The Magic Librarities

All,

I am adding a few more things to the sale table. If you have never seen a beta test set, they are photocopied prototype cards - sometimes they have altered casting costs, and very often they have a "working name" - one that gets changed before the actual release! I have seen very few of them, but because these would be easy to replicate, I have only purchased ones I felt had a solid history.

The sets I have are:

Beta test set #1: The Dark (minimum bid $125.00)
Beta test set #2: Fallen (with 4 artist sketches on the cards his art was used on for the actual release.) (minimum bid $175.00)
Beta test set #1: The Dark (Richard Garfield's set) (minimum bid $195.00)

Beta test sets:

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Beta test set #1: The Dark
I traded for this set back around when the set after The Dark came out. (I forget which one.) It contains 77 cards in it, such as:

- Fellwar Stone
- The Tower (became Tower of Coireall)
- The Crypt (no clue – the text says “(Tap): Target creature cannot be blocked by walls until end of turn.â€￾)
- Green Thumb (no clue – the text says “You may put one additional land in play per turn, but that land must be a forest. You may sacrifice Green Thumb to add GG to your mana pool. This ability is played as an interrupt..â€￾)
- Ball Lightning
- Forest Goblins (no clue – 2/2 goblins (summoned for GR.)
- The Light (no clue – the text says “All non-white creatures get –1/-1 until the end of turn.â€￾)

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Beta test set #2: Fallen (Empires, but Empires is not actually on the cards)
It contains 35 cards. I bought these from a man who was selling them on Yahoo auctions a number of years ago. I offered to buy them all (rather than bid on each individually). There are a number of things interesting about this set:

1. 15 cards have “NPSâ€￾ marked on them in red or gold ink. Not sure what this means. It doesn’t correspond to the artist’s name (so it isn’t an artist’s signature.)
2. 13 cards have “Baâ€￾ marked on them in silver ink.
3. A large number of these cards do not have the final names of the cards on them. So you will get cards called: Org (with only one “gâ€￾), Javelin Throwers, Big Lobster, Tendervittle Mutant (which became: the Armor Thrull with Menges art), and many, many more.

But the best part of this set is Jeff A. Menges has done sketches on four of the beta test cards reproducing (in b&w sketch) the final art! Here are the sketches he did:

- Tendervittle Mutant: sketch of his Armor Trull art
- Dwarven Lieutenant: sketch of his Dwarven Lieutenant
- Dwarven Catapult: sketch of his Dwarven Catapult
- Merfolk Soldiers: sketch of his, well, frankly, I have no idea. I mean I KNOW the dang picture but I can’t remember which card it belongs to. Ah, well.

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Beta test set #3: Richard Garfield’s own The Dark beta test cards
This set contains 107 cards. It also comes in a small blue-topped, two-piece box. Richard Garfield kept this set in this box (his name is signed on the inside of the box. When I bought this set I received a note about how this traveled from Richard to me. If I can find it then it will also be included. The very short answer is: Richard gave these to a friend. This person sold it to me.

Lots of fun misnamed cards in here as well, such as:

- The Dwellers of the Murk
- Black Heart of the Forest
- The Machine
- The Dark Sphere
- Forest Goblins
- Swamp Goblins
- Forest Bandits
- Forest Hag
- Forest People
- The Green Man
- Blood of the Earth
- Cave In
- Holy Man
- Men at Arms
- The Light

Email me at rainsford@deadcandancelibrary.com with any bids/offers.

Best regards,

Raisnford

Then I guess I am interested in fielding offers - on the set or individual cards.

Please email through this BB system or send inquiries to jeff@curiousgames.net

Oh, I believe I have an extra "Painful Hedgehog" as well.

Best regards,

Rainsford

Hello, I am contemplating selling off my set of the ex-God Hoax Cards (now "Wizards of the Coast Employee Cards") and wanted to get some sense of value. My set of cards are the ones that were used as images on this site (I scanned them and sent the images in) so I have: Painful Hedgehog Urza's Lawn ...