Has anyone noticed there has been a dramatic uptick in Vintage purchases, particularly black lotus?
In the past three months, black lotuses have been steadily picked up, like on average 1 every 2 days at prices of 3k or higher.
I follow the lotus market, and this is considerably more than usual.
I remember trying to sell a lotus just last year and sales were probably 1 a week or 1 every 5 days. Based on my observations so far, the price of lotus hasn't yet swung up to reflect the new demand yet.
I'm going to divide the magic pricing cycle into 3 phases.
If I am a vendor selling snapcaster mages for $50 each, then in phase 1. I might have 25 snapcasters for sale at $50 each.
In phase 2, when buyers are buying, I might have 5 snapcasters left at $50 each. the price of the snapcaster has not yet increased, but the supply has certainly shrunk.
In phase 3, when I have 1 or 0 left. (or some other small number), I as the vendor will notice and raise the price of snapcaster. The new price listing might be like
4 snapcasters at $60 each.
I believe Black Lotus is in phase 2 right now.
1 every 2 days where? On Ebay?
It isn't as simple as those 3 phases you say. Caeteris paribus, if demand increases, prices also do. And when prices rise, more people are willing to sell. The opposite happens when demand shrinks or supply increases. It's a process that autocorrects continually.
Actually my three phases are more complicated than the conventional economics equilibrium, and that's the point. The point is in a market as illiquid as black lotus, the price will not rise and adjust so rapidly.
With gold or oil, demand or supply increases affect the highly liquid market rapidly.
But in the black lotus market, you literally have only 100-200 participants in the market at any given moment.
In other words, the Black lotus "market" is about 200 dudes/vendors posting on craigslist, ebay, facebook high end magic group, MKM, and what have you.
That's why you have to expand the model. You say if demand increases, prices also do. Sure fine. I agree with that. Econ agrees with you. But let's take that theory and apply to the 200 dudes.
And that's what I'm saying. Standard Econ theory as applied practically to the market of 200 dudes will function more similarly to how i described it.
Has anyone noticed there has been a dramatic uptick in Vintage purchases, particularly black lotus?
In the past three months, black lotuses have been steadily picked up, like on average 1 every 2 days at prices of 3k or higher.
I follow the lotus market, and this is considerably more than usual.
I remember trying to sell a lotus just last year and sales were probably 1 a week or 1 every 5 days. Based on my observations so far, the price of lotus hasn't yet swung up to reflect the new demand yet.
I'm going to divide the magic pricing cycle into 3 phases.
If I am a vendor selling snapcaster mages for $50 each, then in phase 1. I might have 25 snapcasters for sale at $50 each.
In phase 2, when buyers are buying, I might have 5 snapcasters left at $50 each. the price of the snapcaster has not yet increased, but the supply has certainly shrunk.
In phase 3, when I have 1 or 0 left. (or some other small number), I as the vendor will notice and raise the price of snapcaster. The new price listing might be like
4 snapcasters at $60 each.
Why don't you address my real point of substance which is this: there was no basis in reality for the prices.
You've alleged that some magazines made up prices from whole cloth. Others have said that some magazines polled reputable dealers. Without a way to check facts (that is to say, someone who worked at Scrye or Inquest back in the day chiming in), this is all just speculation. There's no productive conversation to be had here.
Let me pare back my rhetoric because it sounds like people are getting offended. Nothing I am saying is directed towards ANY of you.
What I'm saying is that magazine prices were inherently unreliable.
You CANNOT have an accurate price quote that reflects actual supply and demand for the cards if you print a price in a publication that comes out once a month.
Even before the internet, people were buying stocks. But they sure as hell weren't buying them on prices that came out once a month.
The problem with having a price quote that comes out once a month is that any inaccuracies (even wild inaccuracies) can be chalked up to the
time discrepancy between current sales and the old magazine. Once you have the benefit of any ambiguity due to the time delay, it really doesn't matter who you polled does it?
Just as if you bought stocks from prices a month old, it doesn't matter that those prices are compiled from actual wall street sales, if the data is a month old,
you cannot use that information.
So perhaps I should have worded my point differently. It was incorrect for me to say there was no basis in reality for the prices.
It it more technically accurate to say:
The prices submitted were sufficiently unreliable and stale, that the quality of information provided in them renders it irrelevant whether there was a basis in reality for those prices or not.
When I was a teen, we touted Scry and Inquest magazines as the bible when it comes to card prices. Local shops stuck to the the prices, which also had a "low"-"mid"-"high" price rating. Trading was an ordeal where one would HAVE to have the latest copy and THEN go through the lists in the back w/ a fine-toothed comb, pouring over font 9 text. Kind of reminded me of Becket magazine, w/ baseball card prices.
