StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sale

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hammr7
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by hammr7 » Sun Oct 17, 2004 8:56 pm

That distribution sounds more like 4 boosters, misssing one rare (traded away?) and some lands.(and possibly a common or two).

If the original intent was a huge distribution, then there should have been packaged cards of both starters and boosters.  Maybe some of each went out to different areas.
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Allie » Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:05 pm

This discussion made me curious to see if my friend, who mainly did his dealing in California, had any alt 4th, so I bought a blacklight. Didn't find any yet, but my bathroom has never been cleaner.

::)

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Mr.C » Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:30 pm

This discussion made me curious to see if my friend, who mainly did his dealing in California, had any alt 4th, so I bought a blacklight. Didn't find any yet, but my bathroom has never been cleaner.

::)
Your bathroom?
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Allie » Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:44 pm


Your bathroom?
That's the darkest room in the house and where I went to check the cards out.

And lets just say the blacklight picks up more than just the glow of regular 4th cards. I bought mine at a pet store in the "pet odor removal section." Also, I have a 3-year-old son who is recently potty trained and likes to do everything himself.

That shed some light on, shall we say, areas around the toilet that needed a bit more cleaning.  

:P

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by dry cereal » Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:26 am

No matter what the rarity, I think these were underhanded measures to corner the market.  It's like stealing a dog from the blind.
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Celebrindor » Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:36 am

No matter what the rarity, I think these were underhanded measures to corner the market.  It's like stealing a dog from the blind.
I would tend to agree.  It would have seemed fairer to quote the estimates of surviving product *before* buying the cards from people who (to their knowledge at the time) had something that was not that rare.

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by psrex » Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:09 am

I don't think that Ben's behavior is unfair.  We all knew (at least in a sense) what Alt. 4th was, and we knew that it was rarer than regular 4th.  After I had acquired some Alt. 4th when buying a collection I set out to find more information about the set, and I came across information that isn't terribly different from what Ben is stating now, but there were no numbers given from what I can remember.  Finding Alt. 4th cards is in fact what brought me to this site.  I found it hard to believe that there was really very little interest in Alt. 4th here, but there's no way for me as one collector to change that and make a market for the cards.  I'm happy that I was able to get something (9 duals and a Goblin Welder) for my Alt. 4th and move on.

We've all had plenty of opportunity to get lots of Alt. 4th if we wished as there has been a lot for trade here.  Personally, I don't have a way to make a market for Alt. 4th, but Ben does, and he's working at doing that.  StarCityGames.com has a very prominent store and a way to promote Ben's findings.  To my way of thinking Ben is doing me a great service by actually being interested in the Alt. 4th that I had, and he's creating a good market for any Alt. 4th that I may find in the future (and I fully expect to find more).  If Ben had done nothing with regards to Alt. 4th we would still be left with relatively worthless cards.  No one cared overly much for Alt. 4th before, and I think it's great that now I might have some easy trading materials to get cards that I'm truly interested in.  It really remains to be seen what will happen with regards to the market demand for Alt. 4th.  It could well be that no one will buy at current StarCity prices, or maybe Ben is correct and a real market will develop.  Either way, it really is completely due to whatever demand StarCity has worked to create, and almost completely through Ben's research.

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by BenBleiweiss » Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:10 am


I would tend to agree.  It would have seemed fairer to quote the estimates of surviving product *before* buying the cards from people who (to their knowledge at the time) had something that was not that rare.
I did not get a number on the print run until this past Wednesday - if I had the information I have now, I would have gone forward with selling Alternate 4th Edition cards much, much sooner.  I've been pretty consistant in what I've been offering for Alternate 4th Edition cards before I had any knowledge of print run size.  Some people wished to sell the cards at those prices, some did not.  This was a case of me believing that Alternate 4th Edition cards had value beyond where the community was placing them, and then pursuing all leads on the cards  for two years.  After two years of searching, I finally have some concrete print run information.  The cards are much rarer than were previously thought.  I certainly hope that there are no hard feelings regarding Alternate 4th Edition - if anyone feels that I slighted them in any way in a business dealing, please e-mail me at Ben@StarCityGames.com and I will do my best to recitfy the situation!

On an unrelated note, I'm collaborating with a respected member of this community to verify more numbers.  We are both making phone calls to people we know to try to get more information about Alternate 4th Edition - if this person wishes to post a comment on this thread, I would be more than happy if they would share their thoughts!

- Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by dry cereal » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:40 am

Thank you for adressing my concerns.  I suppose I was mostly surprised that it looked to me that you were trading crawwurms for moxes (as what wasn't uncommon in the day).  I now feel better about the situation.  Of course I had no relation to anything happening, and it was out of line to post such immature rants of frustration.  
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Mr.C » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:01 pm

Tell me Ben, how sure are you of these numbers? i searched with my friends through our collections, and in, oh, 4000 4th cards, we found about 40 alt 4th cards... However, i live in Brazil! and we don´t have the habit of buying mixed lots from the US. How widely was alt 4th distributed? Are you sure it wasn´t widely distributed? I find it very strange that *I* have alt fourth cads, living so far away...
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by GraueEminenz » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:41 pm

I can sing the same song:
As the topic started (widely) about a year ago I searched my collection and found ~110 cards!  I live in Germany and hadn't bought any collections from ebay or MOTL so far. And at the prerelease of Mirrodin I found a small boy with an even smaller binder of T2 cards. There were only 2 4th cards in it: 1 BoP and 1 Savannah Lion. Have a guess! No, not both were alternate 4th but one, the Lion - bad luck. The bottom line is in my eyes that there MUST be many more cases have slip thru than we - especially you, Ben - expect. I don't think that I'm that lucky.
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Mr.C » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:21 pm

I can sing the same song:
As the topic started (widely) about a year ago I searched my collection and found ~110 cards!  I live in Germany and hadn't bought any collections from ebay or MOTL so far. And at the prerelease of Mirrodin I found a small boy with an even smaller binder of T2 cards. There were only 2 4th cards in it: 1 BoP and 1 Savannah Lion. Have a guess! No, not both were alternate 4th but one, the Lion - bad luck. The bottom line is in my eyes that there MUST be many more cases have slip thru than we - especially you, Ben - expect. I don't think that I'm that lucky.
Greetings
Jan
I agree with you. I think we have to investigate this better before we start paying 100 bucks on Better Alt-4th rares... It is strange...
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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by fvzappa » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:44 pm

I have a lot of the good rares. Why? Because they are playable. Think about it- about 2 years ago I got the first Alt card for my collection. Serra Angel. Then, I got Lightning Bolts, Shivan Dragons, all the good cards.

These cards are found in binders. Wraths, Serras, Mind Twists, etc. are found in the average person's binder. Lifelaces, Tinder Wolves, & Webs, aren't. They are just as rare, though!

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by dry cereal » Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:34 am

uh oh, alternate 4th just jumped the shark.
I can't believe I ate the whole thing

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Re: StarCityGames.com Offers Alt 4th cards for Sal

Post by Mr.C » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:25 am

uh oh, alternate 4th just jumped the shark.
what???
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