I’m an avid MTG player, but I also like to do some speculating/investing. I realize RL singles and older unopened product are considered the “safest” places to invest; however, I’m also intrigued by Judge Promos, with the idea being they’re in limited quantity and, especially with older ones, probably harder to find in NM-M condition.
My concern, of course, is unless the Judge Foil is on the RL, they can just reproduce it in a masters or other set, including ones with alternate art. So technically the only ones that are likely safe from this happening are Judge Promos that are on the RL and probably ones on the old frame (e.g., [[Noble Hierarch]], [[Dark Confidant]]). I also worry that ones which have masterpieces or expeditions might not be good investments, since those “official versions” of the card likely would be where the value would increase. Also there’s always the risk that the same Judge Promo will be used again, like they already did with [[Wasteland]].
What does everyone think about these as investments in general, and, in particular, ones on the RL or with the old frame? Do you think they’ll never really amount to anything value-wise than they are now, or, even worse, drop in value? Or could their uniqueness/rarity turn them into a solid investment ala RL cards? Also, is there any published (or hypothesized) information on print runs for each of them?
Judge Promos have been hit or miss - depending on both their desirability and likelihood in being reprinted later on.
Unfortunately Wizards continues to show disregard for artwork significance, for example the recent Battlebond reprint of Land Tax which up until now was only featured on the Judge Promo. The watermark will still be unique but in my opinion these types of identical artwork reprints lead me to stay away from Judge promos (and for that matter all pricey promo cards), unless for other reasons we think they will be unique.
The promos that are relatively safe pickups are the ones on the reserve list, such as Yawgmoth's Will, Wheel of Fortune,
Survival of the Fittest, Gaea's Cradle, Intuition, Thawing Glaciers, Natural Order, Phyrexian Dreadnought, etc - especially as some will be the only printing with new borders, thanks to the loophole they used for a few years with Judge Promos and FTV sets.
Yes, you could make a case for the unique cards, example the old border promos, the Elesh Norn with alternate font, or the basic land set done a few years back. But these are not guaranteed - I could see them doing a Masters set one year with old borders as a throw back - and using the exact same art as many of the judge promos. Noble Hierarch would plummet in value overnight if that occurred, so anyone that bought a $300 copy would not be happy.
Even if they choose alternate art, the reprint quantity and style hugely affects, for example Wasteland was close to $300 at one point, and then they reprinted it twice within a year - both new art but same border style - in eternal masters and another judge promo. The original Judge Promo now sits at less than $100.
So unless the card is really unique, you believe it still stay unique, or is on the reserved list, I would stay away from Judge Promos as a collectible / investment.
One other idea I had for investment was to get a foil copy of all 110 rares in 7th edition. The logic is that 7th edition is probably the best post-revised core set in terms of rarity and desirability, and although many of the foils already are very expensive and it’s not the only foil printing for most, I think there’s still room for some profit to be made in the future. What are your (or others’) thoughts on that as a possible investment?
One other idea I had for investment was to get a foil copy of all 110 rares in 7th edition. The logic is that 7th edition is probably the best post-revised core set in terms of rarity and desirability, and although many of the foils already are very expensive and it’s not the only foil printing for most, I think there’s still room for some profit to be made in the future. What are your (or others’) thoughts on that as a possible investment?
Absolutely terrible idea. Dont buy sets of anything in my opinion.
+1 to Digitek's advice. Judge Promos aren't a bad way to go. Yes it's hit or miss, but he/she was trying to thread the needle for you. When it comes to MTG investment, you can't just frame a category as broad as judge foils and decide whether the entire category is good or not. Obviously some judge foils have done tremendously well, while others have not.
In every investment there's always a risk of failure. But with judge foils theres a rhyme and reason to why the market does what it does. Digitek really hit the nail on the head. It comes down to uniqueness for judge foils. Let's analyze a few scenarios:
1. Functional copies of the card is rare. Example. Maze of Ith, pre From the Vaults. Maze of Ith judge foil spiked to a high of $300 before crashing down to approximately 120 after the From the Vault reprint. Demand for Maze of Ith came from the fact that a) the only functional copies you could get were from the dark, b) the art from the Dark was considered bad, c) the only modern border you could find was the judge foil, d) the judge foil art was foil and just looked better. After the FTV, ftv foil copies could be had for as low as $20, completely crashing the price and saturating the market at the same time.
Maze of Ith as a judge foil was a completely terrible investment.
