I've been away from magic for about a year and in that time, prices have gone crazy. Thankfully, I bought all my duals and P9 and most of the tippy-top cards before things went crazy. That said, I still have a portion of cards to buy and I'm unsure as to whether or not I'll be pissing away my money on inflated card prices that will soon drop when the bubble pops or if it will be safe enough to buy and hold onto them (most are reserved list cards). My cube only goes up to The Dark and only includes Alpha, Beta, CE, The Dark, Antiquities, Legends, and Arabian Nights.
Anyone with a better pulse on the market have input?
My unpowered 1994 cube (180 cards) cost me less than $100 to put together less than a year ago. Of course, it could have been a bit more if I didn't want to use Chronicles versions. In any case, outside of Power, Duals, and things like Juzam Djinn, there's not a lot of expensive cards. I wouldn't expect any of those cards to go up or down in value. The cards that do have value, I'd expect them to retain value or increase.
edited side note: I just re-checked the price of my cube. Apparently, Master of the Hunt jumped up majorly. A few other cards have risen a bit, too. I wonder if the Old School format being added to GP side events is the cause. I suppose if that format takes off, to expect more price rises, and if it doesn't maybe some decrease.
My 93-94 cube is sitting around $25,000 retail value as-is (although, the fact that it is 95% NM condition cards might boost that number). Basically any rare on the reserved list from the early sets went ballistic and now everything is spiking thanks to speculative buyouts. Even the CE cards shot waaaaaay up. I'm really considering whether or not the prices are going to tank or continue to blow up in the near future before I invest any money in these cards.
Side note: I started making this cube because about 5 years ago a co-worker was sick of selling MtG cards for his uncle who regularly trolled estate sales for items to flip. So he told me he had a stack of a few hundred mint condition Beta cards he wanted to sell me....for whatever price I wanted to offer. I gave him $200, immediately sold a few dupes for around $800 and build this cube with the rest...those cards are now probably worth around $15,000 in my cube. Insane luck.
Yeah I'm glad I got my CE duals for my cube when I did. I missed the boat on getting CE power as an optional module.
If it really was speculation driven I would expect those prices to come down slowly, but as always it's impossible to tell for sure. Right now it's too rich for my blood anyway.
Anyone with a better pulse on the market have input?
edited side note: I just re-checked the price of my cube. Apparently, Master of the Hunt jumped up majorly. A few other cards have risen a bit, too. I wonder if the Old School format being added to GP side events is the cause. I suppose if that format takes off, to expect more price rises, and if it doesn't maybe some decrease.
[180 classic cube]
Side note: I started making this cube because about 5 years ago a co-worker was sick of selling MtG cards for his uncle who regularly trolled estate sales for items to flip. So he told me he had a stack of a few hundred mint condition Beta cards he wanted to sell me....for whatever price I wanted to offer. I gave him $200, immediately sold a few dupes for around $800 and build this cube with the rest...those cards are now probably worth around $15,000 in my cube. Insane luck.
If it really was speculation driven I would expect those prices to come down slowly, but as always it's impossible to tell for sure. Right now it's too rich for my blood anyway.