Blue Hurricaine for sale.

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Worth
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Post by Worth » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:41 am

I agree they are insanely overpriced, I merely posted that for comparison.

I'm not asking 6k. :)

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Post by Worth » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:47 am

seems geocities doesnt link my links for some reason...they were working earlier...

if you're interested, pm me and I'll send them to you via email, until then I'll try to find another place to host them.

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Post by timebeing » Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:00 pm

Well Braps had a huge mint summer magic sale a few months back on ebay. He sadly put a lot of huge summer cards up at the same time so i think he lost out on a lot of money since the big collectors were picking and choseing

But if i recall the Sol Ring and Tutor did go for well over $1000 each. The underground sea i recall went for a lot less then expected, most likly due to alot of the money being spent on the tutor and sol ring.

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Post by squt » Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:39 pm

What do you people think about card prices rising over time? Have they reached a plateau for things like the blue hurricane and the black lotus? I can see value of some cards going up slightly over time, but the flood of new sets seems to depress the long-term value of anything printed after Legends.

I don't know if anyone in their right mind that is just now learning magic would want to go back and collect mint sets of every set. I wouldn't. If I hadn't started around The Dark, I couldn't have the collection I have now.

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Post by mintcollector » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:00 pm

squt wrote:What do you people think about card prices rising over time? Have they reached a plateau for things like the blue hurricane and the black lotus? I can see value of some cards going up slightly over time, but the flood of new sets seems to depress the long-term value of anything printed after Legends.

I don't know if anyone in their right mind that is just now learning magic would want to go back and collect mint sets of every set. I wouldn't. If I hadn't started around The Dark, I couldn't have the collection I have now.

Squt
Mark,

The market can always change over time no matter what the card is. I often had to deal with hearing the P9 would never rise in prices any more, and then is when Moxen were $100-$200 and Lotuses were going for about $400 black bordered. Look where they are now. Market is simply factors of supply and demand. Now I am not stating prices will be guaranteed to rise, as they very well could fall. The future is unknown, and although yes, prices have plataeued as of late, I never would bank they would stay where they are. They can amd probably will change in the future, going higher or lower.

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Post by l0qii » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:01 pm

squt wrote:What do you people think about card prices rising over time?

I don't know if anyone in their right mind that is just now learning magic would want to go back and collect mint sets of every set.
Magic as long term investment (10+ years) is hard to predict since the industry itself is constantly changing and collectors, as buyers, are unreliable in the long term. At any time they might simply dissappear. So lets consider what we have to work with:

1. Power. Power has steadily and reliably gone up in value since the day Magic began, save for a few temporary dips along the way, such as the one we're currently in. I think this trend will continue as long as a) they continue to be playable b) they aren't reprinted c) the tournament circuit exists.

2. First Editions. Alpha, Beta and to a lesser degree but still relavent FBB limited sets will also always have collector appeal because they are originals. Like the first edition of everything produced ever there is very limited supply and ample demand. Also, the black border curse is well known among card collectors in that it is nearly impossible to keep a black bordered trading card mint once it has been opened. So over the long term I think these sets will at least maintain a reasonable premium over the other sets.

3. Hot playables. Purely short term investment. These are worth the most when they are winning tournaments, the least when they rotate, and then come back up and plateau a few years later. They should hold some marginal value from that point on assuming the same 3 points given in #1, but they are unlikely to rise significantly.

4. Promos and Foils. It is my opinion that the value of these cards is based almost entirely on playability and are therefore not the greatest for long term investment. People who collect promotional items (that's us) usually do so for our own personal enjoyment, not because we expect a huge return on them. The value of these cards is highest the day they are released and gradually come down as completists fill their sets. The current market shows that players will pay more for original issue foils than they will for promo versions (Duress, Accumulated Knowledge, etc). This implies that promo status is actually detrimental to the value of a card in the long term.

5. Misprints, etc. Summer cards fall into this category, as do miscuts, Wyvern backs, fillers, and all those other fun things we all love. This is a fringe market. The value of these cards is what you paid for it. In the sports card world, these items only increase in value when there is a boom in the industry (I have misprinted baseball cards that in the early 90s were selling at $120, and now sell for $5). In the coin world they always command a premium, but only certain "superstar" errors have any real investment potential (compare the value of the famous 1955 double die penny to any other random mistrike). I think the "Blue Hurricane" will maintain it's superstar status and never sell for less than thousands, but the trick will always be finding a buyer.

