Before I begin, I should clarify that this question pertains to the economic value of FTV's, not the play value of the cards contained in them as I believe that merit to be too subjective. Also, some of my conclusions may be based more off of conjecture and personal experience rather than more concrete information. Thank you.
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So I've been trying to gather some numbers to decide if I wanted to open the FTV realms that I've been sitting on since it was released. I found that typically, from Relics to Realms, it seems to make more sense value wise to open the set than keep them sealed.
My conclusions here were that with these products coming after the establishment of FTV products, more people keep them sealed than opened, and that the three FTVs (Relics, Legends, Realms) have more usable cards in them than Dragons and Exiled (my biases here being that I don't know a lot of people that actually play dragons, and that the exiled cards seem to have a smaller niche than the later sets in the playgroups I have been involved in).
I found it odd that Exiled was just as valuable sealed as it was opened, and contributed this to the cards in the set to be just as playable as they are collectible and somehow this FTV managed to balance out.
As for Dragons being the only set that I found being worth more sealed than Opened: I attributed this to being the first FTV product, and that over the last four years since its release the number of available sealed copies has simply diminished faster than any other FTV product.
This finally brings me to my question: should I open realms? I find the set to be somewhere between Legends and Exiled in terms of usefulness, leaning more towards Legends based on the prices of singles that I have seen. Because I've found it in a kind of in-between status I'm really not sure what to do with it.
If you're curious about the numbers I came up with, I used two sets. The first was the price I could pay for a sealed copy of a given FTV on Ebay, the second being the total price that SCG sells all of the singles for in a given FTV. While I know I most likely would not be able to sell my own copies for retail prices, I relied on these for steady prices. The results:
In USD:
FTV Dragons: 225 sealed vs. 169 open
FTV Exiled: 200 Sealed vs. 200.50 opened
FTV Relics: 125 Sealed vs. 130 opened
FTV Legends: 55. Sealed vs. 110 Opened
FTV Realms: 69 Sealed vs. 121 Opened
Again, I'm not particularly interested in talking about the play value of cards in a given FTV product, though I recognize that this factor does contribute to the values of these sets.
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"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
Seeing as you can always open it and sell it but not unopen it and sell it...don't open it till you plan to sell it. Then you have both options and just sell at whatever is better at the time.
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I write about cube and run cube drafts on magic online.
Keep in mind, you've got them listed from oldest to newest. As sealed products get older, they get scarcer (on the market), and more valuable. I think if you made the same comparison in five years, you'd find sealed Legends or Realms to be more valuable sealed than as singles. It all depends on what time frame you're looking at.
The problem with singles is finding a buyer for all the cards at one time... Sealed you don't have that problem. Realms IMO has plenty of room to still grow but where talking five years from now. I opened all three if mine and still are sitting on a lot of cards... I wanted three of the Maze of Iths and other cards for my EDH decks so I choose to play them rather then kept sealed...
This is why these extremely limited edition releases are a completely failed project on Wizard's part. From a business stand point, sure they make bank at Wizards, but if the idea is to put various staples or cards out there which are currently hard to get to make them more accessible by allowing a LGS two or three of a given box, then having the people sit around on them for economic purposes... then what's the point? Game stores either jack up the price way above the MSRP defeating the purpose of the product even existing, people buy them for MSRP at a game store that is lucky enough to care about it's players to do so they can turn around and re-sell on eBay, or they sit on them.
Congratulations on obtaining a pretty hard to find and rare product, and it's obviously your right to do what you will with it. It's just a shame because there are players out there who would probably enjoy playing with the cards in it, who couldn't afford inflated prices or get one due to accessibility.
Keep it sealed until you plan to do something with it. It has the potential to gain value more by staying sealed, and as others have said, you cannot re-seal once you have un-sealed, so better to wait until you absolutely have to and make the decision then. That said, I dont expect we will see Legends hit the heights of any of the previous three, and realms at least has a chance longer-term due to whats in it, so we'll have to wait and see.
This is why these extremely limited edition releases are a completely failed project on Wizard's part. From a business stand point, sure they make bank at Wizards, but if the idea is to put various staples or cards out there which are currently hard to get to make them more accessible by allowing a LGS two or three of a given box, then having the people sit around on them for economic purposes... then what's the point? Game stores either jack up the price way above the MSRP defeating the purpose of the product even existing, people buy them for MSRP at a game store that is lucky enough to care about it's players to do so they can turn around and re-sell on eBay, or they sit on them.
