I remember an article in the now defunct Inquest Magazine; about one of the biggest Magic collections in the world. The guy had thousands of cards, full expansions in many languages, more than 20 black lotuses, original art, printing sheet, test cards, etc.
Do you know about a really big Magic collection? Is there a "biggest Magic collection in the world" out there?
I don't see what you could possibly do with that many cards, I own 12 cards total(I just sold almost everything because I never really have the chance to play, but I have a foiled out t2 Time Sieve Combo deck in the mail). I own a playset of foil Thoughtseizes, foil Jaces, and FNM Duresses.
Really, don't you guys ever look at the cards you aren't using and want to sell them? You could get a lot of money depending on what you have.
Nope.... I like the art personaly (for my nontourniment cards for my tourniment ones effect is all that matters but for my binders ect its all about the art NONFOIL art mmm )
MY local dealer has about $100,000 in cards, so I don't think that's the biggest. A Site like CCGHouse, or Troll and Toad, DA card world, etc, probably has the largest collection.
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What about SCG? They buy collections all of the time, I'm sure they have a bigillion cards in their warehouse. But if I had to make an educated guess, I would have to say some of the top dogs at WotC may have some of the largest collections. Purely specualtion thought.
Aside from dealers, not many people I know have gianormous collecitons.
I personally own at least 4 of every common and uncommon since unlimited...as far as rares, a little more than half of each set...I have no clue the number however I think I might get around to posting pictures...I have about 3 of the 4 row boxes, and ten very thing 3 ring binders. That's just for cards up until Invasion. I became broke and resorted to sticking extra commons into shoe boxes, with some 10+ shoe boxes from over the years since invasion, only putting the rares into binders and having a box for each couple expansions.
Someone here on Salvation claims he's got over 800k cards, the only proof tho' is a huge pile of 5 row cardboxes that could be empty for al I know. If he's telling he truth we might have a winner here [or Top 10 at least]
A few people have seen my cards inperson and im well over 1.2mil with Zend. As far as privately owned mine is quite large, Im sure I don't compare to bigger stores but I do buy so it keeps growing. the value of my collection isn't all that high but I have numbers. Maybe next week ill get a new picture as I intend to move things around on my vacation.
well considering on ebay you can buy cards in 25k, 50k and 100k lots and you can buy like 3 or 4 of them at a time, there has got to be dealers out there that have huge numbers. And considering that most of the major dealers (troll and toad Star city, Mtg Fanatic just to name a couple of the ones i shop at) sell power nine and other very expensive cards (alpha and beta duels etc.) i would think that they have the biggest collection and the collection with the most value. Except for that guy from inquest....
$100k in value sounds like a lot but i expect major retailers to have way more value than that in their cards. there are certainly private collections worth well more than that too (especially rarities collectors)
total number of cards seems almost useless. i can have a million commons but what am i really going to do with them.
My brother-in-law is getting ready to sell a bulk of 75k cards of his. And his collection ain't even all that big or great. I suspect the heavy dealers' card counts run into the tens of millions.
I don't think I'm really concerned about the biggest collection so much as I'd be more interested to know the most valuable collection. Private collector, non-dealer. I don't care how many Llanowar Elves a guy has, I want to know how many of the "treasures" a guy has in his collection and the dollar figure attatched. Just because a collection is big doesn't mean it's good.
Incidentally, I've been playing since 1994 and only have about 5,000 cards. I hate having excess stuff which ultimately become clutter. I'm always getting rid of stuff that I don't play with and am always looking to replace it with stuff I will play with in Standard, Legacy, and Casual gaming.
I don't think I'm really concerned about the biggest collection so much as I'd be more interested to know the most valuable collection. Private collector, non-dealer. I don't care how many Llanowar Elves a guy has, I want to know how many of the "treasures" a guy has in his collection and the dollar figure attatched. Just because a collection is big doesn't mean it's good.
You will probably hit a plateau of collectors who play vintage, then. The vintage players locally have their power and play at least one tricked out deck for Nats purposes, etc. Some of the Gamers Inn guys have vintage decks that are worth more than my car. And my car ain't bad!
I know a couple of people with complete+ summer magic sets. I also know others who are going for graded alpha/beta sets. Many of them also deal heavily in test prints, misprints and rarities in general (splendid genesis/fraternal, metal cards, playable albinos etc), in addition to having lot of power and sealed alpha/beta product. Valuation-wise, I reckon it would be one of them, or a large dealer like SCG.
