StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sale

[fvzappa]

Don't be scared by the prices- these cards are under everyone's noses, it is just a small few that know the difference. Even without a blacklight, there are ways to tell. Not all of them have been discussed here even  8) I have a few aces up my sleeve....

The United States Playing Card Company made these cards. Starters at least, don't know about boosters at all. The USPCC is located in Cincinnati, Ohio, minutes away from me.

I guess the curious thing about all of this (from my viewpoint) is HOW did these cards get distributed? They are frequently spotted here (I've cleaned the town up mostly though), but I know of drafts taken place around here where they were sold, people who have unopened starters "lying around", and just a good dose of these cards in my area. Somehow, everyone here ended up with a lot, & it just seems to have "happened". I don't know of any shady practices that took place.

Other than the fact that the USPCC is nearby, I am not sure how my town ended up with so many....

[BenBleiweiss]

Boys & girls (okay, boys) this article is unbelievable bullshit. For those of you living anywhere hours away from me you may be having a difficult time finding these cards, but if those figures are correct I've seen about 1/3 of all the Alt. 4th cards in existance. I even just 'happened' upon a starter thanks to a friend of mine.

I do not have a complete set as yet- but I own as many as 8 of any rare, and a few dozen of a few commons. I've traded away plenty too just to finish a set! Since I own about 2,000 cards of these right now, sure... the public can believe this story if they want.

------------------------------
I'd like to take the time to address these concerns:

After over a year of effort, we have finally obtained solid information from a reliable, inside source giving us both the print run and surviving print run of Alternate 4th Edition.  The numbers we quote we believe to be correct.  

The cards that did leak were solely in the midwestern United States.  This is why the concentration of cards is high for those of you in the Michigan/Illinois/Ohio area.  This is no different than both the Summer Magic print run (which only leaked to Texas and England) and the Alpha-Cut 4th Edition print run (most of which ended up in the Northeast United States).  When you say you've seen 1/3rd of the surviving print run, I completely believe you - outside of your region, these cards were not available in any way, shape or form.

To the best of our knowledge, the surviving cards were only distributed in tournament decks.  This, again, is no different than Summer Revised (Edgar) where the surviving card were only available in boosters even though there were Revised "Tournament decks" in existance for the regular print run.

[BenBleiweiss]

Our estimated numbers came from the following figures:
However, an estimated ten cases of Alternate "Summer" Fourth Edition starter displays are believed to have survived.

* Estimated number of each Alternate "Summer" Fourth Edition rare in existence: 25

* Estimated number of each Alternate "Summer" Fourth Edition uncommon in existence: 75

* Estimated number of each Alternate "Summer" Fourth Edition common in existence: 215

* Estimated number of each Alternate "Summer" Fourth Edition basic land in existence: 1,450

10 Cases of Tournament Decks = 100 Tournament Boxes (back then, it was 10 boxes per case) = 1000 tournament decks.  

1000 tournament decks equals:
3000 total rares
9000 total uncommons
26000 total commons
22000 total basic lands

In 4th Edition, there are 121 Rares, 121 Uncommons, 121 Commons, and 15 different basic land pictures.

3000 total rares / 121 rares in set = 24.7 of each rare
9000 total uncommons/121 uncommons  in set = 74.3 of each uncommon
26000 total commons / 121 commons in set = 214.8 of each common
22000 total basic lands / 15 basic lands in set = 1466.6 of each basic land

[BenBleiweiss]

I don't see why these numbers are unbelievable.  These cards literally have never surfaced outside of the American Midwest, no sealed product has ever been discovered in a large quantity, and that which has been discovered has been only in the American midwest - it literally has not shown up anywhere else in the world!  If anything, the price of Alternate 4th has been artificially deflated because so many of the members of Magic Rarities forums come from the midwest, and are in the one place in the world where these cards were available.  Because of this, loose cards are still in circulation - without a high value (due to the assumption that many more of these cards survived than survived in reality) people have still not soaked these out of collections.  Based on the several million regular fourth ediiton cards that have come through StarCityGames.com over the past two years, I believe our numbers to be correct - we have only seen these cards either as a one-of in a large collection, or in higher quantities from collections we bought from people in the Midwest.  We have approached other dealers about buying the Alternate 4th Edition cards they have come across, and the rarity of Alternate 4th Edition is supported in their numbers as well.

