So disappointing - how many opportunities do you get to do new art for one of the most iconic history-filled cards. Two straight times they declined to let any number of awesome artists go for it.
I see some trademarked images (time walk for example uses the same background art, and the moxes appear to have been ripped directly from the real versions. So it's hard to discuss value on this message board as that would imply selling copyrighted content. You can however see some very creative proxies on eBay these days, and given these aren't on official card stock, that's probably the ceiling which you'd be looking at in terms of market value. But again, I'd recommend keeping them for your own personal use, given the infringement in parts of the artwork.
One cent per card is reasonable for a bunch of commons. When I got my brother and dad into MTG - I used exactly this - a bunch of commons from opened backs. Rules are often more straightforward with commons. But 4000 is a bit overkill - a thousand or so cards for $10 would be better to learn/get started. Then as others have suggested, go buy some pre-constructed / sealed product which have pretty good value and good balance.
I registered just to say this. The suing judges should just have their terms be to abolish the reserve list and then they will drop the suit.
What? No... no... The secondary market is a multi-million dollar market. Stores make money from reserved cards. Their inventory helps pay the bills.. like energy and mortgage types of bills. Small store owners have invested thousands of dollars in inventory - removing the list would demolish confidence in Wizards. Not saying I like the list either, but the value of all cards - reserve and non-reserved - is held up by confidence in how Wizards carefully manages card production - including honoring agreements.
Judges suing Wizards may sound like trying to get things for free, but it's really really really important to uphold employer-employee laws. Without them we have easy ways to exploit "volunteers" and further diminish working jobs / wages for sake of corporate profits. Corporations can do great things - but it's enforced law, and not ethics - that protect worker and citizen rights. Anyone that's attended a major event can see the effort a judge puts in. It's actually a testament to high nice and friendly the judge community is that this didn't happen until now. It's been wrong for years...
Cheaper cards have been faked and sold. You would be surprised.
Yes - if you've seen a fake that looks as good as the one in question on this thread, and replicating a less-valuable card, I'd be very surprised. Not saying no one is doing it, but their losing money on the effort if so... it costs almost $3 just to reliably ship a card these days.
In my experience photos don't do as much for the seller, it comes down to registered tracking or, failing that a really good record against a really unproven buyer. As the income source for eBay/TCGPlayer etc is the buyer's funds, they tend to side with the buyer, esp knowing that often losing a buyer who is right means losing them for life ("buyer protection").
However as OP mentioned, USPS costs really have hit hard over the last few years. What used to be 1.64 not long ago is now 2.60 - almost 60% increase in shipping costs. This moves my personal selling trends towards collections of smaller cards, especially as I have to provide tracking and bubble mailers for seller protection. Add in the top loader and double-sleeving, it's about $3 to send a single card reliably now.
You can also monitor ebay and snipe cards using gixen - there are quite a few foreign cards these days and italy are usually competitively priced w/ TCGPlayer (some stores list their same inventory on both simultaneously).
Even though power is power, for all types of decks there is a big difference between a free color needed for your deck and a free colorless (or when considering the new colorless mana, worse than colorless). It doesn't always make sense to run a 0 cost off-color mana rock. That being the case, it then falls to the typical priority of blue then black/red then white/green in value.
And so it shouldn't. If it was going to produce an Ally it would have to be a Vampire Ally and not a Zombie Ally, in my opinion. "Mind helping me defile your friend's corpse?" is not good Ally flavour.
Completely agree - an untapped vampire ally after sacrificing a non-vampire ally would have been spot on.
My goodness this is terrible. And the zombie isn't even an ally. Ally cards that produce tapped non-allies and require another untapped ally to work! Wow. So much terrible.
I'd carefully monitor inventory at the major online stores and ebay. We probably haven't seen the bottom of the starcitygames impact... but it's hard to tell. If you have a trusted source and can get a good price, even if they drop a bit more on the long term you'll get good use out of the cards and they'll likely recover if not increase.
Starcity games significantly reduced their next year's legacy support... some players may be dismantling their decks, or at least unloading extra copies of legacy staples due to the same. We'll see this continue for a while, so depending on your long term strategy, there may be a window of opportunity to pick up some cards at a reduced price. But hard to tell where the bottom will be...
General agreement w/ TomCat - some additional comments on top...
This set does have full art lands which over the long run (3, 5, 7 years) might be worth something. They have a few more planes to visit before they return to zendikar a 3rd time, and so far only zendikar had the full art lands. They are all over the place now, but 5 years from now, may be worth something and sealed product with that stuff usually does well
On the flip side, so will at least the next set - and they will be the same lands (even the same scimitar, which is unfortunate). That is why across the board fat packs dropped about $8-10 in the last week for eBay selling prices.
The initial runs also have expeditions. Those chase-type promos long term typically do well, and unopened product from a set with them is sometimes sought after
But my advice - if your friends can't find them anywhere else, be a pal, sell them, and play a day of sealed. Whatever you have left you can keep for the future... you can still shop around town if you want to get the full-art lands, and if not the next set you can load up at MSRP - the final set is opened less than the original, and expedition/chase promos may be there too. You'll have another chance to invest for the 3-7 year period if you want.
What? No... no... The secondary market is a multi-million dollar market. Stores make money from reserved cards. Their inventory helps pay the bills.. like energy and mortgage types of bills. Small store owners have invested thousands of dollars in inventory - removing the list would demolish confidence in Wizards. Not saying I like the list either, but the value of all cards - reserve and non-reserved - is held up by confidence in how Wizards carefully manages card production - including honoring agreements.
Judges suing Wizards may sound like trying to get things for free, but it's really really really important to uphold employer-employee laws. Without them we have easy ways to exploit "volunteers" and further diminish working jobs / wages for sake of corporate profits. Corporations can do great things - but it's enforced law, and not ethics - that protect worker and citizen rights. Anyone that's attended a major event can see the effort a judge puts in. It's actually a testament to high nice and friendly the judge community is that this didn't happen until now. It's been wrong for years...
Yes - if you've seen a fake that looks as good as the one in question on this thread, and replicating a less-valuable card, I'd be very surprised. Not saying no one is doing it, but their losing money on the effort if so... it costs almost $3 just to reliably ship a card these days.
However as OP mentioned, USPS costs really have hit hard over the last few years. What used to be 1.64 not long ago is now 2.60 - almost 60% increase in shipping costs. This moves my personal selling trends towards collections of smaller cards, especially as I have to provide tracking and bubble mailers for seller protection. Add in the top loader and double-sleeving, it's about $3 to send a single card reliably now.
Completely agree - an untapped vampire ally after sacrificing a non-vampire ally would have been spot on.
But my advice - if your friends can't find them anywhere else, be a pal, sell them, and play a day of sealed. Whatever you have left you can keep for the future... you can still shop around town if you want to get the full-art lands, and if not the next set you can load up at MSRP - the final set is opened less than the original, and expedition/chase promos may be there too. You'll have another chance to invest for the 3-7 year period if you want.