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Thanks for your answers, all of you. Im impressed with some numbers!!! Personally, I have a 12000+ cards collection, with almost 2000 rares. That includes a lot of foil basic lands, 2 "from the vault: dragons" sets, many promos, a lot of Revised cards (I started to play in Revised), some signed cards, and four copies of many "famous" cards. I have 40+ decks.
Oooh, and I have 500+ cards waiting to die in an Ironman night.
My dad. He currently has around 5000+ cards, and he sold a lot of his, so before he sold them he prob had around 30,000..
Not only did you just post in a thread that hasn't been posted in for over 5 years, you clearly didn't bother to read the rest of it or you'd realize that 30,000 isn't remotely close to the largest magic collection ever.
SCG does about 20something million a year in Magic. I can't say whether that's strictly singles or as a whole, or includes other outliers of income (whatever they net from the open series, gaming supplies, and so on)but put that in a number and there's a good idea potentially how large their stock of cards could truly be, as well as where other retailers can be.
Dan Bock is probably up there as well in the numbers, either monetarily or number of cards. Definitely a top dog in terms of number of black lotus owned by a person.
I occasionally play vintage with a guy who has 4 of every card from beta onward. Only the origianl printing of the cards though. He does not do alpha has he likes matching borders.
All his cards are immaculate as well. He's been collecting for years.
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
How we and our collections have grown in five years.
All kidding aside, there are a lot of huge collections, which are mostly bulk and while impressive, will not even compete with really dedicated collection of graded alpha/summer/rarities/test prints. I would guestimate that there are nowadays closer fifty big collectors with 1M$ collections. 100k$ is actually pretty easy if the collector has some alpha/beta power and duals and a largish vintage staples collection. Still out of the big guys most are also known dealers, who use their collection also as stock. Like Dan's Lotus pic above can prove.
As for big collections, I remember one guy on a different site buying a small stores backstock and getting the cards delivered in a 15 feet long shipping container. Sorting that one out propably took some serious time. Yet the buying price was less than a BGS9 beta Black Lotus would fetch. Considering it was a smallish store, imagine something like SCG or Channel Fireball, I know that both have dedicated warehouses for storing cards. It kind of boggles the mind to imagine metric tons of cards.
As for personal collection, most big time collectors do not like to be known too well. At least they don't like that the collections location is known, as stolen MtG-cards are pretty easy to sell and almost impossible to recognize from other copies of the same card, unless we are talking misprints and test prints. Most beta Lotuses are unidentifiable from each other, while partial albino Underground Seas are much rarer and would be impossible to move if the collectors hear even a whisper of them being stolen.
There are also the original art collectors, who have very impressive collections of old magic art. While most people who have not followed the sales don't really know how high iconic alpha cards have run, those collections can be easily worth a very big pile of money. There's a net site specialising on MtG-art out there.
Also as an anecdote, I don't consider myself having that many cards, compared to even slightly bigger private sellers. Eleven years back people had much less cards and I decided to organize my collection. I made personal 4x sets of all my commons for each set, put them in binders and bulked all the chaff. I kept maybe 2k of the better commons, like Dark Rituals and Brainstorms. After picking 4x of each common for each set and the keepable cards, I ended up with 117 kilos, or roughly 250 pounds of extra commons. I also had about 2k lands, but as I was TO'ing at the time, some were played and I kept them all to have lands for tournaments. A convention eats about 500-1000 lands and this was before WotC sent lands for free to stores. (Which they stopped doing over a year ago.) At that time it was considered a big pile of cards. These days there are just so many more cards in print and people who have collected for a long time, that while decent sized, most active stores would not even blink if similar bulk pile was offered. (Altough they might need to hire a part timer to sort it.)
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Do you know about a really big Magic collection? Is there a "biggest Magic collection in the world" out there?
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You lose the game.
True that...I've bought a couple thousand rares from him...seems he has an endless supply.
I was talking to Shane who owns CCGHouse and he said he has over 3 million cards. However, that's for his company.
I personally have over 50k, which is not even close to how much I used to have, but I probably wouldn't even rank in the top 5000! lol
Really, don't you guys ever look at the cards you aren't using and want to sell them? You could get a lot of money depending on what you have.
Legacy:
Thanks to SGT Chubbs for the sig
I personally own at least 4 of every common and uncommon since unlimited...as far as rares, a little more than half of each set...I have no clue the number however I think I might get around to posting pictures...I have about 3 of the 4 row boxes, and ten very thing 3 ring binders. That's just for cards up until Invasion. I became broke and resorted to sticking extra commons into shoe boxes, with some 10+ shoe boxes from over the years since invasion, only putting the rares into binders and having a box for each couple expansions.
Boston Magic: The Gathering Examiner - Please read my articles!
