The MOST Financially Stable Magic Card?
Economics forum
Posted on May 10, 2015, 7:51 p.m. by DivineGrace
So first off, I am giving up Magic. But the store that I dumped my collection at only can do Store Credit.I have $1,200 worth of store credit now.
I am thinking of buying stable cards that I know will rise in value, hoping to sell it in the future whenever I want to. I am banking on the Reprint Policy.
Below are the cards I am pondering of putting my store credit into, hoping it will go up in value. Of these, which cards do YOU think is the most safest and will be the most profitable card to invest in?
Gaea's Cradle
Karakas
Dual Lands
Time Walk
Timetwister
Mana Drain
Force of Will
The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
Moat
Mishra's Workshop
Library of Alexandria
Candelabra of Tawnos
Bazaar of Baghdad
Others?
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #3
Storm Crow. Always going to be ~24 cents.
To be honest, modern staples like Abrupt Decay that aren't getting reprinted look somewhat stable right now. But no risk, no reward.
May 10, 2015 8:08 p.m.
Karakas fluctuates, honestly. I would say Time Walk if it's a good copy, however a NM copy of an unlimited Time Walk is going to cost you 1,200-1,400.
May 10, 2015 8:09 p.m.
The Power 9 sells better than Alpha / Beta dual lands since you can buy Revised/Unlimited Duals for functionality.
Buying Power 9, which is garenteed to not be reprinted and will always have collector value, is your best bet.
Honestly though, it's too bad your brought your collection to a game shop to sell. You got 1,200 worth of store cred, but prob gave up over $2,500 dollars worth of cards. Some of us here could have helped you sell some of that for market price.
May 10, 2015 8:16 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #7
Blue ABUR duals have been seeing the largest and most stable growth out of any of the cards you've listed.
The other cards are solid investments, but I think the duals are probably the best call, and they're very fluid; you'll be able to offload them easily. If you go with P9, you're looking at a niche market with a comparatively high ratio of fraud and forgery.
May 10, 2015 8:16 p.m.
The problem with blue duals is that they do fluctuate at times (although that's usually just growth). For example, the spike last year that happened with Underground Sea. It just depends on how soon you want to offload whatever you get.
May 10, 2015 8:24 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
To be honest, if you're getting out of the game, it's a better idea to grab some easily-moved value and sell it immediately.
I'm in the process of liquidating my own collection, and one of the last things I want to do is tie up some of my potential ROI by reinvesting in something I then have to monitor. If you're actually breaking from the game entirely, do so. It's much easier. Sure, you may miss out on a couple hundred (probably $100-200 at the values you're quoting) in potential gains, but you don't have to worry about the microing or monitoring you'd need to do to see those gains.
May 10, 2015 8:58 p.m.
If you are going to invest in P9 / Vintage staples, do read up on how to identify fakes. For the moment, ultra-violet + white light test is the best and none-intrusive way to test the cards.
Some people recommend using a jeweler's loop but in all honesty you need to know exactly what to look for and that requires you to actually have access to the same card that you know is legit as comparison.
May 11, 2015 2:41 a.m.
ZooGambler says... #13
Or you can rip it in half and if there's a blue line that means that it's real.
May 11, 2015 2:53 a.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #14
The power 9 will always retain their value, probably even some of it after magic is no longer played.
That said, I'd go for the ABUR duals. They're not likely to decline, may go up, and - unlike the P9, are at a price where it'll be fairly easy to sell off if/when you need the cash.
May 11, 2015 7:31 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #15
Like several others have said: the ABUR duals will be the easiest to move when you want to turn them back into money. That's what I would recommend.
bigguy99 says... #2
I've invested in Moat, Bazaar of Baghdad, Karakas, and soon Tabernacle. They're either too rare or too played to fall. P9 is definitely the safest stuff though just because it's P9 and they can't go anywhere but up.
May 10, 2015 7:54 p.m.