2. Functional copies of the card is common Example. Lightning bolt. Coming from the completely opposite angle are judge foils of commons such as lightning bolt. Printing of judge foils isn't going to do a damn thing to the supply of lightning bolts, or even foil lightning bolts. There's just too many of them. Unlike the prior case where the only functional copies of a card were from a small print run of the Dark, the absolutely negligible contribution to the supply of the card means that a supply side crash to the price is not an issue. Nobody needs to have a judge foil. This means that the demand for the judge foil comes from the premium side of the market. Paradoxically, when people know ahead of time they're only buying based on aesthetics, sometimes this drives demand up even higher.
Buying based on aesthetics is by definition an emotional decision. Where emotions are used to drive demand, theres no logical limit to its price. People will pay extra for great art to pimp out their decks. These are great investments but subject to a huge caveat. A subsequent reprint has a) better art, or b) uses the exact same art as the highly sought after better art judge foil.
One other idea I had for investment was to get a foil copy of all 110 rares in 7th edition. The logic is that 7th edition is probably the best post-revised core set in terms of rarity and desirability, and although many of the foils already are very expensive and it’s not the only foil printing for most, I think there’s still room for some profit to be made in the future. What are your (or others’) thoughts on that as a possible investment?
I gotta agree with what's already been stated in this thread - don't paint broad categories (like Judge foils), go for specifics. I tend to sit on my judge foils, and that's worked well for some but definitely not for all of them. I'd give some examples, but Digitek has done a better job already.
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[[KnickM]], so what's your thoughts on 7th edition foil rare set?
If you want a 7th Edition foil set (I'd go for the full set, because that gets you some of the cooler C/U cards like Goblin Matron and Llanowar Elves), go for it. It's certainly got coolness factor, and the OG core set foils won't be going down any time soon. As an investment vehicle, however, I think that it's a really bad idea. You're sinking a LOT of money into it and very little has the potential for growth. Your best case scenario is that another Goblin Lore happens, in which case why not just go looking for weird cards that could be engines?
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Since I'm one of the people who thought and still thinks 7th foil is a terrible investment, let me just say this. If you really want the 7th edition set go for it. Buying magic is an emotional decision. Don't let our opinions dissuade you.
That being said, 7th is a niche market. You have to understand that our advice is coming from the point of view that you're going to have many more buyers of dual lands than 7th edition foil. I really dont think that statement is controversial. That means if you ask for investment advice, we're going to base it on market analysis, not anyone else's emotional attachments.
I don't buy portal 3k. Period.
I don't buy Guru lands
I don't buy Misprinted cards
I don't buy summer magic.
All of those are niche markets. It doesn't mean they're bad. It doesn't mean they will go down. It means that the market is low liquidity and dependent on the "coolness" factor within the community. I avoid niche markets unless I have an aesthetic reason to enter the market.
Years ago I finished my playset of full art lightning bolts because I just thought they were so damned cool looking. I didn't care what anyone else said. They were worth 7 bucks at the time. But I wouldn't have advised anyone to buy it as an investment just because I loved it.
Same goes for 7th foil. And frankly if you're going after Knick in saying that the price is going up, you should buy it. When you are looking for reasons to buy it, it means you have an emotional attachment to it. And far from decrying that, I respect that. Go make your purchase and be happy. I don't think you will lose money.
I think that you're missing my point. Your plan as outlined was to buy ALL of 7th edition. That means that you're paying for the ***s, the BOPs, the Cities, and all the other cards that are already expensive. Certainly some cards (like ... Vizzerdrix - WTF?) will go up. But the best gain that I'm seeing is Final Fortune going up $8. That's a TERRIBLE return overall, plus you need to be sure that the demand is real and not some other guy who had the same idea and is now going to sit on HIS set of 7E foil rares until he can manage to sell them at a profit. Don't be that guy.
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Here's the thing. Other people speculating on a card seems to be what demand has become. Let's look at a card like [Reparations]. This card will almost assuredly never see play in any format other than that random prison EDH deck (which probably isn't down for spending $15 on a card that is technically replaceable with another card advantage engine). So you might be wondering, where does this demand even come from? The answer is speculators. These people have the power to create artificial demand for a card, and actually drive it up.
Here's the thing. Other people speculating on a card seems to be what demand has become. Let's look at a card like [Reparations]. This card will almost assuredly never see play in any format other than that random prison EDH deck (which probably isn't down for spending $15 on a card that is technically replaceable with another card advantage engine). So you might be wondering, where does this demand even come from? The answer is speculators. These people have the power to create artificial demand for a card, and actually drive it up.
First, I'm going to say you're not wrong. You're just not seeing the whole picture. The whole rumor/spike speculation is a thing. Undeniably so. And if you want to play that game, you can. I'm just here to tell that's one tiny facet of mtg investing.
