And to us, the alterers, this really affects our work. Now we are almost forced to leave intact the copyright line to ensure comissioner's trust.
Damn fakes...
You could just have them send you the cards to alter. Then they can simply photograph the card or make a note of some identifying scratch or whatever on the edges or back or any part of the front not to be altered, and know its their card again later.
You could just have them send you the cards to alter. Then they can simply photograph the card or make a note of some identifying scratch or whatever on the edges or back or any part of the front not to be altered, and know its their card again later.
Yes, but that's for comissions. I usually produce the pieces first, then sell them. Anyway, all this fake thing is affecting almost every group inside the community, including alter artists.
People often forget that players who are sitting on thousands of dollars worth of older cards are usually the ones who bought them when duals were like 10-20 bucks a pop. The biggest losers will be those who bought in after the ridicoulous price jumps started.
As an oldtimer I bought Magic to play a strategy game, not to make an investment whatsoever.
I used to have a complete set of the revised duals. Then a graduated high school, and sold them for, I dunno, probably about $10 each. I was really happy, got a lot of money in my pocket for the first few weeks of college, the end, right?
Returned to Magic after college, and for a while couldn't stop kicking myself. But whenever I wish I had those old duals back, I realize I only want them because they have a greater value then I sold them for. So what I am really saying is, "Gee, I wish I had another $1000 or whatever in my pocket." That helps me relax.
As for Chinese counterfeits, yeah, gotta be careful with a lot fo stuff coming out of China these days. I'm surrpised Magic is getting enough attention to warrent the quality immitators, but buyers must always beware.
I would actually agree with you. However, it's undeniable that the market went completely crazy when dupes became widespread. The difference is the MtG market is backed by real money. By the way look at the state of Diablo II now... completely dead game and dupes were the catalyst that drove the average player away. Magic is older than D2 but the same thing can happen. The valuable sought after cards suddenly become worthless and people lose interest. Stores that kept their doors open by selling these cards are forced to shut down and suddenly a vast majority of the playerbase just disappears.
You might have a solid argument here if you were comparing D2 to MTGO. (and if counterfeiting was happening on MTGO) Comparing virtual to physical just doesn't work, as each physical 'dupe' actually requires an investment of time, money, supplies, etc unlike their virtual counterparts.
Okay, imagine the market is flooded with about 100,000 copies of each Dual land. Prices plummet to $10-20 for Revised duals, $1 for the counterfeits. Do you think Standard players would just ignore this? Do you think they would feel comfortable paying serious money for cards? Do you think they would shrug it off with "Eh, they're only making counterfeits of those old cards, these ones will never be affected"? Do you really think the rest of the secondary market would be unaffected?
I find some attitudes in this thread absolutely frightening.
It seems impossible that they'd ever get down to $1, as the counterfeiting process has to be profitable for it to continue. Then, there's the issue of the counterfeits needing to be completely indistinguishable from the 'real' thing (or nearly so) in order to affect their prices that much. This means that if/when counterfeiting becomes a major issue, the original dual lands in your example drop to the same prices as the counterfeits: I'd guess ~$20.
Standard players aren't affected nearly as much, because there aren't enough standard cards that cost more than the ~$20. This, of course, depends on where the economical equilibrium is for producing high-quality counterfeits, so we'd need more information on the production costs to accurately foresee how it'd affect every part of Magic.
It seems impossible that they'd ever get down to $1, as the counterfeiting process has to be profitable for it to continue. Then, there's the issue of the counterfeits needing to be completely indistinguishable from the 'real' thing (or nearly so) in order to affect their prices that much. This means that if/when counterfeiting becomes a major issue, the original dual lands in your example drop to the same prices as the counterfeits: I'd guess ~$20.
The counterfeits are being sold at 5 cents per card/.2$ per set.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
As for Chinese counterfeits, yeah, gotta be careful with a lot fo stuff coming out of China these days. I'm surrpised Magic is getting enough attention to warrent the quality immitators, but buyers must always beware.
Governments keeps the denomination at $100 to discourage counterfeiters (and still there are counterfeiters).
