One thing I could do for the challenge was to use old items around the house and sell them to fund the challenge. Luckily, I found a box of Yugioh cards I used to play with to be my first collateral damage. I counted the cards, graded the quality, and posted them up on eBay.com and let the bidding roll. The auction ended up selling for a good amount, just enough to grab a small relic. I ended up searching eBay for a couple weeks till a good deal popped up.
The one lesson I took home from the last entry was the condition of the relics. I was on the lookout for NM/M relics this time around and I was adamant to ensure that. Obtaining a relic over eBay posed a few challenges. For online auctions, you're never guaranteed the condition of the card you receive in the mail will match the description exactly as advertised. The trick to snagging the best condition relics is to look for sellers with high feedback ratings, sellers who have a history of selling relics or high end magic cards, and for sellers who include high resolution scans of their cards in their auctions. These sellers are usually very experienced and very knowledgeable about card condition and quality. Sometimes sellers are unable to differentiate between a Revised version of a card and the Unlimited version (these are different sets that both featured white bordered cards), so that could be a huge problem for more stubborn collectors. The high-res scans are usually available for the high end relics like Moxes and Alpha-Revised dual lands.
With some patience, I ended up sniping this little gem:
Bayou: valued at $72.28
This value price used for Bayou and the rest of the relics in this article were the mid values taken from TCGplayer.com. I picked up this card for $44.99, about 10 bucks less than what I sold the Yugioh cards for. Not a bad start.
Another trick to eBay if you're looking for multiples of the same relic for Legacy or Modern is to look for auctions trying to sell multiple copies of the card. Generally, these cards are played and from a seller who just got out of the format or is retiring from Magic. Snagging collections from people leaving the game can be a great way of helping you add more to your collection while helping someone else out too. A win-win for everyone.
Fast forwarding a couple weeks later, the release of Innistrad had landed, so me and a couple friends went to our local store to watch the frenzy and pick up a bit of product ourselves. Let's just say it was incredibly crowded. Innistrad's release was huge (unavoidable and unintentional pun) and people were lining up to purchase booster boxes all day. I had brought quite a bit of stock to cash in and use to pick up some new cards, which included a bulk of around 5k cards, and a handful of rares that they were buying for a good price. After some Careful Consideration, I decided to try and pick up cards I would use for a Standard deck to actually play with friends when I hang out with them. After being completely infatuated with Liliana of the Veil, I had to pick up a foil, so that's where most of my effort went (aside: it's a really sick foil). After exhausting the day's resources, I still had all that bulk left. I really didn't want to move it back to my car, so I wasn't really sure what to do with it. A friend of a friend came over and he wanted to trade and test out a new deck he built. After looking through his binder, I saw a pair of Taiga sitting there. I asked him what he valued them at and he used the estimate of 60-70, which sounded fair. However, he said that he was in the market to sell it for around $45. The red light went off and I knew I had to snag one before I left that day. One of the Taiga he had was in pretty bad shape, but the second looked like it came straight from a fresh pack. Oh boy.
I looked around my trade stuff to see if I had anything sell worthy, but to no avail. Luckily, I still had all that bulk. After selling the bulk off to the shop and adding a few rares, I got exactly $44 bucks. Luckily, CJ had a dollar on him that he gave me, thanks pal. All that hard work yielded..
Taiga: valued at $69.28
You can never underestimate your friends and the people they might know. Connections are key to success in any venture and that principle definitely shines here.
The final relic in this story was at the PTQ here in Kissimmee, Fl. After suffering defeat and dropping out of the swiss rounds, I rejoined everyone and we talked over our battle scars. Several people approached our herd with trades; all with different motives. Some were trying to build Modern decks, finish up their Standard deck for states, build Cubes, and some were just there to meet new people. I had the interesting pleasure to run into a trading shark.
I don't know exactly how to define one of these, but this type of person is usually trading for quick money to sell to vendors on site. Vendors also may promise people amounts of money if they reach a certain quota or inventory for the day. Really interesting relationship. Maybe I'll learn more about it later. Usually trading sharks have really interesting bait, including EDH/Commander foils, foreign language gems, and other exotic cards to move towards high demand format staples. To my dismay, this one had a Badlands. Worst of all, he was a pretty nice guy.
Looking at this opportunity to really make the day epic, I asked him what he valued the r/b dual at. He responded with 55, which seemed like a pretty high figure. At the time, my pricing app was down, so I was unable to check prices on anything (which was a huge handicap). I looked at the condition of the card and it seemed flawless, so the value didn't seem to be too awfully high. After he looked through my binder he pulled out a Snapcaster Mage and a Sword of Feast and Famine. Ouch. I valued the mage at 28 (which i found to be 27) and the sword also at 28, which at the time was more around 31 (now, it's 34. ew). The mage wasn't too much of a loss and the sword I had picked up to move, so luckily I wasn't attached to it. I wanted a little more out of this trade, so I made him throw in an Unhinged Plains for a moral victory.
Badlands: valued at 51.97
An interesting topic came up while I was doing this quest. What cards constitute as relics? I guess it would depend on the person. A relic can be any older card that is difficult to obtain. How old should a relic be? I think a relic can be as old as a card from Alpha/Beta to as recent as a foil Planeswalker. It can be any card that you need to build a Modern deck, start playing Vintage, or just a card with enough notoriety to add to your collection. I wouldn't put minimum price on a relic, but I would consider it a personal achievement to obtain one.
I want to give a shout out to Jason for obtaining his first relic in the name of Force of Will, MTG Casual Net admin, Carlos, for his first 5 Ravnica shock lands and Polluted Delta, and Stephen for obtaining his first Bloodstained Mire. Good job guys, keep it up!
For anyone else jumping into the relic hunt, it's a tough journey, but persevere and your hard work and dedication will pay off. Until the next relic Magic players!
-David J.
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