Fast forward to today, where Ebay, TCGPlayer, MCM, and Puca Trade control the supply/demand market. The prices we see are explained with the popularity of formats, new sets creating new/refreshed interactions, buy-outs, and speculation. Now we use the evidence from all of that to determine prices. It's like science being used to prove a concept/law of nature.
In the mid-late 90's, now that I look back on it, card prices were accepted like religion: on a book w/ no known knowledge of where the "facts" came from.
So, where did those facts come from? Did the mags pick random shops nation-wide and constantly check on the prices? Or did they own/run their own shop that set the standards? What equations were used to get their knowledge?
I'm not going to be nearly as nice as the other people here. I intend to tell it like it is.
I know in one instance they honestly made it up. I have an old guide of prices for a magic magazine. The prices went like this:
Rares: $5
Uncommon: $1.00
Common: $.25
It was complete and utter malarky. That magazine ended up going out of business. There were numerous other sport guides that listed prices based on nothing.
The collectibles market was really a mysterious black box back then. Nothing I know of today resembles what it was like back then. Prices and worth were almost based on rumor!
Have you ever been to your local game shop and here one guy exclaim, wow that card is worth like $100!!! or something like that?
Those little rumors and hearsay actually affected prices. There was no internet, or even a market upon which to check the price validity. Now you can go on ebay and see what actually sold for what price.
But before you could do that, what you paid was really based on this murky black box of emotional perceptions without any basis in actual sales in the marketplace.
see this? Marvel Masterpieces foils.
My local card shop sold these at $30 each. Today about 20 years later, All FIVE sell for $22.
A price quote that you cannot actually sell or buy your item at is a worthless price quote. those price quotes in guides were worthless, we just didnt know it at the time. In fact, today those prices guides are still worthless.
Nobody in their right mind would buy stocks from prices they got in a magazine that came out once a month. But you end up paying your hard earned cash for stocks or magic cards all the same.
So to answer your question, where did those facts come from? largely made up. If not made up, based on exceedingly stale information. In either case, just as worthless. It was effectively a scam.
Your question worded another way is: How much money do you want to leave on the table?
Taking the time to sell things is obviously going to get your more money selling it all right away.
In my experience:
Ebay nets you the highest price, but it could take months to a year + many trips to the post office.
Online buylists are the same way.
Stores, especially local game shops will net you the LEAST amount of money. But your local game shop is obviously not mine. Still though, there is something beneficial to be said about supporting them. I.e. selling to them, leaving money on the table, and knowing they are going to use those profits to pay the rent...literally.
Selling at a GP is a crap shoot. Depends on who you meet, but it's the fastest. However for me, I'm always willing to accept less in person in cash because of the convenience factor.
I have found myself in an awkward situation. I really want to get a Revised dual, however I have been building a new modern deck lately. I can take apart my old modern deck to finish the new one or get the dual. I really want to own a piece of Magic history, but my peers have advised that I get whichever one I see myself using more, which is my new deck. I'm a teen: I can't get a job and I can really only choose one. What should I value more, playing the game, the express purpose for which these cards are printed, or owning what I want but sacrificing my ability to play the game the way I like?
It all comes down to your personal emotions. I ended up going with both.
The thing about decks is I'm definitely happier with the decks in the short term. But in the long run, some decks get boring after awhile, but I still have my duals.
On the other hand, it sucks to head to a friends house to play and not quite have the deck you want because you have duals or other expensive cards.
So my conclusion to you is really more of an observation. You want both. So get both. You're just making it an issue about one or the other based on your limited funds.
That's totally fair and reasonable. But it's not what you really want is it? If I asked you, should I get the left half of a corvette, or the right half of a corvette? You would look at me like I was crazy and tell me to save for when I had enough for the whole car.
The having one or the other is just a dividing line based on reason. But in the end, wants don't really follow reason.
What you really want is both. Why not shoot for that as your goal? But just saying if I had to get one first, I'd build your new deck.
I have long struggled to communicate adequately with general population at large. Oftentimes I find the reason is because I tend to or try to view things logically.
But this is not how the rest of the world communicates. There is a very large portion of the world that does not communicate in logic at all, but in some other medium of persuasiveness. It could be emotion, it could be tone of voice, it could be showmanship, charisma. I honestly do not understand many of these things, but I am in a position now where I must learn how to convince the general population at large. (your average jury for example)
So I pose the question, How do I be stupid?
Wow, that's... Holy *****, dude, you could start by not being so incredibly condescending. If you want to communicate with others, "Anyone who isn't like me is stupid," is a pretty poor place to start out.
When you speak of...
There is a very large portion of the world that does not communicate in logic at all, but in some other medium of persuasiveness. It could be emotion, it could be tone of voice, it could be showmanship, charisma.
... that doesn't sound like lack of logic. That sounds like being able to effectively communicate and knowing how to present oneself.
And yeah, I suppose an answer is to study rhetoric. Alternatively, you could just treat people like fellow human beings and not look down on them while clearly articulating your ideas.