Congratulations on obtaining a pretty hard to find and rare product, and it's obviously your right to do what you will with it. It's just a shame because there are players out there who would probably enjoy playing with the cards in it, who couldn't afford inflated prices or get one due to accessibility.
/rant
Thanks to all of you for serving as voices of reason, as for this rant... I find that original prints function just as well as these fancy foils, and that FTVs simply aren't meant to be accessible to everyone.
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"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
This is why these extremely limited edition releases are a completely failed project on Wizard's part. From a business stand point, sure they make bank at Wizards, but if the idea is to put various staples or cards out there which are currently hard to get to make them more accessible by allowing a LGS two or three of a given box, then having the people sit around on them for economic purposes... then what's the point? Game stores either jack up the price way above the MSRP defeating the purpose of the product even existing, people buy them for MSRP at a game store that is lucky enough to care about it's players to do so they can turn around and re-sell on eBay, or they sit on them.
Congratulations on obtaining a pretty hard to find and rare product, and it's obviously your right to do what you will with it. It's just a shame because there are players out there who would probably enjoy playing with the cards in it, who couldn't afford inflated prices or get one due to accessibility.
/rant
I really think that these have always been a way for WotC to reward brick and mortar shops rather than increasing the supply of anything. The point is for shops to make extra money off of them. Increased supply of hard-to-get cards always seems to be a distant second concern. I do agree that these kind of limited products can be frustrating.
As for the OP, keeping them sealed is definitely the safest bet.
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.
.
.
So I've been trying to gather some numbers to decide if I wanted to open the FTV realms that I've been sitting on since it was released. I found that typically, from Relics to Realms, it seems to make more sense value wise to open the set than keep them sealed.
My conclusions here were that with these products coming after the establishment of FTV products, more people keep them sealed than opened, and that the three FTVs (Relics, Legends, Realms) have more usable cards in them than Dragons and Exiled (my biases here being that I don't know a lot of people that actually play dragons, and that the exiled cards seem to have a smaller niche than the later sets in the playgroups I have been involved in).
I found it odd that Exiled was just as valuable sealed as it was opened, and contributed this to the cards in the set to be just as playable as they are collectible and somehow this FTV managed to balance out.
As for Dragons being the only set that I found being worth more sealed than Opened: I attributed this to being the first FTV product, and that over the last four years since its release the number of available sealed copies has simply diminished faster than any other FTV product.
This finally brings me to my question: should I open realms? I find the set to be somewhere between Legends and Exiled in terms of usefulness, leaning more towards Legends based on the prices of singles that I have seen. Because I've found it in a kind of in-between status I'm really not sure what to do with it.
If you're curious about the numbers I came up with, I used two sets. The first was the price I could pay for a sealed copy of a given FTV on Ebay, the second being the total price that SCG sells all of the singles for in a given FTV. While I know I most likely would not be able to sell my own copies for retail prices, I relied on these for steady prices. The results:
In USD:
FTV Dragons: 225 sealed vs. 169 open
FTV Exiled: 200 Sealed vs. 200.50 opened
FTV Relics: 125 Sealed vs. 130 opened
FTV Legends: 55. Sealed vs. 110 Opened
FTV Realms: 69 Sealed vs. 121 Opened
Again, I'm not particularly interested in talking about the play value of cards in a given FTV product, though I recognize that this factor does contribute to the values of these sets.
"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
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Congratulations on obtaining a pretty hard to find and rare product, and it's obviously your right to do what you will with it. It's just a shame because there are players out there who would probably enjoy playing with the cards in it, who couldn't afford inflated prices or get one due to accessibility.
/rant
(Also known as Xenphire)
Quoted for emphasis. Keep it sealed since you can always crack it open and sell singles but can't uncrack and seal it up.
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Exactly. Unless you plan on using the cards, just keep sealed product sealed (the rare exception being RTR boxes in their first 2 weeks of release).
Thanks to all of you for serving as voices of reason, as for this rant... I find that original prints function just as well as these fancy foils, and that FTVs simply aren't meant to be accessible to everyone.
"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
My Trading Post
-Thanks for updating the Mana Sigs Brofaux!
WUHaunted HumansUW
BUGNephaliaGUB
GToken SwarmG
BRVampsRB
GElvesG
To Build:
BWTokensWB
To NOT build:
Any Red deck. Ever. (Slivers excluded)
I really think that these have always been a way for WotC to reward brick and mortar shops rather than increasing the supply of anything. The point is for shops to make extra money off of them. Increased supply of hard-to-get cards always seems to be a distant second concern. I do agree that these kind of limited products can be frustrating.
As for the OP, keeping them sealed is definitely the safest bet.