The Magic Librarities

So I ordered a whack of CCG boosters and starters from our good friends at TnT, and what I witnessed upon opening the package was just too funny to not post here. All of the space you see above the product was there when I opened the box, no paper/peanuts/bubblewrap/etc. Just void space, which would make the package behave like a KFC Woopie ball (due to the ever changing center of gravity) when the UPS guys tossed it around.

OMG that is horrible!!

I've never had pkg problems like that from T&T. I hope Dan sees this post and fires the person who sent your pkg.

There is no excuse for that kind of crap. You have to contact them and they should give you some credit or something our of good will.

Hayden wrote:OMG that is horrible!!

I've never had pkg problems like that from T&T. I hope Dan sees this post and fires the person who sent your pkg.

There is no excuse for that kind of crap. You have to contact them and they should give you some credit or something our of good will.

Really?

I don't mean to sound rude but this is the type of thing I've come to expect from TnT and seems to be the general sentiment of a lot of online MTG buyers.

Mind you it's been a few years and my packages were usually containing things like Summer Rares (when the still had them) and their sealed P3K boxes... so maybe they took extra care because of what I was buying. Not sure why things seem shabby with them now... but if I ever got a pkg like that I would be all over the sender!!

I just don't like hearing bad things about T&T because they always treated me very well... Maybe because I helped fund their facility expansion a couple years ago LOL

The purchases I've made from TnT have all gone nicely, too, and I've occasionally bought "crap" ccg stuff, i.e. their clearance Dragon Storm CCG booster boxes, an MTG Rivals Quick Start box, etc. Never had a shipping/packaging problem with TnT before.

I ordered some of the Paladins they had listed on their website I'm looking for, so on my Paladin post I'll mention if there's anything messed up when they arrive.

btw, nice Shadowfist pickup. Surpisingly, there's still a lot of Ltd Shadowfist sealed product floating around after 15 years. it looks like a fun game, but I've never had an opportunity to play it. if you bought all of that stuff to find a certain card and don't get it, let me know, I have a lot of excess Shadowfist (opened and sealed) from when I was trying to get all of Melissa Benson's cards from that game pack fresh.

I mostly read complaints about card grading.

In all honesty I've only bought from them twice. Both times the process went smooth and the prices were right. First time were 3 theme decks which were packaged much like Marks photo above; not that big a deal but if you're paying for shipping kinda lame. Second transaction involved a few cards for a friend - grading was 1-2 grades below stated, no real issue because my friend didn't care. However I wouldn't try and buy anything for my personal collection from TnT if it wasn't sealed. Maybe I'm picky but I always try to provide cards in stated condition/best condition I can and I think anyone who I've sent cards to on this site would agree.

Two things you don't skimp on - packaging and grading. Treat others how you would like to be treated. Personally and no offense to any involved if I am being too harsh but I don't see how TnT does so well with their current methods.

Ertai's Familiar wrote:Two things you don't skimp on - packaging and grading. Treat others how you would like to be treated.

I cannot agree with you more!!
=D>

Be it a $1 or a $1000 item you still need to respect your customer.

Berkumps, I appreciate your wanting to fill that room in your house a little bit more, it looked so empty

Back on Topic: well, yes, I believe a better packaging would have been appropriate !

Ertai's Familiar wrote:I mostly read complaints about card grading.

I mostly ordered NM singles from them. I have not received anything that was a NM to me in the few recent orders I made. Fairly small cards so I didn't bother. All orders were shipped with a toploader, and the cards were placed beside (not in) the toploader. I can't remember if the cards were in a sleeve, but I think they weren't. I wonder how their poor and GD graded cards look like if their NM cards aren't NM at all.

I ordered 2600 promo cards from them, hehe, and they game nice enough, filling several rows of a multi-row white box. No issues at all.

Magik321 wrote:I mostly ordered NM singles from them. I have not received anything that was a NM to me in the few recent orders I made.

I was a little put out at something I got from them (after several satisfactory transactions) until I carefully read their deffinition of NM. As a collector I often find myself out of sync with others when it comes to grading.

When it comes to online sellers and cards on "you know where" I have saved myself a lot of heartburn by reading their grading criteria.

That being said... That packaging sucks and is a disgrace to the industry.

Gary

Here is their definition of near mint off their website:

General: A Near Mint card should look Mint but on closer inspection will have a minor flaw either on an edge, a corner, or its surface. A Near Mint card is allowed to have a few small dings or a small chip.

Corners: The corners on a Near Mint card should be crisp but one or two may have a small flaw such as a small ding.

Centering: A Near Mint card should be well centered.

Edges: The edges on a Near Mint card should be crisp, however they typically may have a small ding or two.

Surface: The surface of a Near Mint card should be very fresh looking but may have a tiny scratch.

Type of Card typically in this category: Any unplayed card straight from a pack that might have some flaws associated with handling of the card. .

I'll be using my latest purchase from them to describe the condition I received. It wasn't something expensive, and I wanted it for play use. It still sucks getting a card in such a shape when you paid for something better. I can't remember orders from a while back but the last 3 orders I had with them, nothing even came close to a NM- when the cards I bought are supposed to be NM. One of them was an old frame foil card, and the top part of the card was damaged enough that I could see parts of the silver foiling.

General: I could tell the card was damaged with decent amount of edge whitening even before taking the card out of the plastic holder they ship cards in.

Centering: Most cards are generally centered well enough to start off with so I wouldn't touch on this category.

Corners: One of the corners was damaged enough that it was slightly peeling off. All 4 corners were damaged in varying degrees.

Surface: Definitely not fresh looking (the card is from Invasion), card has lost part of the gloss and has scratches on the front and back. The surface is also fairly dirty.

I'm not sure how such a card could even fall under a NM category for someone who isn't grading harshly at all. Either their company grades in an extremely sloppy manner, or that they just don't care. Maybe a combination of both (They don't even scan their high end items, P9s, A/B duals for example when listing them). If anyone purchased a Played/Poor card from them I'll be interested to see a scan so I can see how trashed the card really is.

I also won't be surprised to see more people coming up and say their packaging is terrible. That picture with the starters and boosters just shown that the employees who packed it plainly didn't care.

A couple years ago I bought some sort of plush doll (Summer Fun Cthulhu I believe) and a handful of Magic cards. They came all together in a big box with the cards just soft sleeved and bouncing around loose.

Another time I bought a large lot of alternate 4th and got an odd mix of alt-4th, regular 4th and French Renaissance