What astounds me is that people can hold on to beliefs which are demonstrably refutable, and yet will continue to persist in such belief. That is absolutely fascinating to me because
1) I do not function in such a manner
2) The prevalence of such means that many people have a system of thought that is fundamentally different from mine.
Now I could rail on religion. But at least with religion, the answer of whether or not God exists is not answerable by science or facts.
But, these issues persist even when direct evidence to the contrary is freely available.
For example, people will assert the Constitution supports them when it is 100% demonstrable that it does not because the text is publically accessible. No lengthy debate needs to be had.
One can simply look up the words of the Constitution.
So then why is it that people cannot be convinced in light of 100% factual assertions to the contrary? What is the quality they have?
Perhaps it is condescending that I call such people stupid. So I apologize and refrain from that. In fact, the better query is how does one be convincing to such people?
Debate, and logic are near useless. In the case of the constitutional assertions, the quality of evidence to the contrary can literally be 100% provable.
What I am seeking to understand is the nature of the paradigm in which a great deal many people simply believe and are convinced by certain things, and facts hold no weight whatsoever.
In the greater sense, we debate here to practice a certain type of persuasive expression. But what good is it if it is only convincing to us (apparently we're all a bunch of science/math/history majors), and not the greater populace at large.
What if I believed your handle was NIGHroller instead of Highroller? I can clearly see your handle is not, but in the face of 100% to the contrary I will simply go on believing it is.
Now imagine 50% of the population is like me. How do you deal with that? Is stupid the wrong term? Ok fine. Then how would you qualify it?
edit:
What I have NOT done is gone out to provide more concrete instances of the web of people asserting things which are demonstrably false. Don't make me research "The View", pundits, or Donald Trump statements. I think we have all seen instances of this in our lives and certainly on the web.
It is said when you get married, you marry into their family troubles as well.
I'm not at all making light of your situation, but rather stating that other people are definitely in your position as well. The most you can really do is make the best of it.
I've known of families where a brother/uncle or whoever is a drug addict. That might seem neither here nor there at first blush, but at the end of the day family is usually unwilling to watch other family members die in the street. That makes it the problem of spouse of said family member as well. If something is not a problem now, it could/will be a problem eventually.
You're absolutely right that banning a family member, and especially a twin sister is basically impossible. The most you can do is deal with it and be big about it.
Thanks for all the feedback. I will definitely be able to take a look at these cards in person and will be able to handle them before nay money is exchanged. It definitely seemed like this was owned by a kid was back when it first came out and crumpled it. Then sat in a showbox for a while then when it was found, put in a screwcase where it sat even more, possibly got flooded then dried because of the rusted screw. But I'll definitely take all your words to heart and thanks again!
Remember, damage on old cards can be ridiculous. There's an anecdote about how one of the original playtesters, Charlie Catino, used to physically destroy decks created by another playtester, Skaff Elias. The most egregious that I can recall is that one deck went into a BLENDER. People did WEIRD things to their cards back then. I'm sure I wasn't the only kid who put them in his bicycle spokes, because that's what my dad did with his baseball cards.
Remember shredding Chaos Orb so that all the cards on the board would get destroyed?
The weirdest thing I remember doing was microwaving a card that got wet to try and dry it out. Didn't really work out.
The Lotus probably went through a wash when someone forgot that it was in their pants. I doubt it's fake. Nothing looks odd or off to me.
Iron Man. I believe that is what it used to be called. Back in 94 I remember there was a variation of magic where if a card was destroyed, you were to destroy the card.
For example, burning a rukh egg that got killed.
The Chaos Orb issue was because the effect of the card was to destroy cards that it would touch after dropping it. If the stakes in the game were high enough, one would tear up the chaos orb so that the
confetti would end up destroying the more cards. This was referenced by Chaos Confetti in the set Unglued.
I wrote about this on market street. Here are my thoughts: Either the costs of Dual Lands and the rest of the reserve list cards are killing Legacy or they're not, it's that simple.
If the reason that people can't get into legacy is because duals are too pricey then Wizards should simply reprint the rest of the non-reserve list legacy into oblivion, offsetting the costs of legacy. Legacy becomes cheap. Wizards maintains the Reserve List promise. This is very valuable because Wizards get to keep their word.
Why is the reserve list so awful? The allegation is because it increases the price of cards by X, where X is a large number.
My solution: Ok, well decrease the price of the non-reserve list cards by X.
In fact, if you decrease the price of non-reserve list cards by X, you'll probably make modern a good deal more affordable in the meantime as well.
You know what WotC could do instead of banning all reserved list cards from legacy?
Print competition.
Example: Mana Drain used to be a necessary staple in Vintage blue decks. Now it's in competition with lots of situationally better / worse cards like Flusterstorm, Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, Swansong, Mental Mistep, Mindbreak Trap, etc.