A foil tarmagoyf is 5 times of that
why are you even surprised.
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Heads up guys, mods are deleting posts that aren't vehemently against the fakes. Also can someone PM me with a link to the site so I can investigate a few things, Im willing to bet if people pretend to be buyers they can somehow figure out what states had lots of fake shipped to them. That at least lets people avoid ebay sellers in tainted states. OPs edited out the site and I didn't care to save them previously.
Nothing's been deleted & anyone PMing you that link is opening themselves up to suspension. The images have been posted, but we're not going to be enabling people to actually order these things, even as "samples" for "educational purposes".
The counterfeits are being sold at 5 cents per card/.2$ per set.
That still doesn't mean there isn't some threshold of value to make a card worth copying.
If it can be proven you intentionally bought and especially redistributed counterfeits, you face legal charges, so stateside criminals (on WOTC's turf, much more open to lawsuits) would need to have a sufficiently high profit to justify the risk in their eyes. It might need to be 5, 10 dollars per card still to generate any demand for the fake product, for instance, enough to justify breaking the law. No matter the cost of printing in China where they're much safer.
Same sort of reason why cocaine costs pennies in Colombia, and massive fortunes in the United States.
Nonsense. Even a card printed 20 years ago was worth something to them. The fact that they're not printing them now doesn't alter the fact that people are using their IP, creating their product without a licence and profiting from it.
The big problem isn't whether or not WotC is making money off the product, or has "worth" to them.
The problem is that their parent corporation (Hasbro) has shown that they don't have the ability/inclination to prevent counterfeiting... for reference, look into counterfeit G1 Transformers, which they have been unable to do virtually ANYTHING to stop, even though they are still occasionally re-issuing them.
WOTC needs to change the reprint policy, Speculators/SCG needs to scale back their greed.
These 2 factors needs to addressed before the bubble pops.
True. Counterfeiting is morally wrong and can't under any circumstances be condoned. The counterfeiters are in the wrong, but WotC is enabling them with an outdated reprint policy that ENSURES counterfeiting will be profitable. To cut out counterfeiters, you need to change the risk/reward ratio. Since changing Chinese law and enforcement is unlikely, WotC has only one option: make it unprofitable. This means reprinting cards and devaluing the secondary market themselves. Either way, the bubble is going to end. The only question is whether WotC takes action themselves, or fail to act, allowing others to make the decisions.
This argument sounds remarkably similar to debates on RMT in video games: when the official supplier refuses to meet demand, someone else is going to step in and meet that demand if potential profit is high enough. It's immoral and indefensible, but more and more over the past few generations, there are a lot of people who won't let morality prevent them from pursuing profit. WotC needs to step in and take measures against this, even if it means abolishing a promise that's preventing them from acting responsibly.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
The counterfeits are being sold at 5 cents per card/.2$ per set.
How can that possibly be worth the printing costs? Just the materials should cost more than that. I haven't seen them being sold... surely, $0.05 must just be the initial bid?
How can that possibly be worth the printing costs? Just the materials should cost more than that. I haven't seen them being sold... surely, $0.05 must just be the initial bid?
These aren't garage operations. These are large-scale professional and experienced printing operations. They have no developmental costs, so they basically can go make a batch of a million of these if they could sell them without blinking.
I'm guessing that MTGsalvation isn't going to allow the sale of or information on where to find these unofficial reprints due to the major attraction of the site being the spoilers for new sets, for which they are dependent on remaining on good terms with WotC to some extent.
Endorsing these would conflict with their business model.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
I'm guessing that MTGsalvation isn't going to allow the sale of or information on where to find these unofficial reprints due to the major attraction of the site being the spoilers for new sets, for which they are dependent on remaining on good terms with WotC to some extent.
Endorsing these would conflict with their business model.
Absolutely incorrect. We don't allow it because it's illegal and immoral. We are not in any way affiliated with WotC. We don't have a business model. We are volunteers who run this site out of love for the community, and nothing else.
"High-quality counterfeits" with a gray inner layer have been around for a LONG time. How do we even know that these ones are anything special? Recently I came across some counterfeit Pokemon cards that would look totally real in photos, but because of the texture of the paper they were trivially identifiable from a real card.
