So I'm looking for some opinions on the prices of the power nine. I don't play much at all, so I don't really talk to many people who are in this scene. Just a guy trying to buy back a bunch of the old cards I sold when I was younger. I told myself that when I was making the money to buy them back one day, that I would. It looks like my timing has been just terrible though...

Last year I made the decision to buy them all back, but it seems like every time I go to buy one or two, the prices jump dramatically. I finally convinced myself that I would dump the cash and buy a lotus, at the time thinking they were selling for $1400-$1800. And once I go to look at the current prices, they almost double.

I could understand a slow increase over many months or years, but price jumps like this seemingly instantly is absurd. It looks like the prices of the p9 stayed fairly constant for almost 8 years, but the last year has been a roller coaster. So here are my questions:

1. What the hell has caused these drastic price fluctuations? Is there a foreseeable end to this?

2. What do people use for price guides for the p9? Nothing seems reliable right now. It seems to me the best price chart for current values is recently ebay sold values. I've been using the website below, but it seems to not get updated fast enough to be accurate with current market prices:
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Unlimited+Edition/Black+Lotus/

3. I expect that if the p9 jump in value so quick, other vintage/legacy card values will follow, but it looks like they have not yet. Does anyone expect things like duals, loa, mishras, etc to go up in value soon?

I'm starting to worry about someone making unrecognizable fakes now that their prices are likely worth the investment in devising a proper counterfeiting operation...

Thanks!

My advice, sell your extra power and get the lotus.
I sold my MP Lotus for 4500 and just spent 9K on another lotus.

I think the real answers no one really knows although I have my guesses.

Vintage HAD to go up. With the growth of the other staples it was only a matter of time before the Vintage staples would follow. I wrote about this on mtgs.

My example was
If Vintage rises at a rate of 2% a year and Underground Sea Rv at 30%, Underground sea would overtake the price of a black lotus within a decade. Obviously that makes no sense.

Legacy demand aside, Lotuses are far fewer in number. All it really took was a few people exchanging their inflated staples for some power you would dramatically increase the price of power. In my opinion the perfect time to make that change was this past year with all the reprints going on.

The magic market basically decided it was time to get out of the market of ANYTHING modern, and if not by ppl selling their modern collections, then by trading for reserve list items.

Vintage is like Gold. it's a flight to safety asset. It shows a lack of confidence in holding basically anything reprintable.

My guess is thats STILL not the end of the story. SCG and CFB dramatically increased their buylist prices for power. Whether that was a cause in and of itself, or merely reflective of increased Vintage demand is anyones guess. But theres no question that the buylist prices provide a de facto floor price for these cards. In other words,

If I have a NM Lotus, then theres no reason for me to deal with someone only offering 4000, when SCG is offering 4500. Buylist prices creates a floor, even if the floor might not be absolute due to markdowns from lesser conditions. The point is that regardless of what the buylists indicated, once the buylists prices were there, they helped seal the deal that the prices were here to stay.

2. I've never used black lotus project so I couldnt tell you. In my opinion, for extremely low volume transations like vintage, you get more accurate answers looking at ebay directly. Also consider the High end magic group on facebook.

3. Now onto your bigger question. What about Non-power 9 vintage and legacy?

Also, when Vintage Masters was announced people spec'd on Vintage staples hoping they'd go up like modern staples did after modern masters. That wasn't quite as wise based off that logic since there isn't the same driver of demand. That being said, Vintage prices for power are like housing to some...they expect them to keep going up forever. Maybe one day a bubble will burst, maybe it won't.

1) GP Richmond set the modern format on fire sending zen fetchs and other modern staples skyhigh (at one point briefly scalding tarns were retailing for $90+, goyfs were pulling 200$ etc). This all happened around March.

As a result a lot of modern players traded into legacy through dealers and such (a rev tropical island could be had for 110, plateau for 35, underground sea 180 etc). This sent the duals spiking (trop from 110 to 230 in less than 2 months in May). Check out MTGgoldfish charts to see these spikes.

A card like underground sea was fetching around 350 retail and mox ruby was around 500 retail and mox sapphire was 700 retail. Limited and Unlimited's print runs are significant smaller than revised. The rares in unlimited and limited print run is around 22,500 and revised rares print run (by itself) is 289k (http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/misc/rarity-info.php)

Most folks were itching to trade duals and inflated modern staples into vintage which completely depleted dealer inventories. Talk to any major vendors at GPs power was going out exponentially faster and folks were not interested in trading them in. In GP NJ there was a massive line to trade cards in for power and very very few people were actually trading in power. Especially since those holding power could trade it down with a premium as opposed to trading it to a dealer at buylist. As a result, dealers began to raise their prices to try to acquire power and keep some inventory. Prices stabilized as there are multiple dealers needing inventory and an unwillingness of those owning power to part with it (and even more people wanting power). There was mention of a few Asian dealers buying out power much earlier in the year during a few GPs to stock inventory in other countries (I cannot validate this just rumblings I've heard at GPs).

All the above needs to be combined with global market demand and a maturing player base. Remember power was only printed in english so any players globally looking to play vintage need english power (as opposed to duals and other cards like Tabernacle/drain/etc that are printed in multiple languages. In countries where the currency strengthened relative to the dollar lead to people acquiring power in the US since it was cheaper than buying it locally. The maturing player base is just part of normal growth (a lot of players who played as kids that can now afford power). Similar to what you are doing (I myself was in the same boat).