You can do the same thing with other staples. Slap some new variation on it that's NOT strictly worse, or at least not much, and there you go. New possibly competitive deck. Consider these options:
Scryland A++
Forest Plains
When this enters the battlefield, each player Scrys 1.
Still-Broken Lotus
Enchantment, 0
Sac: add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. You may not use this mana to cast artifacts.
Still-Broken Ancestrall
5U
Delve
Draw three cards.
OHWAIT they actually did print that last one.
Obviously there are power-level and degeneracy concerns with all of those cards. But it's that -- the power level -- that stays Wizards' hand. Not the Reserve List.
A thousand times this.
The people who want the reserve list undone I'm convinced just want what they can't have. Wizards has it within its power to print not only competition to dual lands, but the power to make single color decks more viable.
In fact they have done this. Mono color viability has grown in power from what it was. And there's no reason why wizards can't make mono colored decks stronger. Additionally, they have been printing cards which should remove the demand and need for duals. Cards like Cavern of souls which should replace some of the functional need for duals.
And wizards can keep doing this.
But in the end, people will fixate on what they can't have. It's like saying I can't play magic because Tarmogoyf.
Go take a look at the high end magic group on facebook. Every single time someone posts a high end black lotus for sale, people just cannot leave it alone.
Why? Because it affects them emotionally. Of course no one gives a crap when the card is worthless.
Guy keys Aston Martin. There's no legacy to ban, no veneer to hide behind, no arguments to be had. Just raw emotion that makes him want to key the car. Of course if you talked to him in person you would get this instead:
-there are starving children in Africa
-such an expensive car is a waste of money
That's the thing with jealousy. You know when it strikes their ire? It's when they just. cant. leave it. alone.
Wizards should not break their promise. They have so many tools at their disposal to mitigate the necessity for duals. They have been using them.
I just hope they're shrewd enough business wise to realize that.
People couldn't have epic gear in WoW, and blizzard capitulated. Then after they got what they wanted, they went up and said, you know what? WoW's not that great anyway. Epics aren't special anymore.
The moment Wizards gives in, people will realize there are more important things in life to be spending their money on than cardboard not worth anything.
They will realize this because they will stop giving a crap about duals and lotuses since they can be readily had, and they will move on to something else.
I don't see any red flags from the admittedly not great pictures in looking at the lotus. For a card to be that beat up it's obvious people played it unsleeved. A lot. Same with almost all pieces of power that they were played unsleeved and anything can happen to a card when it's unsleeved. It could have gotten stored poorly. Any number of things could have happened to it over 23 years. I wouldn't factor in the mox ruby in verifying the authenticity of a piece of power next to it even if the mox ruby is fake it proves nothing about the lotus short of knowing the entire history of the cards in question. I suspect it we tore test that lotus it would be real, but naturally I advise against that unless NO ONE will buy it, period.
Could an unsleeved card get bends like that? Sure. Let's say I admit I'm wrong and that I failed to prove the cards are fake.
Are you now imbued with confidence the cards are real because you established a possibility? Because unsleeved cards could get like that?
That's the thing. The burden isn't on the buyer to prove that the card is fake. It's on the seller to prove the cards are real.
The seller COULD put the burden on the buyer, but the seller is going to get less money that way.
It's possible that cards could end up with a strange crumple pattern like that. But the point isn't that it could end up that way. Nor is the point whether the card is fake or not.
It's impossible to tell for certain from the blurry pics after all.
The point is that that crumple pattern is outright weird, even for a heavily played card.
Here's the thing about being right and wrong when it comes to the market though. Let's say you disagree with me: TomCat doesn't know what he is talking about, that kind of crumple pattern happens all the time!
If you are correct, then theoretically you have information superior to my information, and you could trade on it. You could pick up all the lotuses with crumple patterns I consider weird and pick up lotuses at superior bargains to me. I'm not touching those lotuses with a 10 foot pole. But because of my recalcitrance, it could be to your benefit.
When it comes time to sell lotuses, if the rest of the market agrees with you, and say Bread was right. They will say the following: those crumples are really common, so I can buy those lotuses confidently from Bread.
But if they disagree with you, and assert. Oh man, maybe Tomcat has a point. Those lotuses are weird. They will not purchase from you from the level you valued it at.
The thing in all that rigamorale was this. Whether those lotuses were actually real or not didnt even play into the equation. It was all about the perceptions. And Vintage is a small enough market where the perceptions of your buyers matter.
Edit: I wanted to comment on the last bit, because it's a great point I've come to learn from the Vintage market. Everyone's opinions matter.
In stocks you can be the contrarian and think everyone is an idiot for the market mispricing. But for super low liquidity markets such as Vintage, if market participants only valued lotuses with pink hearts on them, don't buy a lotus without a pink heart if liquidating your lotus is important to you in the future.
Speaking as someone who has purchased Lotuses recently, I give you the following things people in the lotus market will consider.
