MTG Salvation

The rules text looks dithered and the card border is highly suspect. Either that picture is grainy as hell or it's fake.

Old figures are old. Here's a breakdown over time of officially stated numbers (which are estimated from sales):
1997-8: 5 million players
1999: 6 million players
2000: 7 million players
2001: 5 million players
2002-2006: 6 million players
2007: 7 million players
2008: 6 million players (Magic was at this point considered a declining property)
2009-0: Unstated but probably in the 7-8 million range. They had 25% growth annually during this time
2011: 10 million players (Innistrad brought it back with a vengeance)
2012: 12 million players

It has since plateaued. It would be safe to say that it is currently in the 10-12 million range.

Source: A Collector's History of Magic the Gathering

Quote from Dresden »

Not at all, everybody's got to have a hobby. Just be cognizant of that fact that if time spent on the game is hobby time and even if money is being made you're making money flipping cards, you're not making as much money as you could be doing something else.

I don't think that many people are flipping cards in place of a job (successfully). But, as a collector and speculator myself, I know many people who do it on the side. Most of them play the long game; it's too unreliable to try to do it in the standard environment, like day-trading. In fact, I know a fellow who has a six-figure income and no idea of how to play Magic but has a nice fat stack of dual lands and P9 in his safe. Because they increase in value by 10% annually and have for 20 years straight with no sign of slowing down. There's really not a lot of investments you can say that about. Just in my circle of friends I probably know half a dozen people who each have at least $1000 in cards and product waiting for a good time to sell. I know that I do.

That being said, I really don't believe that breaking the reserve list and reprinting everything would wreck us. They recently reprinted the heck out of Sol Ring and it literally didn't even touch the values of my alphas and betas.

A common print defect. Something was stuck to the printing plate and three (or more) sheets got its impression printed on them. Not a sign of counterfeiting.

Because everyone criticizes high dollar cards these days to the point that real cards are regularly called fake. Such as at the top of this thread. You fake a mox and everyone scrutinizes it and you get called out right away. But if you fake cheaper cards, nobody looks that close and there are 10 times as many buyers, most of whom have no idea of how to actually detect counterfeits. Exactly as was said, all the same reasons that cash counterfeiters do $5 bills instead of $100 bills.

There is a second reason that hasn't been brought up. Because there are counterfeiters that have no idea of what they are doing. Some aren't even targeting money cards, they are reproducing everything and selling it as sealed product. I have handled some lovely counterfeit basic land and 5-cent commons.

I have personally handled probably close to 1000 fake cards over the past 20 years. Most of the P9 was low quality, made at Kinkos or on a home computer. Most of the really high quality stuff was standard legal when it was printed. What these Chinese guys are doing hasn't been done since the "dark beta" of 1994.

I discussed this with a few friends. I personally know multiple people actively seeking this type of misprint and willing to pay a premium. Granted, most will be looking for an inexpensive type-example and not cards to pimp their decks.

We JUST had this discussion.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/567791-are-printed-proxies-legal

The short answer is yes, they are illegal to produce in America. But you will never get in trouble for it as long as you aren't selling them.

Crazy Squirrel is the big one in Fresno California
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Crazy Squirrel Game Store/@36.823831,-119.77981,3a,90y,300.19h,63.72t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s6ty4Ss-RTxMAAAQWsyAUXQ!2e0!3e2!4m2!3m1!1s0x80945d5b70583a4f:0x6e78a4470785cc19!6m1!1e1

The one I frequent is a little hole in the wall which I (and Google) currently don't have pictures of.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that world-wide they're going to look pretty similar.

An uncommon print defect but nothing too special. A piece of lint or similar was stuck to the stock when it went through the press.

It's really really hard to make money buying, selling, and speculating on new cards. In 20 years of dealing in Magic cards myself, everyone I have ever known who made any consistent money on Magic has done one of the following:
Speculating on sealed product. If a set is popular, buy a few cases and sit on them for several years. This one takes patience.
Parting out product. If a set has a lot of money in it, buy several cases, open them, and sell singles and sets online. This one has narrow margins and takes a lot of work.
Dealing in vintage cards. Many old cards have only ever appreciated and have small print runs. Buy large amounts of vintage/legacy staples, driving down the supply, and sit on them until the desired margin has been met.

The problem isn't lack of interest. Unsets have been profitable and have massive appeal with a subset of players and collectors. The problem is getting it in the tight set rotation. Wildcard slots for sets don't come up much anymore and there are generally products with more appeal to fill them. Mark Rosewater said that it would happen if people raised enough interest and bugged WotC enough. The petition didn't get much traction though. http://www.change.org/petitions/third-un-set

The only thing I care about is whether they are going to be exact reprints or not. If they have a new set symbol or new art then I'll pick one up. If they are identical to the first release then, well, I already own those.

I just spent a few hours speaking to an Intellectual Property lawyer about exactly this (among other things). Here's what he had to say about it.

As stated, no you're probably not going to get into trouble.

Just to clear a few things up though, it is absolutely illegal in most countries including the US. Damages are only one consideration of fair use. Even if you never make money on it and WotC doesn't lose money on it, it's still against federal law. They could sue you and probably win. They don't want to do this for several reasons. They really aren't losing money on it and suing people is expensive. And suing a bunch of kids for making low-quality copies of trading cards would be an absolute PR disaster and alienate lots of players. So they turn a blind eye to it as long as you're not selling them.

Fair use primarily cares about why you are reproducing someone else's property. Illustration, education, and parody are all reasonable answers. "Because I didn't want to have to pay for it," isn't a reasonable answer.

Yes it's Italian. Just search around for "FBB Fastbond". I found about 10 similar ones on the market. Looks like they're going about $25 in played and $35 in NM. I'd call yours SP so $30?

Quote from Demagoguery »

To be fair, Necropotence at the time wasn't that great, and it wasn't until later sets that it became broken.

No.
Between the release of Ice Age and the Black Summer, the only sets to be released were Homelands and Alliances. None of the cards in these sets broke it.

Here's Leon Lindback's Necropotence deck from the 1996 Pro Tour (he placed 3rd). The only post-Ice Age card in it is Serrated Arrows.


http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Black_Summer