Plus, for all we know the photos we are seeing are a mixture of real and fake cards. Especially note the tilted photos including Tarmogoyf, Karn Liberated, and Kokusho, where they appear to be a different level of gloss than the other cards in the picture.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Wizard could probably verify the top 8 deck for fake and aggressively disqualify the offender.
Or just the money card for time sake, and for the judge sanity.
Response on this topic from Scott Marshall, as relayed by several RCs to teh regional Facebook judge groups:
Quote from Scott Marshall, L5 judge »
Please have persons who note fraud (such as counterfeiting) sites to report them to [email]OP.FraudInvestigations@wizards.com[/email]
If a judge, in their opinion, has a player using counterfeits, they should treat them as a player attempting to use their own proxies, and have the player replace them.
Do NOT attempt to confiscate counterfeits.
If a Wizards of the Coast representative is at the event, please get them involved immediately.
Thanks! - Scott Marshall, L5, Denver; Judge Forums NetRep
I see two options for WotC... either the value of cards has to decrease so that counterfeiting is not worth it or they have to make the cards harder to counterfeit. They are doing the second but it will never be effective unless old cards can be updated to include those protections.
So... either they reprint cards that are worth more than X dollars until they arent worth that much.
Or they allow people to "trade in" their old cards for replacements with the new hologram tech. Which would effectively raise the value of originals even more but also cause people to use an incredibly high degree of scrutiny when dealing with the originals.
Edit:
Or I suppose they can stick their head in the sand and let their customers deal with all of the risks until Legacy Tournaments dont have a single deck that doesnt have some card that is counterfeit in it.
Mods are just legacy players who don't want their lands to lose value. Anyways for serious magic players message me for a link to the alibaba listing. I can tell you ahead of time now though that the seller is out of samples and you will be ordering cards by the tens of thousands if you want fake Goys for your next modern FNM. Check out /tg/ over on 4chan for more info people are showing off their custom prints they made of their own magic cards.
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Damn fakes...
You could just have them send you the cards to alter. Then they can simply photograph the card or make a note of some identifying scratch or whatever on the edges or back or any part of the front not to be altered, and know its their card again later.
and the secondary market for duals is still not addressed.
EVERYONE suffers WHEN the bubble pops, not IF.
WOTC needs to change the reprint policy, Speculators/SCG needs to scale back their greed.
These 2 factors needs to addressed before the bubble pops.
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
Yes, but that's for comissions. I usually produce the pieces first, then sell them. Anyway, all this fake thing is affecting almost every group inside the community, including alter artists.
I used to have a complete set of the revised duals. Then a graduated high school, and sold them for, I dunno, probably about $10 each. I was really happy, got a lot of money in my pocket for the first few weeks of college, the end, right?
Returned to Magic after college, and for a while couldn't stop kicking myself. But whenever I wish I had those old duals back, I realize I only want them because they have a greater value then I sold them for. So what I am really saying is, "Gee, I wish I had another $1000 or whatever in my pocket." That helps me relax.
As for Chinese counterfeits, yeah, gotta be careful with a lot fo stuff coming out of China these days. I'm surrpised Magic is getting enough attention to warrent the quality immitators, but buyers must always beware.
How To Keep Your FOIL Cards From Curling: http://youtu.be/QTmubrS8VnI
The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
You might have a solid argument here if you were comparing D2 to MTGO. (and if counterfeiting was happening on MTGO) Comparing virtual to physical just doesn't work, as each physical 'dupe' actually requires an investment of time, money, supplies, etc unlike their virtual counterparts.
It seems impossible that they'd ever get down to $1, as the counterfeiting process has to be profitable for it to continue. Then, there's the issue of the counterfeits needing to be completely indistinguishable from the 'real' thing (or nearly so) in order to affect their prices that much. This means that if/when counterfeiting becomes a major issue, the original dual lands in your example drop to the same prices as the counterfeits: I'd guess ~$20.