1. A NM Collectors edition lotus can be had for 500.
2. Because a NM collectors edition is tournament unplayable, your lotus has a lower bound of $500.
3. Then, if you had to pay for a tournament unplayable lotus for 500, would you then pick a replica edition or the original one.
4. I believe many would pick the original in that case. All things being equal--two tournament unplayable lotuses, it still better to have a real one.
500 dollars constitutes in a sense an absolute lower bound.
Now let's go for higher valuations.
Is your Lotus sleeve playable in the tournament? This is not impossible, but you have to convince people that it is. I can't tell you what will or will not be sleeve playable, but I can tell you as a reasonable person that a lotus that isn't even flat will not be sleeve playable.
Next, is there any question as to the authenticity of the lotus?
Finally, is there any reason to question the integrity of the seller?
Assuming everything is legit, and that you manage to get the card in sleeve playable condition, you should be able to pull at least 1000 for the lotus in my opinion. I would even say 1500 is possible, especially if you lock that in a BGS sleeve to prove authenticity.
However, I know this wasnt the point of the question but I have to say it. When I look at that lotus, something looks suspect. I can't tell because the photo isnt that clear but the wear on the back side and wear on the front side look totally misaligned. That's red flag #1.
Additionally, the card creases look completely unnatural. It looks like a kid took the card and crumpled the card in his hand. Look at how deep those creases are. That kind of wear is once again incredibly weird looking. All of you here, I challenge you with this question as fellow magic players. How many times in your life have you crushed a magic card so that it would have the shape of the creases on this card. I think i have crushed maybe 10 cards in my life?
Its just a very odd thing to happen to a magic card. It certainly does not happen from normal play. The creases are red flag #2.
Furthermore, the card is not flat. Why is the card not flat? Not only is it not flat, the card is bumpy in multiple ways. There are several bumps on the card. Again, this does not happen in normal play. It means that the card wear got there from being crushed. It sounds like I'm repeating myself, but there is a subtle point to be made. The fact there there are multiple bumps means that the card was deliberately crushed as opposed to being unintentionally crushed.
Intentional crushing is red flag #3
Furthermore, there are TWO cards that are like this. Two cards with the same crush marks that are not flat, but bumpy in various ways. I once again challenge the magic community and ask them, when have you ever crushed two cards side by side. The lotus by itself is rare enough, but the mox really raises a red flag.
Consider that red flag #4. This is a red flag that would not occur if only the lotus appeared in the pic, or only the mox appeared in the pic. This is the kind of red flag that appears because it shows a suspicious flag occur twice in a row.
Finally, why is there diagonal wear on the mox ruby? The diagonal wear on the upper right quadrant of the card has very even 45 degree lines running in parallel with each other. Have you ever played with magic cards unsleeved? I have. You have too? Good. So tell me, under what conditions are you going to get a card with parallel diagonal wear lines. Answer: Never.
There is too much surface scratching in one way, and the wear is too consistent for too large a part of the card. Therefore the parallel wear lines on the mox ruby did not occur from sidewalk playing. It occurred in some other way--like sandpaper. This is red flag #5.
Red flag #6 is a meta red flag. it is a red flag that occurs when too many red flags of the same kind occur. In this case, too many red flags which show deliberate wear that is not consistent with normal playing habits. Therefore, if it were me, i would stay away.
Actually my three phases are more complicated than the conventional economics equilibrium, and that's the point. The point is in a market as illiquid as black lotus, the price will not rise and adjust so rapidly.
With gold or oil, demand or supply increases affect the highly liquid market rapidly.
But in the black lotus market, you literally have only 100-200 participants in the market at any given moment.
In other words, the Black lotus "market" is about 200 dudes/vendors posting on craigslist, ebay, facebook high end magic group, MKM, and what have you.
That's why you have to expand the model. You say if demand increases, prices also do. Sure fine. I agree with that. Econ agrees with you. But let's take that theory and apply to the 200 dudes.
And that's what I'm saying. Standard Econ theory as applied practically to the market of 200 dudes will function more similarly to how i described it.
In the past three months, black lotuses have been steadily picked up, like on average 1 every 2 days at prices of 3k or higher.
I follow the lotus market, and this is considerably more than usual.
I remember trying to sell a lotus just last year and sales were probably 1 a week or 1 every 5 days. Based on my observations so far, the price of lotus hasn't yet swung up to reflect the new demand yet.
I'm going to divide the magic pricing cycle into 3 phases.
If I am a vendor selling snapcaster mages for $50 each, then in phase 1. I might have 25 snapcasters for sale at $50 each.
In phase 2, when buyers are buying, I might have 5 snapcasters left at $50 each. the price of the snapcaster has not yet increased, but the supply has certainly shrunk.
In phase 3, when I have 1 or 0 left. (or some other small number), I as the vendor will notice and raise the price of snapcaster. The new price listing might be like
4 snapcasters at $60 each.