Prices are stabilized and coming back down to earth in all three formats (modern, legacy and vintage). I don't think you'll see cards plummet but I don't think you'll see exponential jumps either. If there is a large upward shift in one format it may shake up prices but downward shifts in a format wont impact prices much.

There was also a rash of panicked buying through out the year. Folks watching a lotus for example got nervous as the price started to tick up so more and more folks started trying to get theirs so the price continued to trend upward.

2) Remember buylists are for mint cards, and there are very few mint pieces of power. eBay and the high mtg facebook gives you a good sense of going rate. Major dealers can give you a good sense of retail (scg, cfb, ck etc)

Black lotus project is defunct, check out this page (http://blacklotusproject.com/charts/popular/). The pricing data hasn't been updated since 2013 (the charts just render via a calendar date but the prices haven't been changed in a few years. 10$ desecration demons are no more just like 1700$ nm lotuses don't exist .

3) Legacy has already jumped but remember play and collectability drive value. Its a safe place to hold your collections value (unlike standard). P9 are iconic so it has a high level of collectabiilty and is a very safe place to store value and as a result it jumped quite a bit.

Cards like Mishra's workshop are much less iconic and are in less demand. This card's value is much more driven by vintage play (a 4x in MUD and dredge. They wont exceed power in value so they are a bit stagnant.

LOA is an iconic card it was 250 earlier this year and now it is 350. Bazaar is 280 to 380, judge sol ring was 120 to 200, judge lightning bolt was 100 and now 250.

Duals have certainly increased 1.5x and 2x (for the blue and a few others) in less than a year but remember supply is huge. Cards like plateau and savannah don't see play in any format outside of casual and edh so its going to be unlikely you see a huge price increase. Those cards that are played in legacy jump a fair amount (but due to great mana fixing you can play legacy with only 1-2 of a dual and plug in shocks or other cards if needed, it's just not ideal).

hope that helps.

source: a long time player, who used the last two years and modern to help rebuild my legacy and vintage decks

My question then is, you have $10K. Do you invest those 10K in rev duals? Alpha beta or UNL duals? Beta power? Just the Lotus?

quote:

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Originally posted by Jubert39:
^ Well said. Agreed with everything.

My question then is, you have $10K. Do you invest those 10K in rev duals? Alpha beta or UNL duals? Beta power? Just the Lotus?

In other words. Say you have $10K to spend on magic, and you have to guess which would net you the highest value collection in 5 years.

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IMHO (which I can't emphasize enough) I would go with lower priced duals, playable or older judge foils (especially due to new limited distribution), unique reserved list cards and underpriced power if you look hard enough you can find played LOAs for under 200 bucks or if you had survival of the fittest at 25 you just doubled up, underpriced blue duals (baffles me how trop is 140 and volcanic pulls 200).

Unique sealed product (note this has a cap though) like FTVs, CAs.

Booster boxes in strong draft formats that have modern staples (RTR, KTK) but only if you have the space. I really like conspiracy, if unhinged can be that valuable why not conspiracy (I know, no full art lands but look at the foils in the set, its like playing the lottery: $200 dack, $100 scourge, $70 Marchesa, $40 stifle, and even STP is $10)

Future valuable foils (think more like legendary creatures, the red akroma foil is like 10x the regular, the 5 color dragon is 25x in price so when you see a card like that released its great to jump on it). I like EDH too, I picked up griselbrand foils for 30 last year and offed them for 100. Berserk for 40 and sold for 75, and now I just recently picked up a few Utvaras @ 6 each because its a great edh and fun card (and pretty awesome).

quote:

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Originally posted by Jubert39:
I do agree with the most part, condition in Power 9 matters a LOT more than any other... Which is why i sold most of my beta to get graded power. Takes the guess work out of it. But you are right, it does cost a lot more and harder to move. So would you rather have 2-3 UNL power vs 1 A/B power? conditions being equal

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jubert39:
^ Well said. Agreed with everything.

My question then is, you have $10K. Do you invest those 10K in rev duals? Alpha beta or UNL duals? Beta power? Just the Lotus?

In other words. Say you have $10K to spend on magic, and you have to guess which would net you the highest value collection in 5 years.

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I would say your best chances of gain within 5 years are dual lands. Duals are at a low right now (relative to the summer of 2014) MP Underground Sea in particular has dropped from a high of 275 to as low as 200. I see dual lands obtaining the highest gain in the next 5 year time frame.

In the next ONE year time frame, I see vintage rising. The trend of moving modern/legacy staples to Vintage appears to still be ongoing.

Vintage is still being bought up

I think it all depends on a person's perspective.
Right now a playset of Revised dual lands goes for north of 4k. To have 4k of money locked up in duals is nothing. The assets are so stable one can have enormous amounts of cash stored in them without worrying.

But if I had 4k locked up in legacy staples, I would have to worry about reprints, ban lists, changes in the meta.

On the other hand, changes in the meta in a positive direction are very fast. Snapcaster has gained tremendously in a matter of a week post treasure cruise ban. To get that kind of gain from duals, percentage wise could easily take a year.