Subject: Reprinting price effects Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 09:43:18 -0400 From: "R. Kinyon" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Having read both of Mr. Barker's articles and Mr. Huber's article, I felt that I had to respond. First, some background - I've been playing for several years and, more importantly, been trading very actively for some 2 years. (This is to the point that friends give me their collections to sell because I generally get 4-6 times their original value by the time sale comes around.) Having been an active trader during the release of 4th ed. as well as Chronicles, I saw the change in price that occurred both when certain cards were removed (such as duallands and tutor and regrowth, etc) and when certain cards were put back in (such as city of brass and spirit link). In addition, I have also seen how the edition of something affects the price very dramatically. Neither Mr. Barker nor Mr. Huber really touched on this point. In fact, they both glossed over it. And, we come to assumption #1 (arrived at through extensive experience) - The edition of a card affects price, sometimes quite dramatically. The second assumption is arrived at also through extensive experience of trading over the 'Net and when I travelled around the US. This is - The region in which a card is being acquired or sold will affect price, sometimes quite dramatically. I had a chance to see this in action about a year and a half ago when I drove from PennState to Wisconsin. I stopped to trade along the way and discovered that the cards I had valued at PSU as $5 were really $8 in Columbus and $10 in Chicago and $4 in Ripon, WI. At the same time, what I had valued as $10 at PSU was really $6 in Columbus and $5 in Chicago, etc. However, all of this is thrown out the window when my third assumption comes into play. This is - The desire a particular player has for a certain card will affect price, often by 200%-300%. Again, I have an example for this. At a tournament last year, I traded 7 duallands in bad condition for a very nice Library of Alexandria. Less than one hour later, at the same tournament, I traded that very same Library for 10 duallands of my choice, all in NM condition. As most people will agree that condition plays a very large part in pricing a card, this seems to create a dilemma. First, I'll re-list my assumptions : 1) The edition of a card affects price, sometimes quite dramatically. 2) The region in which a card is being acquired or sold will affect price, sometimes quite dramatically. 3) The desire a particular player has for a certain card will affect price, often by 200%-300%. Secondly, the arguments using economics are beyond me - I'm a programmer, not a financial consultant. All I know is what I learned in Logic, and that is that both Mr. Huber and, especially, Mr. Barker have flawed assumptions - that card prices are static across edition, are static regardless of region, and that a player's desire for a card doesn't affect price. (I'm not going to discuss condition because I'll grant them that they would be discussing cards of equal condition, probably mint or NM+). A better argument would be to do what Mr. Barker started doing, but didn't follow through with, and that is to take the example of Chronicles. A city of brass before Chronicles came out was worth about $30-$40. (Note - this is not much more than what an AN City of Brass is worth currently, which is the low $20's.) After the printing, the price for an AN City of Brass went to about $15, because the people who had them and didn't care about the fact it was AN (i.e., they just wanted the utility of a City of Brass) dumped their old ones to the collectors (who DO care about edition) and purchased CH cities of brass at $6. Now, cities of brass (which were reprinted in 5th) have 3 separate prices - the AN one ($22-$25), the CH one ($6-$8) and the 5th one ($5-$8). I choose to discuss the fluctuations of City of Brass because it is a utility card which is in-print. The price changes aren't that complicated. It gets more complex when you look at, say, duallands. In 1995, 4th edition came out and duallands weren't there. Their price doubled from $5 to $10 within two weeks. But, the price was steady until this past winter. All of a sudden, the price of duallands is at $15 everywhere you look, because of the Extended PTQ. The moment that cycle is over, the price is back to $11, which is where it is now. This is a similar saga to icy manipulator. Before IA, a UL icy manipulator was worth some $40. After IA, that same UL icy was worth about $15 and the IA icy was worth $8. What is it worth now? The UL icy is worth about $22 and the IA one is worth about $4. Why? It's not in Type II and the UL one has a cooler picture. What am I trying to say? That reprinting drops price by about 50% for useful cards and that the reprint is worth about 50% of that. After a while, the original goes up to about 65% of the original price before reprint and the reprinted version stays about the same. This is only for useful cards, though. For non-tourney worthy cards, look at how spirit link and the dragon legends fared. Rob Kinyon Dragonchild@ISCA