I believe Black Lotus is in phase 2 right now.
Let me pare back my rhetoric because it sounds like people are getting offended. Nothing I am saying is directed towards ANY of you.
What I'm saying is that magazine prices were inherently unreliable.
You CANNOT have an accurate price quote that reflects actual supply and demand for the cards if you print a price in a publication that comes out once a month.
Even before the internet, people were buying stocks. But they sure as hell weren't buying them on prices that came out once a month.
The problem with having a price quote that comes out once a month is that any inaccuracies (even wild inaccuracies) can be chalked up to the
time discrepancy between current sales and the old magazine. Once you have the benefit of any ambiguity due to the time delay, it really doesn't matter who you polled does it?
Just as if you bought stocks from prices a month old, it doesn't matter that those prices are compiled from actual wall street sales, if the data is a month old,
you cannot use that information.
So perhaps I should have worded my point differently. It was incorrect for me to say there was no basis in reality for the prices.
It it more technically accurate to say:
The prices submitted were sufficiently unreliable and stale, that the quality of information provided in them renders it irrelevant whether there was a basis in reality for those prices or not.
Am I really here to argue with you all that prices and demand don't change?
Why don't you address my real point of substance which is this: there was no basis in reality for the prices.
I'm not going to be nearly as nice as the other people here. I intend to tell it like it is.
I know in one instance they honestly made it up. I have an old guide of prices for a magic magazine. The prices went like this:
Rares: $5
Uncommon: $1.00
Common: $.25
It was complete and utter malarky. That magazine ended up going out of business. There were numerous other sport guides that listed prices based on nothing.
The collectibles market was really a mysterious black box back then. Nothing I know of today resembles what it was like back then. Prices and worth were almost based on rumor!
Have you ever been to your local game shop and here one guy exclaim, wow that card is worth like $100!!! or something like that?
Those little rumors and hearsay actually affected prices. There was no internet, or even a market upon which to check the price validity. Now you can go on ebay and see what actually sold for what price.
But before you could do that, what you paid was really based on this murky black box of emotional perceptions without any basis in actual sales in the marketplace.
see this? Marvel Masterpieces foils.
My local card shop sold these at $30 each. Today about 20 years later, All FIVE sell for $22.
A price quote that you cannot actually sell or buy your item at is a worthless price quote. those price quotes in guides were worthless, we just didnt know it at the time. In fact, today those prices guides are still worthless.
Nobody in their right mind would buy stocks from prices they got in a magazine that came out once a month. But you end up paying your hard earned cash for stocks or magic cards all the same.
So to answer your question, where did those facts come from? largely made up. If not made up, based on exceedingly stale information. In either case, just as worthless. It was effectively a scam.
Taking the time to sell things is obviously going to get your more money selling it all right away.
In my experience:
Ebay nets you the highest price, but it could take months to a year + many trips to the post office.
Online buylists are the same way.
Stores, especially local game shops will net you the LEAST amount of money. But your local game shop is obviously not mine. Still though, there is something beneficial to be said about supporting them. I.e. selling to them, leaving money on the table, and knowing they are going to use those profits to pay the rent...literally.
Selling at a GP is a crap shoot. Depends on who you meet, but it's the fastest. However for me, I'm always willing to accept less in person in cash because of the convenience factor.
It all comes down to your personal emotions. I ended up going with both.
The thing about decks is I'm definitely happier with the decks in the short term. But in the long run, some decks get boring after awhile, but I still have my duals.
On the other hand, it sucks to head to a friends house to play and not quite have the deck you want because you have duals or other expensive cards.
So my conclusion to you is really more of an observation. You want both. So get both. You're just making it an issue about one or the other based on your limited funds.
That's totally fair and reasonable. But it's not what you really want is it? If I asked you, should I get the left half of a corvette, or the right half of a corvette? You would look at me like I was crazy and tell me to save for when I had enough for the whole car.
The having one or the other is just a dividing line based on reason. But in the end, wants don't really follow reason.
What you really want is both. Why not shoot for that as your goal? But just saying if I had to get one first, I'd build your new deck.
What am I trying to communicate?
I think this is a good example of what I am learning. This is a satire "Area man passionate defender of what he imagines constitution to be"
What astounds me is that people can hold on to beliefs which are demonstrably refutable, and yet will continue to persist in such belief. That is absolutely fascinating to me because
1) I do not function in such a manner
2) The prevalence of such means that many people have a system of thought that is fundamentally different from mine.
Now I could rail on religion. But at least with religion, the answer of whether or not God exists is not answerable by science or facts.
But, these issues persist even when direct evidence to the contrary is freely available.
For example, people will assert the Constitution supports them when it is 100% demonstrable that it does not because the text is publically accessible. No lengthy debate needs to be had.
One can simply look up the words of the Constitution.
