Maybe, but I don't think so. If I remember correctly they were meant to be used as small posters.
The reason I would like to know is I am trying to sell them and I need to find similar items to get an idea of an asking price. I looked around on EBay and I couldn't find anything close.
Aren't commander cards ~6" by ~9" or so? These are at least twice that. Also, they are MUCH older than the Commander format, they are from Visions and Tempest.
First, yes I know it is not a card, but this was the closest forum I could find.
I have an old starter box I kept and I am trying to determine which set it is from. I looked in EBay and the only one I found that stood out was UL, it said unlimited on the front. Since mine doesn't I can rule that out. Any ideas on how I figure out which one it is?
Thanks
Okay, I also found the revised starter boxes say revised which mine doesn't, that leaves Alpha and Beta.
First, I want to apologize again. I saw your 1st response just before going to bed and rather than waiting til' morning I answered hastily. When I looked at my response this morning I was not happy with the tone of it.
In regards to your 2nd response..
I never had a store on EBay, I was just a collector/player.
In regards to dealing with dealers, shops, etc. I have consistently run into problems, although a discrepancy in grading had never occurred before.
One example I remember was a local magic shop owner about 7 or 8 years ago. At that time I had not started selling off my beta collection so it also included 8 copies of each duel land, a p9 set, and 8 of cards I used a lot (i.e. BoP, Wrath, etc.). We met repeatedly(over a period of several weeks), he got to examine the cards repeatedly, we haggled a bit and we finally agreed on a price (I think it was about 16K at that time). The day comes for him to pay and receive the cards and he tries to cut his offer in half. I walked away.
On another occasion (this was in NJ) a store owner offered to sell some of my cards where he would take an agreed % of each sale. I had been playing at his store on and off for a while, I decided to give it a try. I gave him a boxed collector's edition set to start with. One day I come to the store and it is closed and vacant. He was gone, along with my cards.
On another occasion at a show a dealer was looking at my trade-ables (which I kept in plastic card boxes by set). It was a father and son if I remember correctly. While I was talking to the father, the son was slipping cards out of the other boxes. I was fortunate that I knew many people at the show and one of them noticed what was happening. In the end I got my cards back.
There are more stories but I think you get the idea. In hindsight, perhaps I came into this transaction with a bias against retailers because of my past experiences. Regardless, other players (and at least 1 dealer) have seen the cards in question in person since this purchase/sale fell apart and I have consistently seen the same reaction. When I tell them about my experience they are surprised at the grading overall. And I guess you could say some of them have put their money where their mouth is. Several of them have happily purchased from this lot at the prices SCG refused. I think this is part of the reason I decided to post my grievances. I was not alone in my views.
I am going to try and address your points in order.
In regards to grading. SCG posts their grading scale on their website, I posted a link to it. I also looked at 2 other websites grading scales. There didn't appear to be any difference to me. If they are "strict graders" why do their samples look the same as everyone else? Are you suggesting they don't use their own published scale? You also suggest that SCG grades older cards differently then newer cards, again there is no mention of this on their site that I could find.
I've never heard of a white background in a scan as problematic. In my own sales no one has ever complained. In addition the cards were scanned at 600dpi. You are looking at an image ~2 and a half times the size of an actual card, brightly illuminated. Any imperfections are greatly magnified under these conditions. If you had the cards in front of you, in normal lighting conditions the only card you would see any edge wear on is the one on the lower right. Lastly, please look at their image of a card with moderate border wear. If you see that wear on any card other than the one in the lower right corner, then I guess I simply disagree with you.
You list your interpretation of conditions. You are certainly entitled to have your own criteria but I don't see how they are relevant to this sale. I was selling to SCG. I used their descriptions and images to determine condition.
