...and it was.

But not as cool as this finding, which occurs at the 8:30 minute point of the video almost exactly (so you can jump right to it, but back it up about 30 seconds from there, to 8 minutes, so you get the context).

https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/...-card-180316368.html

I know Magic cards aren't exactly non-sports, but non-sports collectors who've been lucky enough to find that big hit, (and sports card guys, too, I'm sure) certainly know the feeling this fella is having when he sees what he's been holding in his increasingly shaking hands. I like after he puts it down he repeats the phrase, "Where's my sleeve? Where's my sleeve?".

Great find.

Does anyone else open their cards in protective gloves using a scalpel you could perform surgery with?

I use to collect Magic cards, but I think it was in 1995 and it was too late for the Alpha/Beta cards. I enjoyed seeing the cards again, because almost all of those Alpha cards wound up to be reprinted in later versions.

The information on the Black Lotus Alpha that goes for around $30,000 was interesting. According to the story 1100 Alpha cards were produced in 1993. Another 3000 Black Lotus cards were done in Beta some time after, but it doesn't give a value for that version.

Does it seem right that a 1993 card with an 1100 printrun could be worth $30,000? I know of course that any card is worth as much as someone will pay and the Magic cards were vastly overproduced in all later versions. But there are non-sport autograph cards of major film stars produced at less than 50 copies that don't come close to the Black Lotus. There are 1/1 cut signature cards of dead presidents that don't come close to the Black Lotus.

Even for a hard core gamer, why would anyone spend that much for a card that doesn't do anything and has no inherit value? It can't even be used in competition anymore.

I think "Magic" cards are very much on their own level as a collectible in that they essentially pioneered a new kind of game that can be played with almost any subject one wants to feature on cards, and further, the industry they fostered is still roaring nearly 25 years later with virtually no drop off in popularity since they began.

(I've never played a CGC in my life, but as a Star Wars and Marvel/DC card collector, I have a goodly amount of CGC cards from those lines.)

Look at those 5 card Magic Comic-Con special sets from the last two years. The one from 2013 retailed for $100 or so, as I recall, but they were selling for $400+ before the show had even ended. Those are NEWLY PRINTED variants of five already existing cards selling for upwards of $100 each, and this year's set was equally sought after. Car-azy, man.

I think there is just a whole different mind set with these kinds of cards that make people reach a deeper into their pockets than we tend to for the stuff we collect. I used to marvel at those kids paying $4 and $5 each for booster pack after booster pack of Magic, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc., back in the late 1990's. I can only imagine what booster packs from those lines cost now, given the increases in the costs of regular trading cards.

You also have to keep in mind that these are game cards. They are collectible now but when they first came out people played with them. 1100 isn't an extremely low print run but the number of cards still existing in high grade is probably significantly lower.
I think the demand for Magic is probably significantly larger than the demand for any non-sport card set.

$30,000 is still crazy though. That's a nice car or a good down payment on a house. I have a hard time justifying keeping a card that's worth a couple hundred dollars.

So there is now an article on comicbook.com that says a Beta Black Lotus in a graded 10 sold for $100,000. Apparently it is the Beckett grading that made it more valuable than this Alpha pull, which is also mentioned over there.

And to think I thought $30,000 was crazy.

I didn't watch the full video, so forgive me if the guy mentioned it, but since there are a lot of other valuable cards in those decks (the guy seemed pretty happy with the first rare he got, the one before the lotus), how much was that deck worth sealed as it was?
Even that would've probably been worth a thousand bucks or so, no?

Uh, apparently it is $8,800 for a sealed deck of Alpha:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Ma...&hash=item259268d71e

Oh, to go back on time on these! I frequented a comic store back then that I'm pretty sure handled Magic cards very early on in their existence.

I think I started collecting them when the revised edition came out, I want to say 94/95. I had a couple of common cards from the Alpha and Beta runs at one time. I wound up selling them all around 2005 and did get a few bucks on some of the rares, but nothing great.

I think I mentioned this once in another thread, but the original artists were deeply involved in the project in the beginning. They would publish their addresses in Wizard and many of them would sign and return any cards you sent them that had their art work. Some would send back notes and even small sketches. I've got a whole binder of the stuff that I wouldn't part with, but I stopped buying Magic when Wizards of the Coast changed policy regarding the artists' fees.

See the original artists owned the copyrights to their own work and had to be paid for the reprinting of the cards in all new editions. Once Magic turned out to be really popular and WOTC knew it needed new editions, management told the artists that the copyrights had to be signed over to the company so they could be reprinted without any commission paid or else they would be dropped from the lineup. A few did stay on, but most refused and were dropped. New art was commissioned for any old cards that remained in the decks or new cards were substituted.

And that is where my collecting of Magic cards ended. It was not a fair thing to do to the graphic artists that had helped to create those Alpha, Beta, first edition and revised sets, but it was of course smart for WOTC.