6. Hidden Treasures. Here's where long term speculation gets interesting. 30 years ago, nobody suspected that the baseball cards they put in the spokes of their bicycle would ever be worth anything, and that's precisely why they are. The same is true for toys and records as well. If you had known your Star Wars lunchbox was going t obe worth something, you probably wouldn't have used it as a kickball. These items had ready supply and little demand as a collectable 20-30 years ago, so nobody saved them. Now they are hard to find, and even harder to find in good condition. In Magic, this applies to things like Homelands. There is NO demand for any of the cards in this set. Sets are readily availble for $30-40. You never think of it as investment potential, but that might be just the ticket for a true rarity in 30 years time. It has pesky black borders, it has a smaller print run (I'm guessing) than todays sets, it's not part of any particular block so it's sort of an enigma on its own, and before you know it it will disppear into obscurity. People's minds change about sets. Does anyone else remember when Unglued was only $30/box because nobody wanted it? Or when Portal sets were junk because you couldn't play them? Now those are hard to find. For $1/year you can't really lose.

7. Everything else. Some things simply are never worth collecting. This is your pocket change, your scratched up yard sale records, your quarter bin at the comic shop, your Grey Ogres. These items are over-produced, have little demand now, and little demand EVER. The vast majority of post 1994 cards will undoubtedly fall here.

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Post by silver.paladin » Wed Aug 02, 2006 1:08 am

squt wrote:What do you people think about card prices rising over time? Have they reached a plateau for things like the blue hurricane and the black lotus? I can see value of some cards going up slightly over time, but the flood of new sets seems to depress the long-term value of anything printed after Legends.

I don't know if anyone in their right mind that is just now learning magic would want to go back and collect mint sets of every set. I wouldn't. If I hadn't started around The Dark, I couldn't have the collection I have now.

Squt
I do not know if prices have hit a plateau yet or not. Are prices stable or will there be great variations yet. And what would happen if in a few years, for the next big "anniversary", WotC decides to change tune and reprint a number of big-value cards, such as P9. The arguement will always be made that Wizards said they would not do it, but for a special anniversary, they may choose to change their minds. Also, Hasbro may at some time change Wizards also, in thinking that a re-release of prime cards may help the financial bottom line of Wizards and/or Hasbro. If they do re-print, but use different imagery, that will affect it differently than if they use the exact same images. How about same black borders?

Another possibility (not a great possibility, but it is possible), that of all the cards originally printed in the Alpha and Beta runs - were they all released to the public? Is there someone somewhere that has horded many of the cards. I know one person alone who has over a dozen loti and couple hundred moxes from when he ran a card store, and it has all been sitting in storage since shortly after Ice Age. How many other people might be like this, and if they chose to take them out of storage and put them into the market, how might that affect pricing?

I believe that there are just far too many variables (real and possible) to ever be comfortable in giving a good and fair answer to this thread.
my 2 cents

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Post by random » Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:00 pm

It's not logical for WOTC to reprint any "big" cards... They usually publish an article every year or so about why it wouldn't make any sense. People still often talk about it happening... as if they know something that the people who run WOTC don't know ;-)
It really makes no sense to screw collectors. Kids would like it to happen because they have no real money invested in the game either way. Some vintage players or "aspiring" ones argue for a "proxy" policy that essentially reprints a lot of the big cards in some "non-collector" form. There's also some people like Star City who advocate reprinting the dual lands for some reason or another. This essentially hurts the collector/player-collector who is probably 1/2 the people who buys the cards.
WOTC is very smart about helping the collector... Who thought Starter boxes would ever become a good investment? They (along with Portal) were sitting around for years and years with no interest. Same thing with garbage like Unglued, now Ice Age stuff has a little more value... IMO, WOTC helps collectors out just like they do the different types of players. Collectors buy a huge amount of product, why would WOTC screw them over? The big cards are bound to go up in value over time. Look how many kids play this game! What do you think they will collect when they get older? Same thing is happening with old games across the board now. Old coin op arcade games/ board games/ role playing games/ are all highly collectible items now.
The only thing that will sink MTG is if 1) WOTC does some really stupid stuff, or 2) another game company comes along out of the blue with a better game (like WOTC did to TSR).
Ok, night :-)

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Post by silver.paladin » Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:19 pm

random wrote:It's not logical for WOTC to reprint any "big" cards... They usually publish an article every year or so about why it wouldn't make any sense. People still often talk about it happening... as if they know something that the people who run WOTC don't know ;-)
It really makes no sense to screw collectors. Kids would like it to happen because they have no real money invested in the game either way. Some vintage players or "aspiring" ones argue for a "proxy" policy that essentially reprints a lot of the big cards in some "non-collector" form. There's also some people like Star City who advocate reprinting the dual lands for some reason or another. This essentially hurts the collector/player-collector who is probably 1/2 the people who buys the cards.
WOTC is very smart about helping the collector... Who thought Starter boxes would ever become a good investment? They (along with Portal) were sitting around for years and years with no interest. Same thing with garbage like Unglued, now Ice Age stuff has a little more value... IMO, WOTC helps collectors out just like they do the different types of players. Collectors buy a huge amount of product, why would WOTC screw them over? The big cards are bound to go up in value over time. Look how many kids play this game! What do you think they will collect when they get older? Same thing is happening with old games across the board now. Old coin op arcade games/ board games/ role playing games/ are all highly collectible items now.
The only thing that will sink MTG is if 1) WOTC does some really stupid stuff, or 2) another game company comes along out of the blue with a better game (like WOTC did to TSR).
Ok, night :-)
And I would very much disagree that it is not logical for WotC to reprint and "big cards". Wizards has also stated before, quite a while back, that they were actually upset with the value on many of these cards, because only the secondary industry profits from it - Wizards receives no profit from the secondary at all. It is wise of them to state that they will not reprint, and then actually do reprint for a a special reason, such as a 20th anniversary or some such, as there would be a very large market of small coin players who would idolize cards such as P9 and never be able to afford them. So by reprinting in the future, they make financial gain.
At this point in time, they may be promoting 'collectors', but they have printed in the past their disappointment with collectors and the high resale values of the cards, which in part was the reason that they had opened small stores in many US cities. But since they were not competitive enough for all the various other stores, and as such they did not have the value that was originally expected, they were shut down. I am a firm believer that many cards will be reprinted, but only for a special reason. The only questions is when this will happen and exactly why it will happen.