Finally you didn't directly mention their note: "Heavily played, major bends, edge wear". Even if I concede to your view of edge wear for sake of argument. They make 2 other claims. First, that the cards are heavily played. Please take a look at SCG's descriptions and sample images of heavily played cards. Once again, if you think those descriptions and images match those of my cards above, then again I simply disagree with you. In regards to their second claim that their are major bends I am not sure how to prove they are wrong. Beyond the indentation on the back of one card (which I readily admitted to) there are certainly no creases of any kind, and the cards lie as flat as any card I own. Not only is there no "major bending" there is no bending what so ever. If you know of some neutral party in my area (Houston, TX) that would look at the cards I would agree to a personal inspection.
As far as difficulty in selling the cards. I started playing and collecting MtG from it's inception. I have bought, sold, and traded cards, both online and in person, for 25 years and have never had even the smallest problem until this. Not even once. Again, I offer my EBay rating(elric132) as evidence of this. I have sold 80 beta dual lands, 4 beta BoP and several other valuable beta cards whose names I don't remember at the moment, on EBay. Finally, as I said above, I have also sold parts of my beta set to friends locally (including a beta P9 set). No one has ever complained and I have never had a dispute in regards to grading. After this interaction with SCG I again started selling the cards locally. I found a buyer who has since bought about 7,000$ in cards from me. Before he started buying from me I told him what had happened with SCG. At first he was incredulous. He said he had dealt with them on several occasions and never had a problem. At this point I produced the SCG evaluation list and let him look through the cards. He was stunned. He consistently couldn't understand their grading of the cards. He could offer no explanation.
I am sorry if I have come across as defensive, it wasn't my intention when I started writing this. Every time I think about this transaction with SCG I find myself getting angry. While I may not agree with your views, you were polite and reasoned in making them. I am sorry if I allowed my anger to be directed at you.
Part I
I know of 4(5) ways to test it.
1) Compare it to another instance. - I used to have a beta, Ul and CE(I had the whole boxed set) Lotuses. I have already sold them. Most (if not all) of the people I have met in the area I now live play Modern or EDH, there are no Lotuses readily available to compare it to.
2) Light Test - Shining a light through it and see how it matches up with a "real" version of the card in terms of how the light shines through. 2 problems with this. 1 - See my previous comment, I don't have one to compare it to. 2 - It is a proof. The back is white and has no ink on it. I doubt you could make a valid comparison with a card that has been printed on both sides.
3) Examining the Rosettes with a jewelers loop - Maybe my best bet. I still would like to make certain that the printing process used on proofs will have the same results as a regular card. For instance will the lack of ink on the back make a difference in the values of the Rosettes on the other side because more light can get through?
4) Black Light - Again, basically the same problems as with the other tests.
5) Any test that could conceivably damage the card. I.e bend, rip or water tests. I think anyone who uses these tests is out of their mind. But, if the card was worth 5 or 10 dollars and you want to gamble on ruining your card I could maybe understand it. With a card that could be worth hundreds or even thousands? Nobody is doing that with my cards.
Part II
First I would say the card is mint. Yes it is signed but the autograph is on the front. I thought with proofs the artists usually sign the back. Unfortunately with Rush deceased I obviously can't ask him. Finally I would need to get pretty lucky to find other beta proof lotus owners to compare the signature and it's location.
In regards to the price I generally agree with you. I thought I found a sale of one on EBay several months ago. I looked and I can't find it now (maybe I'm losing it :-)). Regardless, it was listed for 5 or 6 thousand if I remember correctly but sold as a best offer so I really don't know what the final price was.
Please don't take any of this the wrong way. I appreciate your response and in fact I agree with most of it. I guess I am hoping I might find someone who can give me a more concrete answer.
I have been a MtG player since the game began(my DCI card says I have been a member since Sep 92'). Over the last several years I have been selling off my collection piece-meal either to friends or on EBay. I have probably made a hundred sales on Ebay of some very valuable cards and have never had a problem. No one has ever accused me of selling fake cards or lying about their condition, or anything else for that matter. I did have one customer who accused me of being rude to him in a response and left me neutral feedback. I think the actual problem was that he wasn't a native English speaker and he misinterpreted my comments to him. You are welcome to look at my EBay feedback, member name elric132.
