Hello Magic lovers. This week I negotiated with a seller who was looking for $ 2,200 for a sealed box of Tempest. I spent 3 days analyzing the Tempest market, but it is so confusing that even I don't understand. I gave him an offer of $ 1,950 since it was really risky, as I don't know if Tempest can grow or stagnate at the same price. Yesterday he said he would close the deal with just $ 2,050. I was so indecisive that I came here to clear my doubts. So, is $ 2,050 worth a lot for this sealed box? Or at this price can I buy something that will really make a profit for me in the future?
If you opened the box with the intention of selling the singles off, this is not a great investment. There are only 4 cards over $100, and only 7 total over $40 (per mtggoldfish). You probably won’t get all of them, and even if you did, you’d still only be around $800 or so, assuming you can sell them for market value. There were no foils yet in the game, so can’t bank on those, either.
If you have the money to spend, and you just want to crack an old set, I’d say steer clear of this. $2,000 is enough to buy 20 boxes of Kalheim, or of another standard-legal set, which will give you significantly more value for much less of a cost.
A big driver for the value of Tempest as a whole is the Wasteland in the uncommon slot. WOTC have not shied away from reprinting Wasteland and they may yet do it again. Scroll Rack has been reprinted several times very recently and the two most expensive cards in the set, Intuition and Earthcraft, are not on the reserved list and will likely eventually be reprinted. I do not think Tempest is a good long term investment.
Opening a old box is basically always losing money.
Lots of value are simply from being a closed (wrapped is important) box , so the value is the possible cards inside in a very good condition and being a box for collectors (there are a bunch of people that buy 1+ boxes of every set as a collection, which also becomes an investment).
Buying into a box given you have a very good place to secure the box against any form of damage (like a safe), is basically always a good investment, if you enjoy having that box yourself and keep it for quite a long time.
All the cards not on Reserved List are somewhat doomed to lose value, but the original cards still carry value, even if they get reprinted a lot.
A downside is the set has no foils, as old foils are a major money sink (and much more rare than current age foils).
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Just buying the box to believe its quick money is basically the wrong approach, Collectables are always a very long term investment (and individual cards spike drastically if something increases the demand for them, and thats just a matter of time and chance).
If you have the money to spend, and you just want to crack an old set, I’d say steer clear of this. $2,000 is enough to buy 20 boxes of Kalheim, or of another standard-legal set, which will give you significantly more value for much less of a cost.
Intuition and Earthcraft are both reserved.
Sorry, when I looked it up on the wiki reserved listing I misread the way the columns were being used. It's left to right instead of up and down.
Lots of value are simply from being a closed (wrapped is important) box , so the value is the possible cards inside in a very good condition and being a box for collectors (there are a bunch of people that buy 1+ boxes of every set as a collection, which also becomes an investment).
Buying into a box given you have a very good place to secure the box against any form of damage (like a safe), is basically always a good investment, if you enjoy having that box yourself and keep it for quite a long time.
All the cards not on Reserved List are somewhat doomed to lose value, but the original cards still carry value, even if they get reprinted a lot.
A downside is the set has no foils, as old foils are a major money sink (and much more rare than current age foils).
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Just buying the box to believe its quick money is basically the wrong approach, Collectables are always a very long term investment (and individual cards spike drastically if something increases the demand for them, and thats just a matter of time and chance).
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