So, I went home and got more cash and when I got back there was this kid Nick I knew standing at the counter with a binder open pulling out cards. He was surrounded by a bunch of little kids who seemed to be in awe. When I got close enough to look over the crowd and see the cards in the binder they were Alpha/Beta Moxen. As long as I live I will never forget him saying "I'll take this, and I'll take this, and this one, and this, etc..."

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Originally posted by farsk8dutch:
I remember going to the local card store on the way home from work to check up on the prices of my 1986-87 baseball cards. I saw a box of "Crow" motion picture cards (1st Edition) and having seen the movie I figured I'd get a few packs to check it out. I pulled a rare foil, and having never saw one of these I had to have more.

So, I went home and got more cash and when I got back there was this kid Nick I knew standing at the counter with a binder open pulling out cards. He was surrounded by a bunch of little kids who seemed to be in awe. When I got close enough to look over the crowd and see the cards in the binder they were Alpha/Beta Moxen. As long as I live I will never forget him saying "I'll take this, and I'll take this, and this one, and this, etc..."

Unfortunately I bought more Crow cards and never saw another M:tG card until Ice Age. That year for Christmas my mother got me a 4th Ed. two-player starter box. I remember getting Shivan Dragon, Northern Paladin, Serra Angel, Swords to plowshares. I still kick myself in the ass for not knowing any better and giving them a second look at the time, but what can you do.

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Ok, your last paragraph means that you regretted not playing MTG earlier. First paragraph means you regretted buying Crow instead of MTG.

In early 1994, my brother and a friend of his used to hang out at Gamer's Guild in Milford, MA. It was a popular hangout because they had a 6 node BBS with access terminals inside the shop as well. Everyone was addicted to CircleMUD, a text based precursor to MMOs. One day my brother and his friend came home with cards and explained how everyone at the shop was getting into this new card game. I didn't pay much attention to it until another one of my brothers started playing and I decided I might as well learn the game as well.

I started around April of 1994. I know because I bought my first pack the week revised was released. My brother had a deck built around Gauntlet of Might and my other brother had one that featured a Berserk. I was quite upset when I realized I couldn't get those cards in packs anymore. My first pack had a Bad Moon as the rare. I traded it for a Crusade, Personal Incarnation and a Kormus Bell. My first deck was a Black/White abomination (even then we had sleeves. We used baseball card sleeves.)

A few months later while hanging out at the store, someone came in with an Arabian booster box. The store had never gotten any and I hadn't even known of the sets existence. The owner of the store traded a years worth of access to the BBS ($150) and a pile of other crap for the box. All told, I think he traded about $300 for it. I remember how incredulous I was. $300 for a box of cards? Insane. After cracking all the packs, the only card he had only one of was Pyramids so everyone at the store assumed Pyramids was the rarest card. A huge bidding war took place between two regulars that had a decent collection at that time. I don't remember everything that was traded for it except a Chaos Orb. I remember that because it was the first time I had seen that card. And lets face it, the artwork is quite memorable.

The summer of 94', everyone I knew played magic. That is really all I did. Local hobby stores suddenly turned into magic stores. They all started selling singles. I used to go to a flea market and there was this guy that had a ton of cards in a giant glass case. I would save all my money for those trips. The guy was nice even if some of the cards were expensive (I remember paying $12 for a COP: Artifacts). He was extremely nice to my youngest brother who was around 9 at the time. He would always cut him deals for which my father was grateful (since it was his money) . At some point, he stopped selling cards and I never saw him again. Two years later an article appeared in one of the local newspapers mentioning a local guy winning money playing Magic. It was the flea market guy. The tournament he had just won was the very first Pro Tour. His name was Michael Loconto.

At the end of that summer, my truck was broken into while I was playing D&D and all my cards were stolen. I spent a week debating whether to get back into it or forget it. As I had decided to forgo college for a while, I got back in.