Anyway I had gotten tired of selling cards this way. While it is true you can get a better price selling cards individually, it is also time(and effort) consuming. I decided to try selling my collection in large lots to a store or dealer. I spoke to friends and looked online for referrals. I was looking for someone both honest and able to make large purchases. I also realized selling in this manner I was going to take a hit on my return profit so I compared prospects buy lists to see who would offer the most. SCG seemed to fit the bill. From what I could find online and what I heard from friends they appeared honest. I understood they were one of the biggest online retailers of MtG (if not the biggest) so it seemed likely they would have the capitol to make large purchases. Finally in regard to their buy lists, their prices were at, or near the top among their competitors.
SCG requested I grade my cards using their online tool and place them in that order for shipping, which I did. For grading I used their card conditions page as well as a couple of other sites. Regardless, all of the sites grading criteria were almost identical and included scans/pictures of cards in each condition. You can see SCG's page here:
The cards I sent to them were roughly speaking 4 of every card in beta, minus duel lands and the power nine. Also there were only 1 of cards that had been restricted(again generally). Their offered price(using my grading) was 28,130.20$. I was fully cognizant that the total could and probably would change when they graded the cards themselves. My eyesight isn't what it used to be(I wear reading glasses), plus I expected there would be cases we simply disagreed on. In the end I expected their final offer to probably be a little lower than the one my grading had produced.
When I got their response I was shocked. Their offer was 16,923.80$. They had graded many(maybe even a majority) of the cards lower than I had. In some cases, much lower. As I already stated I expected their might be some adjustment of the total, but almost 40%? This didn't make sense to me. They had posted their grading evaluations along with notes for cards that had specific issues. Since they had possession of my cards I couldn't literally look at their results and categorically dispute them going by memory. But I had the original list with my conditions to compare it to. I looked for an extreme case where the grading was far apart and I had some memory of the card's conditions. In the lot were 4 copies of Mana Short. I had graded 3 as m/nm and 1 as sp. They had graded all 4 as mp(their system doesn't allow gradings below this) with the following note:
Please decide for yourselves how accurate their evaluation was. To be fair, one of the cards has an indentation on the back as if it was underneath something being written on. The scan does not show this, you need to hold the card at an angle to a light source to see it.
Could I have made a mistake, absolutely. But there is no way I could accept I was this far off, and on so many cards. In a nutshell their response was that every site used their own grading system. Since I had used their page for grading(as well as two others which were virtually identical) this response made no sense to me.
They were never rude to me. They were responsive to my emails and phone calls. I chose not to sell any of my cards to them and they did return them in a timely fashion.
I leave it to you to decide in regards to how honest they were, and what their intentions were.
NOTE: I am having a problem uploading the 2 scans. I am getting the message: "The file provided is too large. Please provide a file less than 1 GB." I examined the files, one is 12.3mb and the other is 11.1mb. I don't know what is happening here. If anyone has a suggested solution for this I would appreciate a response. I will post the scans as soon as I find a solution.
I wasn't able to upload the images(and I still don't know why). Here are links to the images on Imgur:
I have been looking for an on point answer to these questions and I haven't had any luck. If you have an answer or know where I could find one I would appreciate a response.
More Detail
I have been a player/collector of MtG since the very beginning(my id card is dated 92'). I have a pretty big collection which I started selling off piece-meal a few years ago(some on EBay, some to friends).
1) I have a signed proof beta black lotus. For the life of me I cant remember how I got it. I don't want to even try to move it until I am certain it is real. Because it is a proof I don't know if it will(or even should) pass authenticity tests you would use on a normal MtG card. Any suggestions?
2) If I manage to prove it is real, how do I arrive at an asking price? With only 50 printed I am unlikely to find another recent sale to base it on.
I appreciate the reference to Abu but I would prefer to find what they are commonly called so I can look up a price in several different places.