Which game you play in investing is a combination of your skills, information, and interests. You know what game of investing I never really played? Standard speculation. For every victory I had, I had a loss. "Investing" through speculating on standard was something else. You have to follow the SCG tournament circuits, other tournaments, figure out what cards might be underpriced, understand the standard meta, analyze the impact of sets rotating out of standard, and of course speculate well enough to overcome transaction costs. Your advantage was liquidity, but your disadvantage was time. If you bought out a card and didn't get it right, you had until a few months before rotation. There was a clock to your success.
You know what part of MTG investing is totally NOT like that? Investing in 7th edition foils.
Totally different markets. Both MTG investing.
Let's analyze your point. Guy makes youtube video, prices spike (possibly). Do you want to follow the hype train? Again, I'm not saying you're going to lose. I'm just saying its a different kind of game. Whats the deal with hype trains? I have some experience with that. But it's not my major cup of tea.
So with hype trains, you have to watch out for:
1) Buying in late.
If you hadn't noticed, the first card the youtuber hypes, Rofellos has already gone up. Are you getting in early before the card explodes? Or are you padding the wallets of those who quietly inflated the price over the last few weeks?
If you are buying in after a recent price increase, that should ALWAYS make you ask what changed?
2) Pump and Dump.
Pump and dump is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It's like buying in late. But in this case, the people who hype up the card as the next best thing are the ones who already own 8 playsets.
3) Demand is constrained to the hype.
If you buy up all of a single card, has the demand increased? The price may be higher, but are you richer?
If you're going to play hype train, you absolutely have to know the difference between demand coming from a few major buyers buying up all the copies, and
demand coming from a wide variety of people. In the former case, your gains are illusory. Congrats you now own an expensive card, but theres practically no demand from the rest of the community at those prices. In the latter case, you win, but you have to be able to tell the difference.
A youtube video hyping up 10 cards is ambiguous to me. If he manages to convince enough people buying those cards are the way to go, I could see it working. The problem is theres no organic demand from actual need from the rest of the community. That means that even if your card goes up in value, you can't sell right away. From a finance perspective what's really being exchanged is paper gains for liquidity from the magic community. I personally would put my money elsewhere. But to each their own.
Keep in mind, I just pulled a foil 7th Edition [Ensnaring Bridge] (wow!) in a pack yesterday, so that incentivizes me to build the set more because I feel like I can't find the card anywhere.
Keep in mind, I just pulled a foil 7th Edition [Ensnaring Bridge] (wow!) in a pack yesterday, so that incentivizes me to build the set more because I feel like I can't find the card anywhere.
Completing the set because of the coolness factor and the fact that you have one of the nicer cards from it already is very different than deciding to complete it because it's a good investment.
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One thing I always keep in mind. In math and science, other people's opinions don't necessarily matter. In any particular craft or skill, other's people's opinions don't necessarily matter. But when it comes to investing, I always listen very carefully to other people's opinions even I have a very different opinion.
For obscure cards especially, your ability to liquidate depends 100% on the opinions of other people. If no one is interested in buying it, you'll never be able to sell it.
stormcrow has been pushing the 7th edition foil thing. And the reaction of several people on this thread has been, meh.
I've been there before. I've bought out obscure cards that no one in particular valued thinking I figured out something no one else had.
And when it came time to sell all I could think was "*****. if they weren't interested in it before, why did I think they would be interested in it now?"
As for the imaginary group of buyers who saw things my way, turns out they never really existed for practical purposes.
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My concern, of course, is unless the Judge Foil is on the RL, they can just reproduce it in a masters or other set, including ones with alternate art. So technically the only ones that are likely safe from this happening are Judge Promos that are on the RL and probably ones on the old frame (e.g., [[Noble Hierarch]], [[Dark Confidant]]). I also worry that ones which have masterpieces or expeditions might not be good investments, since those “official versions” of the card likely would be where the value would increase. Also there’s always the risk that the same Judge Promo will be used again, like they already did with [[Wasteland]].
What does everyone think about these as investments in general, and, in particular, ones on the RL or with the old frame? Do you think they’ll never really amount to anything value-wise than they are now, or, even worse, drop in value? Or could their uniqueness/rarity turn them into a solid investment ala RL cards? Also, is there any published (or hypothesized) information on print runs for each of them?
Unfortunately Wizards continues to show disregard for artwork significance, for example the recent Battlebond reprint of Land Tax which up until now was only featured on the Judge Promo. The watermark will still be unique but in my opinion these types of identical artwork reprints lead me to stay away from Judge promos (and for that matter all pricey promo cards), unless for other reasons we think they will be unique.