When Legends was released, there was a hobby store down the street and the guy limited packs to 3 per person. I think he only had like 1 or 2 boxes. My brother's friend would sit outside and offer people money to go in and buy 3 packs. I never got any and they were sold out within days. Mirror Universe was the insane card but all everyone wanted around here were Carrion Ants, Killer Bees and the elder dragons (I'll skip the Chronicles controversy). Master of the Hunt was also incredible.

A BBS I used to call had a Usenet feed and I discovered that there was a few magic groups. I started buying cards online. I bought my first piece of power in 1995.
It was an Alpha Mox Ruby for $85 (Still have it). I bought a playset of Alpha Counterspells at $5 each (also still have). The first time I got ripped off it was for $28 for an Ali from Cairo and an Ali Baba.

Another local store (we had a crapload of Magic stores pop up) had a Black Lotus for $175. I remember the first time I had walked in that store a year earlier. The owner had a UL Time Walk for $40. I thought that was ridiculous. Fast forward a year, and there I am, about to purchase a Lotus for $175.

Around 1996, I used to hang out on IRC a lot. There was a magic channel (Possibly #mtg?). It had a bot named Demitwang (in case that rings any bells). I would play IRC magic with other people. Like, we typed in everything we were doing. It was tedious and relied completely on trust but I enjoyed it immensely and it was easy to find someone to play at any time. At 4am one morning (I worked nights and got home at that time), I logged into IRC and there was a kid talking about how he needed college tuition money and he was going to sell his p9 set plus some other crap to a card store. At that time, I want to say p9 set was roughly $700-800. Boston used to have tournaments around that time where the winner could choose $1000 or a P9 set. Anyways, so this kid was saying how the owner of some store would give him $600 for his cards and he was going to do it. I asked if I could purchase them for that price and he said sure, but he needed the money by noon that day. He took down my address and said he would go to Western Union before heading to the game store. If there was money there for him, he would mail me the cards otherwise he was selling to the hobby store. I woke my father up and and begged him to lend me $600. I told him this was a ridiculously good deal and I would pay him back. For some reason he didn't argue or tell me I was being ridiculous. Before leaving for work, he drove me to the bank and withdrew $300 from his account and $300 from one of my brothers (he didn't have the full $600 to lend me) and by 8am that morning, I was in a Western Union branch in a Stop and Shop sending $600 to some stranger. This was one of the most foolhardy things I have ever done. Two weeks later I was rewarded when an envelope arrived with the cards. There was a p9 set with a Beta Jet. There was also a beta Wheel of Fortune, a Two Headed Giant of Foriys, 4 mana drains, and a Library of Alexandria. I have all of them still except the Wheel and Giant (traded for $10), and Jet (traded for a beta Sapphire on this site). I never saw that kid on IRC again and was never able to thank him for his honesty.

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Originally posted by Thanos:
Nice necro, but seriously:

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I very much disagree that this doesn't deserve it's own thread. Also, I find it somewhat disheartening that you would simply enter the thread to post that, when everyone has a story they could share for this. Also, I don't know how much you read the PFS, but there's been discussion recently about this sort of thing, and nderdog kinda threw the gauntlet down over it. I agree with what he said on the matter.

What really gets me about this nostalgia is remembering that time period in my life. I've changed so much since then! Most of the people I hung out with then aren't the kind of people I associate with anymore. I've fallen really out of touch with those I would still consider friends. It is what it is, and I have no regrets, but that was a special time for me that can't be duplicated or replaced.

When the Frat Pack would get together for a 6-man game (that was all of us), one would instigate us at te beginning, declaring which order he was going to take the rest out in. Then he usually died first. We'd mock him for it, but he never stopped. It was funny/sad.

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Originally posted by Thanos:
I think some of the posts are make believe honestly, and the OP tooted his horn a little too much for my liking.

Seemed like it was becoming a brag post for the most part.

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I don't find them bragging at all. The one guy shared his time in the multiplayer and lost to the turn 1 firestorm. That isn't bragging. I do believe there is a thread worthy of this. Many of us do have an old time story about the "innocence" of magic's days, before the internet, deck copying, Net decks, and Ebay.