The reason I would like to know is I am trying to sell them and I need to find similar items to get an idea of an asking price. I looked around on EBay and I couldn't find anything close.
Again, I know this isn't an authentication question, but this forum was the closest I could find.
I have about a half dozen giant magic cards. They are ~12" by ~18". What are these called?
Thanks.
First, yes I know it is not a card, but this was the closest forum I could find.
I have an old starter box I kept and I am trying to determine which set it is from. I looked in EBay and the only one I found that stood out was UL, it said unlimited on the front. Since mine doesn't I can rule that out. Any ideas on how I figure out which one it is?
Thanks
Okay, I also found the revised starter boxes say revised which mine doesn't, that leaves Alpha and Beta.
In regards to your 2nd response..
I never had a store on EBay, I was just a collector/player.
In regards to dealing with dealers, shops, etc. I have consistently run into problems, although a discrepancy in grading had never occurred before.
One example I remember was a local magic shop owner about 7 or 8 years ago. At that time I had not started selling off my beta collection so it also included 8 copies of each duel land, a p9 set, and 8 of cards I used a lot (i.e. BoP, Wrath, etc.). We met repeatedly(over a period of several weeks), he got to examine the cards repeatedly, we haggled a bit and we finally agreed on a price (I think it was about 16K at that time). The day comes for him to pay and receive the cards and he tries to cut his offer in half. I walked away.
On another occasion (this was in NJ) a store owner offered to sell some of my cards where he would take an agreed % of each sale. I had been playing at his store on and off for a while, I decided to give it a try. I gave him a boxed collector's edition set to start with. One day I come to the store and it is closed and vacant. He was gone, along with my cards.
On another occasion at a show a dealer was looking at my trade-ables (which I kept in plastic card boxes by set). It was a father and son if I remember correctly. While I was talking to the father, the son was slipping cards out of the other boxes. I was fortunate that I knew many people at the show and one of them noticed what was happening. In the end I got my cards back.
There are more stories but I think you get the idea. In hindsight, perhaps I came into this transaction with a bias against retailers because of my past experiences. Regardless, other players (and at least 1 dealer) have seen the cards in question in person since this purchase/sale fell apart and I have consistently seen the same reaction. When I tell them about my experience they are surprised at the grading overall. And I guess you could say some of them have put their money where their mouth is. Several of them have happily purchased from this lot at the prices SCG refused. I think this is part of the reason I decided to post my grievances. I was not alone in my views.
I am going to try and address your points in order.
In regards to grading. SCG posts their grading scale on their website, I posted a link to it. I also looked at 2 other websites grading scales. There didn't appear to be any difference to me. If they are "strict graders" why do their samples look the same as everyone else? Are you suggesting they don't use their own published scale? You also suggest that SCG grades older cards differently then newer cards, again there is no mention of this on their site that I could find.
I've never heard of a white background in a scan as problematic. In my own sales no one has ever complained. In addition the cards were scanned at 600dpi. You are looking at an image ~2 and a half times the size of an actual card, brightly illuminated. Any imperfections are greatly magnified under these conditions. If you had the cards in front of you, in normal lighting conditions the only card you would see any edge wear on is the one on the lower right. Lastly, please look at their image of a card with moderate border wear. If you see that wear on any card other than the one in the lower right corner, then I guess I simply disagree with you.
You list your interpretation of conditions. You are certainly entitled to have your own criteria but I don't see how they are relevant to this sale. I was selling to SCG. I used their descriptions and images to determine condition.
Finally you didn't directly mention their note: "Heavily played, major bends, edge wear". Even if I concede to your view of edge wear for sake of argument. They make 2 other claims. First, that the cards are heavily played. Please take a look at SCG's descriptions and sample images of heavily played cards. Once again, if you think those descriptions and images match those of my cards above, then again I simply disagree with you. In regards to their second claim that their are major bends I am not sure how to prove they are wrong. Beyond the indentation on the back of one card (which I readily admitted to) there are certainly no creases of any kind, and the cards lie as flat as any card I own. Not only is there no "major bending" there is no bending what so ever. If you know of some neutral party in my area (Houston, TX) that would look at the cards I would agree to a personal inspection.
