This is the eighth in a series of blog posts discussing the trading card game Magic The Gathering (hereafter shortened to just “Magic”) and its connections to the world of sales.
Magic: The Gathering is not just a game for introverted nerds who live in their moms’ basements. It is also a high-stakes investment vehicle for those willing to dive in and take the risk. Magic: The Gathering financial speculation mainly comes in two forms: 1. Purchasing individual singles or large amounts of a certain card in the hopes that it increases in price sometime later. 2. Purchasing sealed product and hoping it increases drastically in value as time passes. The latter of those two options is the safer of the two investments. This is due to the fact that sealed product rarely decreases in price after release. So while sealed product may not have as much opportunity to rapidly increase in price like single cards, it is the investment of choice for many serious Magic speculators.
Speculating on individual cards requires a significantly greater knowledge of the market because you must predict what cards will see expansive play in one or more formats before the cards are even being played. I, for example, made a big mistake in Magic speculation last summer when I sold off all my copies of a specific card (known as Tireless Tracker) that had rotated out of Standard play. I sold five copies of the card for $2 each and now, after being played in the Modern format, those same five cards would be worth $15 a piece.
Although I am not one of them, serious Magic speculators can make a small fortune by applying stock-market-like tactics to a card game. I can only wish I had that kind of talent.
BoweryJE22