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Originally posted by Thanos:
I think some of the posts are make believe honestly, and the OP tooted his horn a little too much for my liking.

Seemed like it was becoming a brag post for the most part.

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I agree with some of your posts, but not this one at all. It's possible that some people will pull a story out of their ass just to post it here, but I find that somewhat unlikely--and even if they did, who really cares? I bet most people are telling actual stories, and I really don't think most of these posts are anywhere near "brag posts," with possible exception of Nitelite's--and the only part that seemed even like it was bragging was talking about how he got that set of P9 for cheap. But then again, those cards were those prices back then, and most of that post was more in the sense of "omg, I never thought I'd be paying this much for cards." I mean, Sovarius's post about playing 20 Lotus/Channel/Fireball was probably joking, but then it sounds pretty obviously like a joke. I don't really see any of them saying "I picked up 200 Black Lotuses and Moxen back in the day when they were $1. Woo!" in the sense of bragging.

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Originally posted by Nitelite:
I am not sure its fair to call purchases that happened 15+ years ago bragging posts. You guys also saw where I said I lost a Lotus? And I traded a mox Ruby for a Jean-Luc Picard Startrek card? And got my collection stolen? No bragging here. Just wanted to share. Damn

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nitelite:
I am not sure its fair to call purchases that happened 15+ years ago bragging posts. You guys also saw where I said I lost a Lotus? And I traded a mox Ruby for a Jean-Luc Picard Startrek card? And got my collection stolen? No bragging here. Just wanted to share. Damn

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Originally posted by Dancam1:
[B] Here is a question for everyone tho, do u want me to share with you what people were actually playing when sets like Antiquities, Legends, Ice Age, Homelands, MM block, Invasion block, Odyssey Block, and Onslaught block came out? Same with Urza's block? B]

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I remember the guy who got me and a few of my friends into magic teaching us how to play, very badly. Basically colorless was any color mana...that being the main one to stick in my head. I remeber him playing a deck with sol rings and mana crypts and elder dragons.

I remember getting a Sol Ring and thinking it was power, was so happy to have a Sol Ring, I now collect them, just because of this, favorite card ever in magic.

I remember right before I started playing, when Comic Book Trading Cards were big, passing up a deal for P9 and Duals for some at the time rare comic cards, still kick myself for that, wishing I had know better.

Though at the time, stuff I had was 80-200 and P9/Duals were much much less then that, but hindsight and all.

Then you have all the "How was I so stupid" trades, Cursed Scroll/Vampiric Tutors for C/U's, and the like probably took me a full year or so to grasp value.

Oh, and Foils, when Legacy 1st came out, and foils were so expensive, seeing some guy trading Foil Ring of Gix for multiple pieces of Power at the local shop, and wishing I could afford stuff like that (Was in school still Middle or High)...

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Go back and re read what I posted right before you.

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I started really back in Revised. You could find still find legends and arabian packs, but they were scarce. Heck even REvised was hard to find at one point. Back then packs were like 1.75 but if you bought more the shop would give you a better price. No one bought antiquities packs because the distribution was so bad and you didn't get as many cards in the pack. No one wanted to open a pack and get doubles of the same card. Our shop charged a premium for legends, AK and Antiquities of like 5-10.00 a pack and they got it.

You could get unlimited versions of your revised cards for no extra charge. Dual lands were not worth much back then as most people of said Shivan Dragon, Serra Angel, Craw wurm, Vesuvan Doppelganger and the royal were the popular cards. In my area the popular deck was Blue/White with the Serra/clone/doppelganger for the desired theme.

I can still remember at the card shop any mox was 15.00, but hey the Craw wurm was only .25 so you bought those... I remember One Christmas I made my list and my mother went to the local card store and she came back and said did you know they have a $50.00 card a lotus something... I can still remember telling my mom hey the card is not worth that much and I would be happy with a couple of packs.

Well my mother bought me a box of Revised instead. I am ashamed to admit this next part, but I realized then that not every pack had a rare in it. So I wrote Wizards a letter stating such and that I would like 8-10 packs to make up for the missing cards. Believe it or not Wizards wrote me back.