As far as difficulty in selling the cards. I started playing and collecting MtG from it's inception. I have bought, sold, and traded cards, both online and in person, for 25 years and have never had even the smallest problem until this. Not even once. Again, I offer my EBay rating(elric132) as evidence of this. I have sold 80 beta dual lands, 4 beta BoP and several other valuable beta cards whose names I don't remember at the moment, on EBay. Finally, as I said above, I have also sold parts of my beta set to friends locally (including a beta P9 set). No one has ever complained and I have never had a dispute in regards to grading. After this interaction with SCG I again started selling the cards locally. I found a buyer who has since bought about 7,000$ in cards from me. Before he started buying from me I told him what had happened with SCG. At first he was incredulous. He said he had dealt with them on several occasions and never had a problem. At this point I produced the SCG evaluation list and let him look through the cards. He was stunned. He consistently couldn't understand their grading of the cards. He could offer no explanation.
I am sorry if I have come across as defensive, it wasn't my intention when I started writing this. Every time I think about this transaction with SCG I find myself getting angry. While I may not agree with your views, you were polite and reasoned in making them. I am sorry if I allowed my anger to be directed at you.
Part I
I know of 4(5) ways to test it.
1) Compare it to another instance. - I used to have a beta, Ul and CE(I had the whole boxed set) Lotuses. I have already sold them. Most (if not all) of the people I have met in the area I now live play Modern or EDH, there are no Lotuses readily available to compare it to.
2) Light Test - Shining a light through it and see how it matches up with a "real" version of the card in terms of how the light shines through. 2 problems with this. 1 - See my previous comment, I don't have one to compare it to. 2 - It is a proof. The back is white and has no ink on it. I doubt you could make a valid comparison with a card that has been printed on both sides.
3) Examining the Rosettes with a jewelers loop - Maybe my best bet. I still would like to make certain that the printing process used on proofs will have the same results as a regular card. For instance will the lack of ink on the back make a difference in the values of the Rosettes on the other side because more light can get through?
4) Black Light - Again, basically the same problems as with the other tests.
5) Any test that could conceivably damage the card. I.e bend, rip or water tests. I think anyone who uses these tests is out of their mind. But, if the card was worth 5 or 10 dollars and you want to gamble on ruining your card I could maybe understand it. With a card that could be worth hundreds or even thousands? Nobody is doing that with my cards.
Part II
First I would say the card is mint. Yes it is signed but the autograph is on the front. I thought with proofs the artists usually sign the back. Unfortunately with Rush deceased I obviously can't ask him. Finally I would need to get pretty lucky to find other beta proof lotus owners to compare the signature and it's location.
In regards to the price I generally agree with you. I thought I found a sale of one on EBay several months ago. I looked and I can't find it now (maybe I'm losing it :-)). Regardless, it was listed for 5 or 6 thousand if I remember correctly but sold as a best offer so I really don't know what the final price was.
Please don't take any of this the wrong way. I appreciate your response and in fact I agree with most of it. I guess I am hoping I might find someone who can give me a more concrete answer.
I have been a MtG player since the game began(my DCI card says I have been a member since Sep 92'). Over the last several years I have been selling off my collection piece-meal either to friends or on EBay. I have probably made a hundred sales on Ebay of some very valuable cards and have never had a problem. No one has ever accused me of selling fake cards or lying about their condition, or anything else for that matter. I did have one customer who accused me of being rude to him in a response and left me neutral feedback. I think the actual problem was that he wasn't a native English speaker and he misinterpreted my comments to him. You are welcome to look at my EBay feedback, member name elric132.