So then why is it that people cannot be convinced in light of 100% factual assertions to the contrary? What is the quality they have?
Perhaps it is condescending that I call such people stupid. So I apologize and refrain from that. In fact, the better query is how does one be convincing to such people?
Debate, and logic are near useless. In the case of the constitutional assertions, the quality of evidence to the contrary can literally be 100% provable.
What I am seeking to understand is the nature of the paradigm in which a great deal many people simply believe and are convinced by certain things, and facts hold no weight whatsoever.
In the greater sense, we debate here to practice a certain type of persuasive expression. But what good is it if it is only convincing to us (apparently we're all a bunch of science/math/history majors), and not the greater populace at large.
What if I believed your handle was NIGHroller instead of Highroller? I can clearly see your handle is not, but in the face of 100% to the contrary I will simply go on believing it is.
Now imagine 50% of the population is like me. How do you deal with that? Is stupid the wrong term? Ok fine. Then how would you qualify it?
edit:
What I have NOT done is gone out to provide more concrete instances of the web of people asserting things which are demonstrably false. Don't make me research "The View", pundits, or Donald Trump statements. I think we have all seen instances of this in our lives and certainly on the web.
I'm not at all making light of your situation, but rather stating that other people are definitely in your position as well. The most you can really do is make the best of it.
I've known of families where a brother/uncle or whoever is a drug addict. That might seem neither here nor there at first blush, but at the end of the day family is usually unwilling to watch other family members die in the street. That makes it the problem of spouse of said family member as well. If something is not a problem now, it could/will be a problem eventually.
You're absolutely right that banning a family member, and especially a twin sister is basically impossible. The most you can do is deal with it and be big about it.
with 2nd major Asian Studies
JD, working in patent law.
Iron Man. I believe that is what it used to be called. Back in 94 I remember there was a variation of magic where if a card was destroyed, you were to destroy the card.
For example, burning a rukh egg that got killed.
The Chaos Orb issue was because the effect of the card was to destroy cards that it would touch after dropping it. If the stakes in the game were high enough, one would tear up the chaos orb so that the
confetti would end up destroying the more cards. This was referenced by Chaos Confetti in the set Unglued.
If the reason that people can't get into legacy is because duals are too pricey then Wizards should simply reprint the rest of the non-reserve list legacy into oblivion, offsetting the costs of legacy. Legacy becomes cheap. Wizards maintains the Reserve List promise. This is very valuable because Wizards get to keep their word.
Why is the reserve list so awful? The allegation is because it increases the price of cards by X, where X is a large number.
My solution: Ok, well decrease the price of the non-reserve list cards by X.
In fact, if you decrease the price of non-reserve list cards by X, you'll probably make modern a good deal more affordable in the meantime as well.
A thousand times this.
The people who want the reserve list undone I'm convinced just want what they can't have. Wizards has it within its power to print not only competition to dual lands, but the power to make single color decks more viable.
In fact they have done this. Mono color viability has grown in power from what it was. And there's no reason why wizards can't make mono colored decks stronger. Additionally, they have been printing cards which should remove the demand and need for duals. Cards like Cavern of souls which should replace some of the functional need for duals.
And wizards can keep doing this.
But in the end, people will fixate on what they can't have. It's like saying I can't play magic because Tarmogoyf.
Go take a look at the high end magic group on facebook. Every single time someone posts a high end black lotus for sale, people just cannot leave it alone.
Why? Because it affects them emotionally. Of course no one gives a crap when the card is worthless.
It's not about rationality. it's not about Legacy dying. The core of it is raw emotion. It is this emotion right here I'm talking about.
Guy keys Aston Martin. There's no legacy to ban, no veneer to hide behind, no arguments to be had. Just raw emotion that makes him want to key the car. Of course if you talked to him in person you would get this instead:
-there are starving children in Africa
-such an expensive car is a waste of money
That's the thing with jealousy. You know when it strikes their ire? It's when they just. cant. leave it. alone.
Wizards should not break their promise. They have so many tools at their disposal to mitigate the necessity for duals. They have been using them.
I just hope they're shrewd enough business wise to realize that.
People couldn't have epic gear in WoW, and blizzard capitulated. Then after they got what they wanted, they went up and said, you know what? WoW's not that great anyway. Epics aren't special anymore.
The moment Wizards gives in, people will realize there are more important things in life to be spending their money on than cardboard not worth anything.
They will realize this because they will stop giving a crap about duals and lotuses since they can be readily had, and they will move on to something else.
Could an unsleeved card get bends like that? Sure. Let's say I admit I'm wrong and that I failed to prove the cards are fake.
Are you now imbued with confidence the cards are real because you established a possibility? Because unsleeved cards could get like that?
That's the thing. The burden isn't on the buyer to prove that the card is fake. It's on the seller to prove the cards are real.
The seller COULD put the burden on the buyer, but the seller is going to get less money that way.
