I'm a developer and longtime player. A friend of mine has been deep into collecting mostly sealed boxes. He wanted to put 3% of his net worth into collectibles and take it as a serious way to view his money over time.
It's called SpellBook Finance — basically a portfolio tracker that treats your MTG collection like a financial portfolio. You add your cards and boxes, it pulls daily pricing from Scryfall and TCGPlayer, and then lets you benchmark your collection's performance against the S&P 500.
What it does:
- Track singles and sealed product together in one portfolio
- Daily price updates from Scryfall + TCGPlayer
- Price history charts for individual cards and boxes
- Portfolio performance vs. S&P 500 (the "is my cardboard beating the stock market" chart)
- Box EV breakdowns — see what the cards inside a sealed box are worth vs. what the box costs
- "Crack or Hold?" simulator that gives you a data-backed verdict on whether to open or sit on a box
- Price alerts so you know when a card hits your buy/sell target
- Portfolio analytics — see your collection broken down by set, rarity, color, top gainers/losers
The free tier gives you the core tracking + 90 days of price history. Premium ($5/mo) unlocks unlimited history, the S&P comparison, box backtesting, the simulator, and portfolio analytics.
Would love feedback from this community. What would make this actually useful for how you collect? Anything obvious I'm missing?
Some of my cards have historically beaten the market. A heavily played Mox Diamond has gone from $20 to over $750 since it was first printed.
Phyrexian Dreadnought has gone up $50 per card in just the past 2 or 3 weeks alone, and it seems to be trending to $500 per card, since it is rapidly becoming the stuff of legends in Premodern.
A long time ago, I had 4 copies of Gaea's Cradle when they were worth $20 each. Now they are worth up to $1500 each.
So yes, collectibles can beat the Stock Market over time, if you keep them for 20+ years.
Those are legendary holds. Mox Diamond 20 to 750 is the kind of return that makes stock market investors jealous.
You're right that collectibles can absolutely beat the market over long enough timeframes, especially Reserved List staples. The Phyrexian Dreadnought move from Premodern demand is a great example of how format adoption creates real price pressure.
We actually built a [portfolio tracker](https://spellbook-finance.com) that charts your collection's performance against the S&P 500 over time. Sounds like your RL holdings would put the index to shame. We've also got tools like box EV calculators and cross-platform price comparison to help find where the value is across different markets.
Would be cool to see your portfolio charted out.
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I'm a developer and longtime player. A friend of mine has been deep into collecting mostly sealed boxes. He wanted to put 3% of his net worth into collectibles and take it as a serious way to view his money over time.
It's called SpellBook Finance — basically a portfolio tracker that treats your MTG collection like a financial portfolio. You add your cards and boxes, it pulls daily pricing from Scryfall and TCGPlayer, and then lets you benchmark your collection's performance against the S&P 500.
What it does:
- Track singles and sealed product together in one portfolio
- Daily price updates from Scryfall + TCGPlayer
- Price history charts for individual cards and boxes
- Portfolio performance vs. S&P 500 (the "is my cardboard beating the stock market" chart)
- Box EV breakdowns — see what the cards inside a sealed box are worth vs. what the box costs
- "Crack or Hold?" simulator that gives you a data-backed verdict on whether to open or sit on a box
- Price alerts so you know when a card hits your buy/sell target
- Portfolio analytics — see your collection broken down by set, rarity, color, top gainers/losers
The free tier gives you the core tracking + 90 days of price history. Premium ($5/mo) unlocks unlimited history, the S&P comparison, box backtesting, the simulator, and portfolio analytics.
Would love feedback from this community. What would make this actually useful for how you collect? Anything obvious I'm missing?
spellbook-finance.com
Happy to answer any questions about how the data works, where pricing comes from, etc.
Phyrexian Dreadnought has gone up $50 per card in just the past 2 or 3 weeks alone, and it seems to be trending to $500 per card, since it is rapidly becoming the stuff of legends in Premodern.
A long time ago, I had 4 copies of Gaea's Cradle when they were worth $20 each. Now they are worth up to $1500 each.
So yes, collectibles can beat the Stock Market over time, if you keep them for 20+ years.
You're right that collectibles can absolutely beat the market over long enough timeframes, especially Reserved List staples. The Phyrexian Dreadnought move from Premodern demand is a great example of how format adoption creates real price pressure.
We actually built a [portfolio tracker](https://spellbook-finance.com) that charts your collection's performance against the S&P 500 over time. Sounds like your RL holdings would put the index to shame. We've also got tools like box EV calculators and cross-platform price comparison to help find where the value is across different markets.
Would be cool to see your portfolio charted out.