Standard players aren't affected nearly as much, because there aren't enough standard cards that cost more than the ~$20. This, of course, depends on where the economical equilibrium is for producing high-quality counterfeits, so we'd need more information on the production costs to accurately foresee how it'd affect every part of Magic.
The counterfeits are being sold at 5 cents per card/.2$ per set.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Governments keeps the denomination at $100 to discourage counterfeiters (and still there are counterfeiters).
A foil tarmagoyf is 5 times of that
why are you even surprised.
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
Nothing's been deleted & anyone PMing you that link is opening themselves up to suspension. The images have been posted, but we're not going to be enabling people to actually order these things, even as "samples" for "educational purposes".
Mod texted. -Galspanic
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
That still doesn't mean there isn't some threshold of value to make a card worth copying.
If it can be proven you intentionally bought and especially redistributed counterfeits, you face legal charges, so stateside criminals (on WOTC's turf, much more open to lawsuits) would need to have a sufficiently high profit to justify the risk in their eyes. It might need to be 5, 10 dollars per card still to generate any demand for the fake product, for instance, enough to justify breaking the law. No matter the cost of printing in China where they're much safer.
Same sort of reason why cocaine costs pennies in Colombia, and massive fortunes in the United States.
The big problem isn't whether or not WotC is making money off the product, or has "worth" to them.
The problem is that their parent corporation (Hasbro) has shown that they don't have the ability/inclination to prevent counterfeiting... for reference, look into counterfeit G1 Transformers, which they have been unable to do virtually ANYTHING to stop, even though they are still occasionally re-issuing them.
I'm not seeing a downside for people who want to play a game without spending thousands of dollars.
True. Counterfeiting is morally wrong and can't under any circumstances be condoned. The counterfeiters are in the wrong, but WotC is enabling them with an outdated reprint policy that ENSURES counterfeiting will be profitable. To cut out counterfeiters, you need to change the risk/reward ratio. Since changing Chinese law and enforcement is unlikely, WotC has only one option: make it unprofitable. This means reprinting cards and devaluing the secondary market themselves. Either way, the bubble is going to end. The only question is whether WotC takes action themselves, or fail to act, allowing others to make the decisions.
This argument sounds remarkably similar to debates on RMT in video games: when the official supplier refuses to meet demand, someone else is going to step in and meet that demand if potential profit is high enough. It's immoral and indefensible, but more and more over the past few generations, there are a lot of people who won't let morality prevent them from pursuing profit. WotC needs to step in and take measures against this, even if it means abolishing a promise that's preventing them from acting responsibly.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
How can that possibly be worth the printing costs? Just the materials should cost more than that. I haven't seen them being sold... surely, $0.05 must just be the initial bid?
These aren't garage operations. These are large-scale professional and experienced printing operations. They have no developmental costs, so they basically can go make a batch of a million of these if they could sell them without blinking.
Endorsing these would conflict with their business model.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Absolutely incorrect. We don't allow it because it's illegal and immoral. We are not in any way affiliated with WotC. We don't have a business model. We are volunteers who run this site out of love for the community, and nothing else.
Plus, for all we know the photos we are seeing are a mixture of real and fake cards. Especially note the tilted photos including Tarmogoyf, Karn Liberated, and Kokusho, where they appear to be a different level of gloss than the other cards in the picture.
I'm no expert on Chinese law — is making these actually illegal?
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
It's illegal in the US. That's more than enough.
Making them might be legal in China but paying to get them transported to another country won't be.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
Or just the money card for time sake, and for the judge sanity.
Unless you can prove that they knowingly used a fake rather than are victims of counterfeiting themselves, they'd just be making things worse.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Response on this topic from Scott Marshall, as relayed by several RCs to teh regional Facebook judge groups:
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
So... either they reprint cards that are worth more than X dollars until they arent worth that much.
Or they allow people to "trade in" their old cards for replacements with the new hologram tech. Which would effectively raise the value of originals even more but also cause people to use an incredibly high degree of scrutiny when dealing with the originals.
Edit:
Or I suppose they can stick their head in the sand and let their customers deal with all of the risks until Legacy Tournaments dont have a single deck that doesnt have some card that is counterfeit in it.