Oh, and I think one other thing to remember, which I alluded to in my other ramble up above. WotC has stated that they will not reprint any of these cards. HASBRO has NEVER said that, and HASBRO pulls the strings at Wizards now. And HASBRO will look at an entity such as Wizards and decide if a decision should or should not be made, determined primarily by financial gain - since HASBRO decisions are made for their shareholders. So what you read or hold as gospel from Wizards public forums and/or editor writings, may not be what is actually happening behind the scenes.

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Post by l0qii » Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:06 pm

silver.paladin wrote: Oh, and I think one other thing to remember, which I alluded to in my other ramble up above. WotC has stated that they will not reprint any of these cards. HASBRO has NEVER said that, and HASBRO pulls the strings at Wizards now. And HASBRO will look at an entity such as Wizards and decide if a decision should or should not be made, determined primarily by financial gain - since HASBRO decisions are made for their shareholders. So what you read or hold as gospel from Wizards public forums and/or editor writings, may not be what is actually happening behind the scenes.
I don't think Hasbro cares to have any creative say in what WOTC does, they only care about the numbers. In business, when a division of a company becomes unprofitable, the higher ups don't usually come down and start calling the shots themselves, they just chop heads. And if a re-org doesn't fix the numbers they layoff/selloff the division. I think Hasbro trusts WOTC (and all the other game companies it bought) to run itself, and for the most part wouldn't even have enough knowledge of the game to even try to a decision like that.

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Post by random » Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:43 pm

I guess it's pretty much a circular arguement.
My main reasoning is:
1) It doesn't make them any substantial profit to reprint those cards. The collectors sets may have been profitable back when WOTC was a small company but now they would have to mass produce which just destroys collecting altogether.
2) It pays to have big $$$ cards and a secondary market. I don't collect Baseball cards but I know there's a Honus Wagner(sp) card that's worth over a million bucks. I respect the hobby because there's some million dollar cards involved. It helps to legitamize our hobby having big money cards. WOTC recruits secondary market people to write for them lately. It's a symbiotic relationship having T&T, Star City DS Cardworld... all those companies and more promote the MTG game.
3) Suppose they reprint all the old cards? That means they release less original sets. That means WOTC needs less designer/playtester/artists/support people on the payroll. That means the designer/playtester/artists/support people prefer a no reprint policy.
4) It's too late to do it. Too much $$$ has been invested in those cards.
Those are just my opinions... I'm honestly suprised how often I read posts about them reprinting "untouchables" and I wonder if I'm wrong. So far, so good :-) K, I'm going to Frank and Sons now!

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Post by squt » Thu Aug 03, 2006 4:21 pm

Mmmmm...Frank and Sons. MAN do I miss LA and its $60 boxes!

I didn't mean to hijack this thread, and i really didn't mean for it to turn into a discussion about reprinting the P9, although with the couple of 'policy changes' that WOTC has had over the years, I think it's an understandable concern for collectors.

Even with those changes, I don't think they'll reprint the P9 ever. I don't think there's a bean-counter at hasbro who would ever push the idea, and I think the WOTC folks know it would alienate a large faction of their buyers.

Random's comment about valuable cards adding legitimacy to the game is a good one - it still excites kids to think the foil dual they open in a ravnica pack might be worth a couple-hundred bucks in 10 years.

A lot of people got out of magic when Chronicles and Fourth edition reprinted some of their expensive Legends. The fallout would be exponentially worse if they reprinted Alpha rares now.

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Post by misterpid » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:07 pm

I always thought that the reason they won't reprint P9 is because it would get a large number of people to switch from playing Standard to playing Vintage and cause a drop in sales of Standard legal products. The claim is that the loss of sales in Standard legal products would greatly outweigh the sales generated by the reprints - which I could definitely see happening.
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Post by squt » Fri Aug 04, 2006 3:06 pm

Pid- I think that's another valid reason. There's a whole pile of 'em pointing towards the demise of magic if they reprint P9. Don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

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