Members of the Magic Rarities forum have had a head jump on collecting these cards - Dan Bock's announcement about Alternate 4th was in June of 2002.  The general public has been unaware of this print run, especially when compared to the existance of Summer Revised (Edgar).  In the two and a half years since Alternate 4th has been publically revealed, several members of this community have attempt to make complete sets.  A vast majority of them have not managed to complete these sets - and many of them are from the Midwest, the only place on Earth where these cards were made available.  If these cards were truly as available as the members of this community claim, it should have been no problem to complete a set within a couple of months (compare this to other sets such as Portal 3 Kingdoms: English, which can be had, with some effort, within a month or so of looking).  Instead, these members of this forum, who are dedicated to finding rarities, have been unable to complete their sets over the course of two years now!  I believe this also speaks for the rarity of these cards.

If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them - Alternate 4th has been a passion of mine for two years now, and now that I am secure that I have an accurate figure about the print run, I am moving forward to offer the cards for sale on the website.  

- Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com

[dry cereal]

#1, how many summer cards have you found in collections?
#2, how many summer cards have you found in collections from the midwest?
#3, what is your source for the 10 case estimate?

I accept that the figures and locations of release of summer are "common knowledge" but I have also heard many skeptics regarding those "facts".  
Even if your source was a distributer, I don't think there could be a real estimate because wizards isn't too aware of what happens with their product once it goes to print.  

[normalbrains]

i have no interest in collecting alternate 4th cards, but i dont have an extreme interest in stopping them from being called summer cards. there is already soemthing known as summer. people know about it. why would you name this summer also? its like your trying to piggy-back on summer's popularity and generate interest in something that isnt as cool. it sucks. i beg my fellow collectors to refer to these cards as "alternate fourth" and under no circumstances call them summer. because lets face it.

theyre not.

[Gryfalia]

Just to repeat myself from the thread many months ago...

Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't call them summer magic, summer 4th, or anything of the sort with 'summer' in the name.

The confusion that people calling it that is causing is costing people money on Ebay and shouldn't be a problem...

Thank you for your support...

Gryfalia

[tap4black]

Sam and Pete, you are a joke.  That you would be trying to offer this set of cards as "summer" is a total joke to the magic community.  Replys of I have "only found 75" and "less than 1%" of my 4th cards are of this type speak for how many cards there truly are.  How about everyone on this forum go thru their revised cards and try to find ONE, just ONE! Summer card.  Then we all go through our 4th cards and count the THOUSANDS! of Alt 4th cards we find.  The only reason these cards seem to be rarer than true 4th is there is no simple way to tell the difference so they go unnoticed.

[dry cereal]

name suggestions: US fourth, gloss-back, spring magic

[Gryfalia]

Alternate 4th works just fine...
(if boring)

Gryfalia

[dry cereal]

wow, of all the posts to get emotional over, it's this one?  

[Gryfalia]

 The only reason these cards seem to be rarer than true 4th is there is no simple way to tell the difference so they go unnoticed.

Erm, no, the reason they seem to be rarer is that they are, in fact, rarer.  That is not the question.

The question is HOW much rarer.  Ben says (and I fully believe him, tho I can't account for his source) that his source says 10 cases.  The source might be right, might be wrong, but I accept that this is what he was told.

For those trying to say that Summer 4th (bwahaha, sorry, had to do it..'Alternate 4th') is quite common, remember that the one thing that seems to be 'fact' is that in the end the business deal with WotC did NOT stand and the company didn't produce mass quantities.

The overall print run for 4th edition on Crystal Keep is listed as '500 million estimated'.  I assume they mean English, because as much as WotC sucks at keeping track of their English production, they BLOW CHUNKS at keeping track of their foreign production.

Even if the USPCC printed a MILLION cards (which is an official crap-load) as a huge test, it would barely make a mark on the overall print run.

There is also no question that the initial supply was limited to the midwest and slowly radiated out from there.  Hence Dan Bock, in all his midwesterness (cheese head dontcha know), was the first to notice it.

So, while the marketing might be aggressive, it's not way over the top from what they know, even if no one can prove that what they know is true or false.

I just think it's probably wrong, but I'm not going to ascribe to them some evil motives...

Gryfalia

[dry cereal]

I'm interested in trading for/buying alt 4th.  

[BenBleiweiss]

There is also no question that the initial supply was limited to the midwest and slowly radiated out from there.  Hence Dan Bock, in all his midwesterness (cheese head dontcha know), was the first to notice it.

So, while the marketing might be aggressive, it's not way over the top from what they know, even if no one can prove that what they know is true or false.