A few people have seen my cards inperson and im well over 1.2mil with Zend. As far as privately owned mine is quite large, Im sure I don't compare to bigger stores but I do buy so it keeps growing. the value of my collection isn't all that high but I have numbers. Maybe next week ill get a new picture as I intend to move things around on my vacation.
Legacy:
Thanks to SGT Chubbs for the sig
total number of cards seems almost useless. i can have a million commons but what am i really going to do with them.
But take that with a grain of salt because i have some stuff insured well over what its actual replacement value is. Like my beta lotus at $6k
Incidentally, I've been playing since 1994 and only have about 5,000 cards. I hate having excess stuff which ultimately become clutter. I'm always getting rid of stuff that I don't play with and am always looking to replace it with stuff I will play with in Standard, Legacy, and Casual gaming.
For me it is QUALITY not QUANTITY.
Current decks:
Legacy: Zoo, Aggro Elves, The Gate, White Weenie, Red Deck Wins, and Merfolk. Currently building Solidarity.
Casual: Warp World Revolution and Old School Red-Green.
Standard: Ob-Nixilis Wave and Elves.
You will probably hit a plateau of collectors who play vintage, then. The vintage players locally have their power and play at least one tricked out deck for Nats purposes, etc. Some of the Gamers Inn guys have vintage decks that are worth more than my car. And my car ain't bad!
Spam Warning.
Now collecting Beebles too!
PM me if you have access to anything that is of interest.
Oooh, and I have 500+ cards waiting to die in an Ironman night.
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It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you.
Not only did you just post in a thread that hasn't been posted in for over 5 years, you clearly didn't bother to read the rest of it or you'd realize that 30,000 isn't remotely close to the largest magic collection ever.
Dan Bock is probably up there as well in the numbers, either monetarily or number of cards. Definitely a top dog in terms of number of black lotus owned by a person.
All his cards are immaculate as well. He's been collecting for years.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=4832736
Trading 10 full art zen basics for 8 of yours!
I want
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
-
CHECK OUT MY MUSIC!
https://soundcloud.com/stuckinplace
-
CHECK OUT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!
https://www.youtube.com/user/SnowEliteGaming/videos
-
LIVESTREAMS!
www.twitch.tv/SnowEliteGaming
-----------------
It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you.
All kidding aside, there are a lot of huge collections, which are mostly bulk and while impressive, will not even compete with really dedicated collection of graded alpha/summer/rarities/test prints. I would guestimate that there are nowadays closer fifty big collectors with 1M$ collections. 100k$ is actually pretty easy if the collector has some alpha/beta power and duals and a largish vintage staples collection. Still out of the big guys most are also known dealers, who use their collection also as stock. Like Dan's Lotus pic above can prove.
As for big collections, I remember one guy on a different site buying a small stores backstock and getting the cards delivered in a 15 feet long shipping container. Sorting that one out propably took some serious time. Yet the buying price was less than a BGS9 beta Black Lotus would fetch. Considering it was a smallish store, imagine something like SCG or Channel Fireball, I know that both have dedicated warehouses for storing cards. It kind of boggles the mind to imagine metric tons of cards.
As for personal collection, most big time collectors do not like to be known too well. At least they don't like that the collections location is known, as stolen MtG-cards are pretty easy to sell and almost impossible to recognize from other copies of the same card, unless we are talking misprints and test prints. Most beta Lotuses are unidentifiable from each other, while partial albino Underground Seas are much rarer and would be impossible to move if the collectors hear even a whisper of them being stolen.
There are also the original art collectors, who have very impressive collections of old magic art. While most people who have not followed the sales don't really know how high iconic alpha cards have run, those collections can be easily worth a very big pile of money. There's a net site specialising on MtG-art out there.
Also as an anecdote, I don't consider myself having that many cards, compared to even slightly bigger private sellers. Eleven years back people had much less cards and I decided to organize my collection. I made personal 4x sets of all my commons for each set, put them in binders and bulked all the chaff. I kept maybe 2k of the better commons, like Dark Rituals and Brainstorms. After picking 4x of each common for each set and the keepable cards, I ended up with 117 kilos, or roughly 250 pounds of extra commons. I also had about 2k lands, but as I was TO'ing at the time, some were played and I kept them all to have lands for tournaments. A convention eats about 500-1000 lands and this was before WotC sent lands for free to stores. (Which they stopped doing over a year ago.) At that time it was considered a big pile of cards. These days there are just so many more cards in print and people who have collected for a long time, that while decent sized, most active stores would not even blink if similar bulk pile was offered. (Altough they might need to hire a part timer to sort it.)
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