It's possible that cards could end up with a strange crumple pattern like that. But the point isn't that it could end up that way. Nor is the point whether the card is fake or not.
It's impossible to tell for certain from the blurry pics after all.
The point is that that crumple pattern is outright weird, even for a heavily played card.
Here's the thing about being right and wrong when it comes to the market though. Let's say you disagree with me: TomCat doesn't know what he is talking about, that kind of crumple pattern happens all the time!
If you are correct, then theoretically you have information superior to my information, and you could trade on it. You could pick up all the lotuses with crumple patterns I consider weird and pick up lotuses at superior bargains to me. I'm not touching those lotuses with a 10 foot pole. But because of my recalcitrance, it could be to your benefit.
When it comes time to sell lotuses, if the rest of the market agrees with you, and say Bread was right. They will say the following: those crumples are really common, so I can buy those lotuses confidently from Bread.
But if they disagree with you, and assert. Oh man, maybe Tomcat has a point. Those lotuses are weird. They will not purchase from you from the level you valued it at.
The thing in all that rigamorale was this. Whether those lotuses were actually real or not didnt even play into the equation. It was all about the perceptions. And Vintage is a small enough market where the perceptions of your buyers matter.
Edit: I wanted to comment on the last bit, because it's a great point I've come to learn from the Vintage market. Everyone's opinions matter.
In stocks you can be the contrarian and think everyone is an idiot for the market mispricing. But for super low liquidity markets such as Vintage, if market participants only valued lotuses with pink hearts on them, don't buy a lotus without a pink heart if liquidating your lotus is important to you in the future.
1. A NM Collectors edition lotus can be had for 500.
2. Because a NM collectors edition is tournament unplayable, your lotus has a lower bound of $500.
3. Then, if you had to pay for a tournament unplayable lotus for 500, would you then pick a replica edition or the original one.
4. I believe many would pick the original in that case. All things being equal--two tournament unplayable lotuses, it still better to have a real one.
500 dollars constitutes in a sense an absolute lower bound.
Now let's go for higher valuations.
Is your Lotus sleeve playable in the tournament? This is not impossible, but you have to convince people that it is. I can't tell you what will or will not be sleeve playable, but I can tell you as a reasonable person that a lotus that isn't even flat will not be sleeve playable.
Next, is there any question as to the authenticity of the lotus?
Finally, is there any reason to question the integrity of the seller?
Assuming everything is legit, and that you manage to get the card in sleeve playable condition, you should be able to pull at least 1000 for the lotus in my opinion. I would even say 1500 is possible, especially if you lock that in a BGS sleeve to prove authenticity.
However, I know this wasnt the point of the question but I have to say it. When I look at that lotus, something looks suspect. I can't tell because the photo isnt that clear but the wear on the back side and wear on the front side look totally misaligned. That's red flag #1.
Additionally, the card creases look completely unnatural. It looks like a kid took the card and crumpled the card in his hand. Look at how deep those creases are. That kind of wear is once again incredibly weird looking. All of you here, I challenge you with this question as fellow magic players. How many times in your life have you crushed a magic card so that it would have the shape of the creases on this card. I think i have crushed maybe 10 cards in my life?
Its just a very odd thing to happen to a magic card. It certainly does not happen from normal play. The creases are red flag #2.
Furthermore, the card is not flat. Why is the card not flat? Not only is it not flat, the card is bumpy in multiple ways. There are several bumps on the card. Again, this does not happen in normal play. It means that the card wear got there from being crushed. It sounds like I'm repeating myself, but there is a subtle point to be made. The fact there there are multiple bumps means that the card was deliberately crushed as opposed to being unintentionally crushed.
Intentional crushing is red flag #3
Furthermore, there are TWO cards that are like this. Two cards with the same crush marks that are not flat, but bumpy in various ways. I once again challenge the magic community and ask them, when have you ever crushed two cards side by side. The lotus by itself is rare enough, but the mox really raises a red flag.
Consider that red flag #4. This is a red flag that would not occur if only the lotus appeared in the pic, or only the mox appeared in the pic. This is the kind of red flag that appears because it shows a suspicious flag occur twice in a row.
Finally, why is there diagonal wear on the mox ruby? The diagonal wear on the upper right quadrant of the card has very even 45 degree lines running in parallel with each other. Have you ever played with magic cards unsleeved? I have. You have too? Good. So tell me, under what conditions are you going to get a card with parallel diagonal wear lines. Answer: Never.
There is too much surface scratching in one way, and the wear is too consistent for too large a part of the card. Therefore the parallel wear lines on the mox ruby did not occur from sidewalk playing. It occurred in some other way--like sandpaper. This is red flag #5.
Red flag #6 is a meta red flag. it is a red flag that occurs when too many red flags of the same kind occur. In this case, too many red flags which show deliberate wear that is not consistent with normal playing habits. Therefore, if it were me, i would stay away.