toward the Card Count, but it is a card.

And these were just delightful to grab, now I have the full set of Welcome Deck cards.

Unhinged and Starter 1999!  Really getting tight on those Starter 1999 cards.

CardSphere Portal!!

Another CardSphere trade.  They do keep coming in slowly.

Deckbox Unhinged!!!  Only thing that sucks is the cards that I sent him are nowhere to be found, so I need to go out and pick-up the ones I don't have and send them back out to him.  I do have to say that this is the first time this has happened to me.  I hope to have these sent out to him in the next couple days.

I do want to add that I am pretty lucky to have kept all the cards I do have, and worked on finishing the AAL sets first.  I could call myself smart for doing this, but I consider it the same as selling my AT&T stock to buy Google back in 2013, pure luck.

Keep an eye out for the bargain bins at your LGS's and the cards that were considered bulk trash. Looks like the shore is coming up, and when it drains you don't want to be the one without pants.

The suck....

In this edition of the Best Magic the Gathering Collector Blog in the entire World!

Phase 1 has slowed down to a crawl, and I added Phase 2 to see if I could pick up some more action. And there was a small spike up with cards that I was looking for, nothing to crazy, but I feel that I acquired all the cards I was looking for from the traders that are on Deckbox and CardSphere.  Since then, I am pretty sure this slowdown is because of the lack of traders on CardSphere.

Right now the number of Traders on CardSphere is 3185 folks.  That is not a lot.

So with this waiting game, I decided to just throw in the Planeswalker Deck cards I am looking for. What the fuck are those you ask?

These fucking things....

So WotC has come out with some pre-constructed decks that focus on a Planeswalker.  The Planeswalker is a push over of a Planeswalker, but none the less we still have this sacks of shit.  They are meant for beginning players, to have an easy entry point for playing.  The power of these decks are very minimal, by design.  WotC is basically trying to not put a lot of power in these decks, because they are for beginners, and therefore wanted to keep the sharks away from buying them up.

This is where I have issues with this product.  With complete selfishness, I complain about having to acquire the cards printed just for these decks.  Most of the deck is built from expansion set cards, but they also included a Land, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Rare in each deck that is only found in the deck.

You might be able to predict why I hate these things, but let's just state it for the record.  These things MSRP around $19.99, and they do come with a couple of booster packs, but mostly contain fodder. The cards that are only found in the decks suck, the expansion cards in the decks suck, and in general having to pick up these cards just suck.

I have come to the internal agreement within myself to just purchase a single deck, keep it sealed, and then just pick up the deck cards in trade or just buy them after rotation.  Of course with that "after rotation" statement I never wait for the actual rotation before I pick them up, but that is my own personal problem, and I am working on it...

So let's see if I can bring this around again to what I was talking about in the beginning of the blog. Phase 1 has been posted, and then I added Phase 2.  There was a lull, so now I have decided to add these Planeswalker Deck cards just to see what I could possibly get off CardSphere.  I was not too disappointed with CardSphere, but one trade did fall through.  Lets see what I picked up.

Here we go!

These are the Mythic Rare cards that came in, and I do have to day that I am the happiest about these. They are the most expensive cards, and are foils, so it is really nice to just pick these up when I can.  I can usually go out and buy the other cards pretty easy, but these Mythics are a little harder to find. There is also one 1 of these in each deck, while the other cards that are only in these decks usually come in more than a single card.

Here are the other cards that I picked up after adding the Planeswalker Deck cards, but still happy to get them!

I also got in some Unhinged cards!  I really do want to finish this set.

And Starter 1999 along with a Portal card.