Anyway I had gotten tired of selling cards this way. While it is true you can get a better price selling cards individually, it is also time(and effort) consuming. I decided to try selling my collection in large lots to a store or dealer. I spoke to friends and looked online for referrals. I was looking for someone both honest and able to make large purchases. I also realized selling in this manner I was going to take a hit on my return profit so I compared prospects buy lists to see who would offer the most. SCG seemed to fit the bill. From what I could find online and what I heard from friends they appeared honest. I understood they were one of the biggest online retailers of MtG (if not the biggest) so it seemed likely they would have the capitol to make large purchases. Finally in regard to their buy lists, their prices were at, or near the top among their competitors.
SCG requested I grade my cards using their online tool and place them in that order for shipping, which I did. For grading I used their card conditions page as well as a couple of other sites. Regardless, all of the sites grading criteria were almost identical and included scans/pictures of cards in each condition. You can see SCG's page here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/content/cardconditions
The cards I sent to them were roughly speaking 4 of every card in beta, minus duel lands and the power nine. Also there were only 1 of cards that had been restricted(again generally). Their offered price(using my grading) was 28,130.20$. I was fully cognizant that the total could and probably would change when they graded the cards themselves. My eyesight isn't what it used to be(I wear reading glasses), plus I expected there would be cases we simply disagreed on. In the end I expected their final offer to probably be a little lower than the one my grading had produced.
When I got their response I was shocked. Their offer was 16,923.80$. They had graded many(maybe even a majority) of the cards lower than I had. In some cases, much lower. As I already stated I expected their might be some adjustment of the total, but almost 40%? This didn't make sense to me. They had posted their grading evaluations along with notes for cards that had specific issues. Since they had possession of my cards I couldn't literally look at their results and categorically dispute them going by memory. But I had the original list with my conditions to compare it to. I looked for an extreme case where the grading was far apart and I had some memory of the card's conditions. In the lot were 4 copies of Mana Short. I had graded 3 as m/nm and 1 as sp. They had graded all 4 as mp(their system doesn't allow gradings below this) with the following note:
"Heavily played, major bends, edge wear"
I am attaching a 600 dpi scan of all 4 cards front and back so you can judge for yourselves. And again this is their conditions web page: http://www.starcitygames.com/content/cardconditions
Please decide for yourselves how accurate their evaluation was. To be fair, one of the cards has an indentation on the back as if it was underneath something being written on. The scan does not show this, you need to hold the card at an angle to a light source to see it.
Could I have made a mistake, absolutely. But there is no way I could accept I was this far off, and on so many cards. In a nutshell their response was that every site used their own grading system. Since I had used their page for grading(as well as two others which were virtually identical) this response made no sense to me.
They were never rude to me. They were responsive to my emails and phone calls. I chose not to sell any of my cards to them and they did return them in a timely fashion.
I leave it to you to decide in regards to how honest they were, and what their intentions were.
NOTE: I am having a problem uploading the 2 scans. I am getting the message: "The file provided is too large. Please provide a file less than 1 GB." I examined the files, one is 12.3mb and the other is 11.1mb. I don't know what is happening here. If anyone has a suggested solution for this I would appreciate a response. I will post the scans as soon as I find a solution.
I wasn't able to upload the images(and I still don't know why). Here are links to the images on Imgur:
I have been looking for an on point answer to these questions and I haven't had any luck. If you have an answer or know where I could find one I would appreciate a response.
More Detail
I have been a player/collector of MtG since the very beginning(my id card is dated 92'). I have a pretty big collection which I started selling off piece-meal a few years ago(some on EBay, some to friends).
1) I have a signed proof beta black lotus. For the life of me I cant remember how I got it. I don't want to even try to move it until I am certain it is real. Because it is a proof I don't know if it will(or even should) pass authenticity tests you would use on a normal MtG card. Any suggestions?
2) If I manage to prove it is real, how do I arrive at an asking price? With only 50 printed I am unlikely to find another recent sale to base it on.
Thank you ahead of time for your assistance.