They stated then that not every pack contained a rare and that the collation would sometimes put commons in the rare slot. They also made a point to state that never on the pack did it state that I was guaranteed to receive a rare in a pack, but they would in the future take my concerns into advisement.

I highly doubt that my letter caused the now notice that you will receive a rare in every pack or if that is why there is a rare in every pack, but hey perhaps I helped the cause a little

I sometimes hope that when my parents find boxes of my childhood stuff that the letter is in there or perhaps they will find some of my old cards. I know I had some summer cards (never the blue hurricane) because we used to laugh and say where did you buy those knockoffs at. But hey there is always hope that I will find these some day.

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Originally posted by Nitelite:
I am not sure its fair to call purchases that happened 15+ years ago bragging posts. You guys also saw where I said I lost a Lotus? And I traded a mox Ruby for a Jean-Luc Picard Startrek card? And got my collection stolen? No bragging here. Just wanted to share. Damn

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Wow, people on this site take posts way too personally. I mentioned your post only because it was the only post I saw that could possibly have been taken as a brag post, I didn't even say it was one, I said "possible exception." I also pointed out the only part of it that could have been taken as bragging to be the part where you picked up the P9 set + pile of other stuff--and pointed out how that part likely wasn't even bragging, in part for the same reason you just mentioned. I didn't see anything prior to that at all that could even have been remotely taken as bragging.

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Originally posted by Nitelite:
[B][/B]

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Nice story... takes me back to those magical days. Sometimes I wish I had a Time Machine so I could relive all the memories from that time :-).

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Originally posted by mulder:
Nice story... takes me back to those magical days. Sometimes I wish I had a Time Machine so I could relive all the memories from that time :-).

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You know what's funny? I used to get on my dad's case for throwing out his 40's and 50's comic books and sports cards. He'd cringe when I'd tell him that his 4 Mickey Mantle rookie cards sold for (at that time) $75,000.
However, I have been just as bad. I totally missed out on Gretzky's cards, and I was collecting cards in the 80's. But, I sold off all the old magic cards years ago. I had 4 of each card (not at one time, but, off and on) except for Ancestral Recall (only ever had 1) and sold them all off years ago.
Not sure if anyone remembers, but, around the time of Alliances and on, the Ante' games that people would play would be "controlled" ante where we each choose a card from a binder and play for that card. The common ante card was a dual land. I have actually had 100 duals at one time. To see them all gone now, sold for way cheaper then they are now. It is so sad. Makes me cry.
I know not everyone feels that magic is an investment, but, really, these cards are like little stocks and bonds. They really are. Just consider for those lucky (smart) enough to hold onto your cards, the power 9 is close to 5K, and the dual lands (all 40) are close to 4K so, just in 49 cards, u have close to 9K worth of cards. I mean, that is incredible. The biggest reason I sold off my stuff was watching cards like Urza's rage go from 20 to 2, and Mana Vault go from 10 to 1.50, once cards rotated out of Standard, they went to the death knell. They really did. No one is more shocked then I am that magic has held its value so much better then most stocks and bonds do.
Lets face it, magic has replaced comic books and sports cards as the number 1 hobby item that goes up in price. I used to work at a comic book/magic shop , and I followed sports cards for years, and I have to say, magic cards are great for an investment. However, buyer beware, all other CCG's, except (to a point) Yugioh and Pokemon have all declined over the years. You remember reading about the guy who traded a Mox for a Star Trek Picard card? They were so hot. So were Star wars. Now, they are worthless, just like Wyvern cards. So, for those of us who are 40ish, we have been lucky enough to have had the chance to purchase the following items that were going to increase to great prices:
1. Magic cards
2. Spiderman comic books (this might be 1, everything is gold)
3. Sports cards (specifically Gretzky and Lemieux)
4. X-men
5. Marvel Comics titles like fantastic 4, avengers, secret wars
6. DC comics like superman, batman

I remember I got a Horgon ($15 card and best artifact) in my sealed starter and traded away to a guy for another $15 card...library of alexandria. It was an even swap monetarily at the time and I said, take a few uncommons as I had no interest in Star Trek. He was extremely happy as was I (first library that I still own to this day). Needless to say this card game crashed because it was just not that good compared to magic.