The promos that are relatively safe pickups are the ones on the reserve list, such as Yawgmoth's Will, Wheel of Fortune,
Survival of the Fittest, Gaea's Cradle, Intuition, Thawing Glaciers, Natural Order, Phyrexian Dreadnought, etc - especially as some will be the only printing with new borders, thanks to the loophole they used for a few years with Judge Promos and FTV sets.
Yes, you could make a case for the unique cards, example the old border promos, the Elesh Norn with alternate font, or the basic land set done a few years back. But these are not guaranteed - I could see them doing a Masters set one year with old borders as a throw back - and using the exact same art as many of the judge promos. Noble Hierarch would plummet in value overnight if that occurred, so anyone that bought a $300 copy would not be happy.
Even if they choose alternate art, the reprint quantity and style hugely affects, for example Wasteland was close to $300 at one point, and then they reprinted it twice within a year - both new art but same border style - in eternal masters and another judge promo. The original Judge Promo now sits at less than $100.
So unless the card is really unique, you believe it still stay unique, or is on the reserved list, I would stay away from Judge Promos as a collectible / investment.
One other idea I had for investment was to get a foil copy of all 110 rares in 7th edition. The logic is that 7th edition is probably the best post-revised core set in terms of rarity and desirability, and although many of the foils already are very expensive and it’s not the only foil printing for most, I think there’s still room for some profit to be made in the future. What are your (or others’) thoughts on that as a possible investment?
Absolutely terrible idea. Dont buy sets of anything in my opinion.
+1 to Digitek's advice. Judge Promos aren't a bad way to go. Yes it's hit or miss, but he/she was trying to thread the needle for you. When it comes to MTG investment, you can't just frame a category as broad as judge foils and decide whether the entire category is good or not. Obviously some judge foils have done tremendously well, while others have not.
In every investment there's always a risk of failure. But with judge foils theres a rhyme and reason to why the market does what it does. Digitek really hit the nail on the head. It comes down to uniqueness for judge foils. Let's analyze a few scenarios:
1. Functional copies of the card is rare. Example. Maze of Ith, pre From the Vaults. Maze of Ith judge foil spiked to a high of $300 before crashing down to approximately 120 after the From the Vault reprint. Demand for Maze of Ith came from the fact that a) the only functional copies you could get were from the dark, b) the art from the Dark was considered bad, c) the only modern border you could find was the judge foil, d) the judge foil art was foil and just looked better. After the FTV, ftv foil copies could be had for as low as $20, completely crashing the price and saturating the market at the same time.
Maze of Ith as a judge foil was a completely terrible investment.
2. Functional copies of the card is common Example. Lightning bolt. Coming from the completely opposite angle are judge foils of commons such as lightning bolt. Printing of judge foils isn't going to do a damn thing to the supply of lightning bolts, or even foil lightning bolts. There's just too many of them. Unlike the prior case where the only functional copies of a card were from a small print run of the Dark, the absolutely negligible contribution to the supply of the card means that a supply side crash to the price is not an issue. Nobody needs to have a judge foil. This means that the demand for the judge foil comes from the premium side of the market. Paradoxically, when people know ahead of time they're only buying based on aesthetics, sometimes this drives demand up even higher.
Buying based on aesthetics is by definition an emotional decision. Where emotions are used to drive demand, theres no logical limit to its price. People will pay extra for great art to pimp out their decks. These are great investments but subject to a huge caveat. A subsequent reprint has a) better art, or b) uses the exact same art as the highly sought after better art judge foil.
I gotta agree with what's already been stated in this thread - don't paint broad categories (like Judge foils), go for specifics. I tend to sit on my judge foils, and that's worked well for some but definitely not for all of them. I'd give some examples, but Digitek has done a better job already.
If you want a 7th Edition foil set (I'd go for the full set, because that gets you some of the cooler C/U cards like Goblin Matron and Llanowar Elves), go for it. It's certainly got coolness factor, and the OG core set foils won't be going down any time soon. As an investment vehicle, however, I think that it's a really bad idea. You're sinking a LOT of money into it and very little has the potential for growth. Your best case scenario is that another Goblin Lore happens, in which case why not just go looking for weird cards that could be engines?
Since I'm one of the people who thought and still thinks 7th foil is a terrible investment, let me just say this. If you really want the 7th edition set go for it. Buying magic is an emotional decision. Don't let our opinions dissuade you.
That being said, 7th is a niche market. You have to understand that our advice is coming from the point of view that you're going to have many more buyers of dual lands than 7th edition foil. I really dont think that statement is controversial. That means if you ask for investment advice, we're going to base it on market analysis, not anyone else's emotional attachments.
