The Magic Librarities

Fellow collectors, frankly I am feeling overwhelmed. Most people that collect like to have a goal in mind that seems to be obtainable. It seems that I must keep refining my goal as the numbers and types of Magic cards expand.

Standard card sets ended with Mirrodin, then with the availability of MOL sets I flushed that out.

Still working on the "Beta" of each language.

To complete my promo collection I had to redefine it to English only when the pre-releases etc all came out in local languages.

Boxed sets were easy until they started coming out almost every quarter. I gave up on those.

When PCDs were no longer PCDs that stopped.

Tokens and Tips. Probably all of us that collect those could sit down to dinner in a small room.

ad infinitum ad nauseum

What are the rest of you doing?

The real collector's goal is infinite ,i thinks there so many way to collect magic cards and we are on the search road for the entire of our life ^^ for us real collectors ^^

I have always tried to keep my collecting goals as simple as possible, if only to save my wallet and sanity. Luckily I was collecting early, so most of my goals have been reasonable. The weird thing (for me) is that since Magic allowed you to use 4 of most everything, I decided to collect 4 of everything. The basics of what I collect:

1. Players sets of each US standard issue for the first decade of Magic. This is the bulk of my "collection". I have modified this a bit over time. When I turned to the collector side, I decided to go NrMt/Mt for all these cards. As a result I cut things off at 8th Edition and the Mirrodin Cycle. Maybe I'll extend this, but not until I finish completing and upgrading all these sets. I have found that most sets are much cheaper when you wait for them to rotate out of current play.

I have added alt. 4th to this grouping, which has been quite a challenge, although I'm close to finishing. I still need a bunch of "common" stuff as upgrades for the regular sets, some Alpha & Beta stuff (to fill holes and as upgrades), and some of the later expansions where I have less than the requisite 4 sets.

I have not tried to collect Summer or P3K, since neither came out in the US, and since I do value my sanity.

2. Complete Foil Sets (where applicable) for anything I collect the player's sets of. Well over half way, and could be complete if I would just break down and buy full sets (maybe next year).

3. Players sets of all over-sized cards, including Vanguard and the original box-toppers. These sets are quite close to completion, but like so many of my projects, the holes are taking forever to fill.

4. Players sets of Crazy Clown tokens, at least single copies of most other "vintage" tokens. I still need a few Crazy Clown singles after series 3, and many for the first three series.

5. Life counters, especially vintage metal ones. I recently posted pictures of some of these.

6. Oddball MTG promotional items. Everything from posters and art prints to jackets and t-shirts. I have coins and cloisonne pins, miniatures and statues (both general issue and pre-production) and wall hangings. This grouping is really a mess, as there is no single site where these items are categorized and documented.

The endless new flavors of premium box sets is absurd. As a collector, I never really collected box sets to begin with so it hasn't hit me there, but as someone who is trying to track the SKU/ISBN/GTIN of every Magic product, it is becoming impossible. They are too expensive to just keep buying for this project. They are released in an unpredictable manner, with no clear series or anything to follow (except Duel Decks, how long will this one last?)

All foil packs containing cards from 3 different sets? How would you ever put a set of this together? Are any of the 539 possible cards in these packs different from their counterpart in the tradition booster packs? Will we ever know?

6 Card booster packs... how do these fit in with the overall production numbers, and number of cards per printed sheet? Must they have come from a separate print run? Does that mean these may be different from traditional booster packs too?

Promos in different languages. I can handle this one since we have a pretty good network here of global membership, but...

One off promos licensed by 3rd parties: these suck. Again they are released completely unpredictably, so you never know if you missed one. You don't know anything about how hard they will be to get until long after the fact. You're never really sure which languages exist.

Today I am focused only on finishing up sets I have already started, picking up promos only as they become available (given up on being complete), and keeping up with the rules just enough to still be able to play a casual game now and again.

If the cards do not have big rounded corners, I've little interest

i set my collection bar very low so i havent hit by much thus far. I collect unique angels and dragons and their foils - only one per release is ever needed unless the symbols are different. a playset for the angel/dragon set would be insane since it will be near impossible to get the summer versions.... I also collect the angel/dragon tokens with ENGLISH version backs - those are not hard at all unless wizards decides to release an all foil ZEN block booster then it will be a pain in the butt again

tap4black wrote:If the cards do not have big rounded corners, I've little interest

+1

tap4black wrote:If the cards do not have big rounded corners, I've little interest

LOL I love it. Now that is defining your goal. And, with the collection you have, even though the bar is very high it is the bulls-eye of what a collection should be.

Still watching for Jets and twists..

Gary

Sometimes I feel as though I have collecting ADHD.

After flushing out a lot of random MtG collections over the years I have finally settled on Korean.

The language is of the utmost beauty to me and the rarity presents quite the challenge.

Currently focusing on buying up playable cards for Vintage and Casual, the only formats I play. With what little resources I have left on the side I am trying to complete each set.

I also collect Pirate Ships.

Most of the new sets are rather uninteresting. From a player standpoint there are far to many functional reprints to keep up with. From an artistic standpoint I feel as though card artwork has lost a lot of heart over the years. Don't even get me started about the frame switch in Mirrodin.

mystical_tutor wrote:

tap4black wrote:If the cards do not have big rounded corners, I've little interest

LOL I love it. Now that is defining your goal. And, with the collection you have, even though the bar is very high it is the bulls-eye of what a collection should be.

Still watching for Jets and twists..

Gary

Send Gary a check or fix the back yard and buy a hottub.........

Looks like the hottub is gonna have to wait a lil longer AGAIN

Ertai's Familiar wrote:Most of the new sets are rather uninteresting. From a player standpoint there are far to many functional reprints to keep up with. From an artistic standpoint I feel as though card artwork has lost a lot of heart over the years. Don't even get me started about the frame switch in Mirrodin.

Note above when I stopped collecting--Mirrodin. The border was bad enough but the change in color of the artifacts really screwed me (I note they are slowly getting them darker but for a long time across a table I could not tell the difference between white and artifact).

>I just deleted two paragraphs--talk about "dont get me started on...."<

Gary

tap4black wrote: Send Gary a check or fix the back yard and buy a hottub.........

Looks like the hottub is gonna have to wait a lil longer AGAIN

DARN! That reminds me, need to send you some decks. Sitting on the kitchen table--thought about having a sealed deck event.........

Gary

We are really trying to not add more cards to the collecting list.
I've been able to see the finish line of our projects for so long, that I think I'm stuck on a treadmill.

Hi,
I collect foil foreing and, although for the moment, I have a small want list, it's much work to find them.

just way to many cards, I stopped doing editions after tempest and I sold all of them by now,

but my goal anyways was to finish one thing and then move on to another, giving the one I allready done. Most fun makes helping people to get super rare stuff, and obviosly finding super rare stuff :)

I am just realy into shivans, fillers/misprints and alpha DDT , nowadays I play much more whish somewhat is what the game was made for.

but in the end the goal can only be : own one of all, and also then there are things you will never be able to get.
17 Years of MTG produced 17 years of collecting. lets hope there are a bunch more to come.

Enjoy Collecting, whatever your goal is!!!