I also remember dual lands at my first gaming convention traded/sold for $5 each (1995) - any color. You could spend that money, get dual lands for the weekend and by the end of the weekend, get your money back. Basically a loaner for the weekend.

I also remember some kid was approached by some guy in the gaming "flea market" and some guy offered him moxes for $5/each. They were $40 at the time and these were played, but the "kid" couldn't lose (he was like 18).

I do remember my first UL starter deck and my very first "potential" trade. I opened a Time Vault in mine and was just fell in love with the art work. Tedin did a great job on that card and everyone was telling me it was the best card, next to the Lotus (animate artifact, instill energy ring any bells). I sat down at a trade day with this guy and he really wanted the card. He wanted to trade my 3 uncommons for it (I loved Keldon Warlord...it did a number on me the prior night). But, I told him, thanks...but I would like to trade it for a rare (or some combination...I didn't have a lot of cards), so he pulled out moxes and I started comparing casting cost of the moxes to the Time Vault and passed on a trade because of that (doh!).

This was prior to any price guide. It was all word of mouth and store owners dictating prices.

Magic, the good ole days of availability and fun trading and buying cards inexpensively. I went through many dual lands and power nine cards. Of course, I wish I had kept a lot of my stuff (I still have plenty), but the game has been a blast for me and my friends. Politicking and teaming up to take down the beastly decks with insane combo's in CUBE is always a new deck and fun times.

Thank god for EDH and Cube, cause we only get together casually now.

Good times!

quote:

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Originally posted by Dancam1:
You know what's funny? I used to get on my dad's case for throwing out his 40's and 50's comic books and sports cards. He'd cringe when I'd tell him that his 4 Mickey Mantle rookie cards sold for (at that time) $75,000.
However, I have been just as bad. I totally missed out on Gretzky's cards, and I was collecting cards in the 80's.

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You didn't miss anything on Wayne Gretzky. No one cares about him. Wayne Gretzky is a little girl. Michael Jordan is the man. You missed out big time not buying his cards. The right Jordan cards are worth a lot of money (thousands of dollars) and still rising in value.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dancam1:

Lets face it, magic has replaced comic books and sports cards as the number 1 hobby item that goes up in price. I used to work at a comic book/magic shop , and I followed sports cards for years, and I have to say, magic cards are great for an investment. However, buyer beware, all other CCG's, except (to a point) Yugioh and Pokemon have all declined over the years. You remember reading about the guy who traded a Mox for a Star Trek Picard card? They were so hot. So were Star wars. Now, they are worthless, just like Wyvern cards. So, for those of us who are 40ish, we have been lucky enough to have had the chance to purchase the following items that were going to increase to great prices:
1. Magic cards
2. Spiderman comic books (this might be 1, everything is gold)
3. Sports cards (specifically Gretzky and Lemieux)
4. X-men
5. Marvel Comics titles like fantastic 4, avengers, secret wars
6. DC comics like superman, batman

It's crazy how "lucky" we have been. If anyone ever did create a time machine, you wouldn't even have to travel far back to have a fortune in cards or comic books.
Go back to 93 and buy all the alpha u could and sit on them....

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I just laugh whenever an ignorant MTG player tries to comment on Sports Cards. MTG has replaced Sports Cards in popularity, but they are penny stocks compared to Sports Cards S&P 500.

I view it as a comparison to buying and selling stock (which I'm really bad at). I didn't make any money doing that. I feel like I got lucky to happen to love Revised duals when I was a new player, but I got into them, and they've appreciated constantly over the time I've played magic.

With EDH, Modern and Legacy, a lot of things have become great investments. I'm sure you can make more with stocks, or sports cards, or comics, but um, I dunno how to do it lol.