I don't buy portal 3k. Period.
I don't buy Guru lands
I don't buy Misprinted cards
I don't buy summer magic.
All of those are niche markets. It doesn't mean they're bad. It doesn't mean they will go down. It means that the market is low liquidity and dependent on the "coolness" factor within the community. I avoid niche markets unless I have an aesthetic reason to enter the market.
Years ago I finished my playset of full art lightning bolts because I just thought they were so damned cool looking. I didn't care what anyone else said. They were worth 7 bucks at the time. But I wouldn't have advised anyone to buy it as an investment just because I loved it.
Same goes for 7th foil. And frankly if you're going after Knick in saying that the price is going up, you should buy it. When you are looking for reasons to buy it, it means you have an emotional attachment to it. And far from decrying that, I respect that. Go make your purchase and be happy. I don't think you will lose money.
I think that you're missing my point. Your plan as outlined was to buy ALL of 7th edition. That means that you're paying for the ***s, the BOPs, the Cities, and all the other cards that are already expensive. Certainly some cards (like ... Vizzerdrix - WTF?) will go up. But the best gain that I'm seeing is Final Fortune going up $8. That's a TERRIBLE return overall, plus you need to be sure that the demand is real and not some other guy who had the same idea and is now going to sit on HIS set of 7E foil rares until he can manage to sell them at a profit. Don't be that guy.
For example, compiling RL cards on a video that ~30k viewers watched, that can drive the prices of cards up;
I actually watched that video today.
First, I'm going to say you're not wrong. You're just not seeing the whole picture. The whole rumor/spike speculation is a thing. Undeniably so. And if you want to play that game, you can. I'm just here to tell that's one tiny facet of mtg investing.
Which game you play in investing is a combination of your skills, information, and interests. You know what game of investing I never really played? Standard speculation. For every victory I had, I had a loss. "Investing" through speculating on standard was something else. You have to follow the SCG tournament circuits, other tournaments, figure out what cards might be underpriced, understand the standard meta, analyze the impact of sets rotating out of standard, and of course speculate well enough to overcome transaction costs. Your advantage was liquidity, but your disadvantage was time. If you bought out a card and didn't get it right, you had until a few months before rotation. There was a clock to your success.
You know what part of MTG investing is totally NOT like that? Investing in 7th edition foils.
Totally different markets. Both MTG investing.
Let's analyze your point. Guy makes youtube video, prices spike (possibly). Do you want to follow the hype train? Again, I'm not saying you're going to lose. I'm just saying its a different kind of game. Whats the deal with hype trains? I have some experience with that. But it's not my major cup of tea.
So with hype trains, you have to watch out for:
1) Buying in late.
If you hadn't noticed, the first card the youtuber hypes, Rofellos has already gone up. Are you getting in early before the card explodes? Or are you padding the wallets of those who quietly inflated the price over the last few weeks?
If you are buying in after a recent price increase, that should ALWAYS make you ask what changed?
2) Pump and Dump.
Pump and dump is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It's like buying in late. But in this case, the people who hype up the card as the next best thing are the ones who already own 8 playsets.
3) Demand is constrained to the hype.
If you buy up all of a single card, has the demand increased? The price may be higher, but are you richer?
If you're going to play hype train, you absolutely have to know the difference between demand coming from a few major buyers buying up all the copies, and
demand coming from a wide variety of people. In the former case, your gains are illusory. Congrats you now own an expensive card, but theres practically no demand from the rest of the community at those prices. In the latter case, you win, but you have to be able to tell the difference.
A youtube video hyping up 10 cards is ambiguous to me. If he manages to convince enough people buying those cards are the way to go, I could see it working. The problem is theres no organic demand from actual need from the rest of the community. That means that even if your card goes up in value, you can't sell right away. From a finance perspective what's really being exchanged is paper gains for liquidity from the magic community. I personally would put my money elsewhere. But to each their own.
Completing the set because of the coolness factor and the fact that you have one of the nicer cards from it already is very different than deciding to complete it because it's a good investment.
For obscure cards especially, your ability to liquidate depends 100% on the opinions of other people. If no one is interested in buying it, you'll never be able to sell it.
stormcrow has been pushing the 7th edition foil thing. And the reaction of several people on this thread has been, meh.
I've been there before. I've bought out obscure cards that no one in particular valued thinking I figured out something no one else had.
And when it came time to sell all I could think was "*****. if they weren't interested in it before, why did I think they would be interested in it now?"
As for the imaginary group of buyers who saw things my way, turns out they never really existed for practical purposes.