I just think it's probably wrong, but I'm not going to ascribe to them some evil motives...

Gryfalia

I have the official number of cases printed before the boxes were ordered destroyed - I'll check with my source to see if it is all right for me to release this information.  To answer a question from above, the cards were never legally distributed - they went from the United States Playing Company to a place where they were supposed to be destroyed, without ever having hit any distribution channels.  

Since we've posted the Alternate 4th announcement on our website, a couple of other dealers have come forth to confirm our findings - in the large collections they have scoured, alternate 4th either shows up not at all, or in quantities indicating a full box having been opened.  It would make sense that if all the alternate 4th product that had been released came from Starter (tournament) deck boxes and were not ever legally distributed or for sale, that entire boxes would have been opened at once by the people who ended up with said Alternate Fourth Cards.  THis accounts for the many dealers who have gone through dozens of collections without hitting a single alternate 4th cards, and then suddenly hitting one collection from the Midwest that has a few hundred at once.

In order to stop any sort of confusion, we'll be referring to the cards at "Alternate 4th Edition" from this point onward - we had thought that "Summer 4th Edition" was an acceptable term at this point, as several auctions had been carried out over the past year using that title for the set.  The community wishes that this set not be confused in any way with Summer Revised, and we concur with the community.

Since these cards were moved boxes at a time, it only stands to reason that those who have come across these cards have, for the most part, come across a large collection all at once.  It's been very, very rare when we've have a random alternate 4th edition card show up on its own in a collection - I can only assume that in the handful of instances that this has happened, the card was obtained in a trade at some point.  

I thank the community for this open discussion about Alternate 4th Edition.  Alternate 4th Edition has been my pet project for nearly two years now, and I have been the most aggressive buyer of Alternate 4th Edition on the internet.  Based on the quantities I've both bought and seen but not been able to buy (including a few collections from Magic Rarity Members) I believe that our numbers on Alternate 4th Edition are very close to correct.  To FVZAPPA, who has a very large collection of these, I offer that you have been sitting on a gold mine.  I would think that the people in England and Texas who bought Summer Revised did not think anything of the rarity of their cards until people from outside their area clamored for these cards.  This is because they were accustomed to seeing those cards, whereas the rest of the world was not.  Would random person X have opened up an Edgar booster back in 1994 and thought "gee, this Balance is going to be worth $2,000?"  Of course not - to them, it was just another pack of Magic cards!  The surviving print run on Alternate Fourth Edition is higher than the surviving print run on Summer Revised (there are more alternate 4th edition cards), but I would maintain that their availability has been overblown due to the availablity of these cards to people in a geographical area that has a high density of Magic players.  

Either way, we'll be posting our Alternate 4th Edition cards within the next 15-20 minutes, and the market will bear out the supply and demand on these cards.  If anything, I feel that the prices are extraordinarily low compared to the supply, and that there is, ironically, and artificially deflated demand on these cards.  There are only a handful of people who have a reasonable supply of these cards, and once those supplies are gone, these cards will be very, very difficult to obtain from any source.

Thank you all again!
Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com

[tap4black]

Here is the email from the person offering up 10 cases of the starters:

TO MTG WHOLESALERS/ RETAILERS:
I Own Sealed decks of what is called " ALTERNATE 4TH STARTERS".
This could well be the next so called "Summer" set! Everyone knows what
they sold for!
"The United States Playing Card Company" was contracted to make the
"Alternate 4th Starters" by "WIZARDS OF THE COAST".  They were not
produced to the standards of "WIZARDS OF THE COAST". After a lawsuit
settled out of court, and the agreement US Playing Card Company will
have the cards destroyed, the cards were sent to a paper mill. Some of
the employees overseeing the process of destroying the cards at the
paper mill some way or another ended up with some sealed Starter Decks &
Sealed Boxes! As far as I can tell from talking with them there was about
10 cases of the cards that got out of the paper mill without being
destroyed!
I have purchased all of the starters the employees had left in their
possession that I know of that exists!
A few MTG Pros have told me that there is no way that any of these
starters exist. WRONG! I do have the starters in my possession. I am
looking for some dealers that have interest in the starters to make
offers for the alternate 4th starters! I fill that there should be lots
of interest in decks due to the rarity of them, a person could break
them down and sell singles of these Alternate 4th cards and probably
make quite a bit more!
ANY SERIOUS BUYERS SHOULD E-MAIL ME: cardplus@psci.net or phone me at
812-482-6640.
THANKS
DAVE

Sports Cards & More
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