The 'chaosdjinn is an idiot...' Broodmate Dragon Fund

[Knutsen]

btw ... ABU has them "on sale" für 2.69 USD.

[berkumps]

You should probably jump on these "cheap" broodmate's quick before someone at channel fireball or abu reads this thread and starts increasing the price in a vain attempt to "account for perceived demand".

[ritnecrowin]

I second that- as soon as I had my Goblin Game article published, a number of vendors doubled and tripled the price on the card.

I miss the days where I could buy GGs all day long at .25 and $1 for foil.

If I come across any of these on the cheap, I'll grab them for you. :)

Personally, i think you should write an article about this as you hunt your 'white whale.'... it could help justify your experience and become something personal to you.

[magic-belgium]

The biggest problem is that WotC do not disclose any information about the promo cards, and keep the secret as if it were National Military Secret.

They seem to care less about the millions of dollars spent by collectors in the MTG economy.

OK it does not go in their pockets, but that makes the shops live. Because they don't live out of drafts and pre-releases...

No shop, no MTG.

How can a company like this with Marketing Managers don't even think of this ?

[chaosdjinn]

Thank you all for the feedback and the reinforcement of the perception that it is indeed a futile endeavor. But, if I find them in trade, I will pick them up to just to delude myself that it is making a difference on the bottom line of my folly.

[chaosdjinn]

The biggest problem is that WotC do not disclose any information about the promo cards, and keep the secret as if it were National Military Secret.

They seem to care less about the millions of dollars spent by collectors in the MTG economy.

OK it does not go in their pockets, but that makes the shops live. Because they don't live out of drafts and pre-releases...

No shop, no MTG.

How can a company like this with Marketing Managers don't even think of this ?

I always wondered that myself- it seems that public print run information, as well as release schedules and frequencies would shore up the faith of collectors investing in the niche markets; which, for certain WOTC employees,drive the demand to have those jobs continue with their employment.

[chaosdjinn]

I second that- as soon as I had my Goblin Game article published, a number of vendors doubled and tripled the price on the card.

I miss the days where I could buy GGs all day long at .25 and $1 for foil.

If I come across any of these on the cheap, I'll grab them for you. :)

Personally, i think you should write an article about this as you hunt your 'white whale.'... it could help justify your experience and become something personal to you.

Can you link to the article? I missed it. Thank you for the offer to help with my misguided pursuit of idiocy.

[ritnecrowin]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/19 ... e-Guy.html

[mystical_tutor]

I know that in many areas of collecting the numbers are findable for an item. Does the US mint tell how many of a given coin/proof set are produced? How about stamps?

Do other card companies (WoW, L5R, whatever) publically announce their print runs?

If I was running the company I would not publish numbers as it adds to the mystic of the product.

I wonder what would have happened if they had not told us how many "foil" Helvaults there were?

There may also be a confidence factor for certain items. If the mass market promos are "contracted" by the vendors [remember WotC does not stock shelves at WallMart], or if local national distributors "order" certain numbers of promos I can see where that information would be very sensitive from a business point of view.

Gary

[kalimno]

Gary,

You usually know print runs for stamps and coins. Especially gold and silver coins. Alhough paper money is not my strong suit, I know there are different print runs / emissions and I know that changes the value similar to reprints.

Ofcourse unlike magic cards, stamps or money have a "face value". So you can guess how much one had to pay to get one when it was issued. Which also limits the number of people that could afford it. Unlike regular magic cards which in theory costs its owner only the price of a booster.

An example I find so amusing is one of the first local paper money. Its value was equal to roughly 26 kilos of gold when it was printed. It still costs that much - maybe more - to get a copy. Yet, not that big of a profit when copared to opening up a Black lotus in '94 :)

Best,

Ari

[l0qii]

Sometimes production run numbers and other details only come out after a company goes bankrupt. When assets are liquidated someone usually ends up with all the old paperwork, and this sort of valuable information is in there and gets published. There is precedent in record collecting, where old record labels have gone under.

[mystical_tutor]

Thanks; I was thinking there was some kind of handle on money, specially proof/mint sets. I can remember something about a special silver dollar of which there were only a few known but the original mintage numbers were available and of course the speculation was wild about what happened to all the rest and "finding" them.

Were there only two sheets printed with HP back Magic cards???

Gary,

You usually know print runs for stamps and coins. Especially gold and silver coins. Alhough paper money is not my strong suit, I know there are different print runs / emissions and I know that changes the value similar to reprints.

Ofcourse unlike magic cards, stamps or money have a "face value". So you can guess how much one had to pay to get one when it was issued. Which also limits the number of people that could afford it. Unlike regular magic cards which in theory costs its owner only the price of a booster.

An example I find so amusing is one of the first local paper money. Its value was equal to roughly 26 kilos of gold when it was printed. It still costs that much - maybe more - to get a copy. Yet, not that big of a profit when copared to opening up a Black lotus in '94 :)

Best,

Ari

[magic-belgium]

Were there only two sheets printed with HP back Magic cards???

Will we ever know ?

[chaosdjinn]

I picked up 2 more as throw-ins on trades. Down to $39.42 each.