So the last time that I was back home in Michigan, I set aside another pile of stuff for my Dad to shuttle down with him during his annual vacation to a warmer climate, and one of the more interesting items was a box full of my old comics and comic & Magic cards, circa mainly my early teenage years?
Well, after leaving them out in the garage for a year and a half … which was totally a mistake because we kind of have a minor cockroach problem out there and apparently a handful took up residence around the boxes and binders (thankfully none inside the individual card boxes!) … I finally decided to bring them inside, figuring it might be fun to flip through them while I’m watching TV and see what’s even there because it’s been something like two decades now since I was into that sort of stuff!
Just for my own amusement, I decided to look up a few of the more rare ones in the mix … and I also had some old price guides from back in the day, so it was “interesting” to see how, well, apparently collectibles don’t really seem to hold their value worth a shit… 😛
First up – Magic: The Gathering cards.
I started playing Magic right around by 14th birthday, which I’m mostly assuming based on the release dates for the series’ that we played. Admittedly I only have a fraction of what my original collection ended up being because in my later years of high school, I had started selling a lot of my rares online (via usenet!) … plus, a sizable number “disappeared” in a karmic manner which I can only say was pretty much deserved at that point in my dumb, adolescent life.
So that said, here’s a handful that jumped out as well as what this guide says they’re actually worth right now:
- Revised : Dual Lands – Underground Sea ($180), Plateau ($40) … I knew that these had become the most rare because I’ve seen them under glass in comic shops – sucks because I used to have the whole set and I’ll bet I sold them for $15-20 a piece!
- Revised : Fork ($2.10) … What?! These were so rare that I never even saw one until I stopped playing and was only collecting, and now you can buy them for the price of a gallon of gas???
- Legends : Elder Dragons – Arcades Sabboth($3.57), Vaevictis Asmadi ($5) … My friends and I just missed out on Legends because the series sold out at our one and only local shop, but we later fell in love with them via Chronicles. I’ll guarantee you that I paid more than nine bucks for these when I went and bought the originals!
Next up – Marvel Comics cards.
If Magic was (early) high school, Marvel was my middle school years because as much as I didn’t really get into comic books proper, I was super into the collectible cards of Spider-Man and Iron Man that replaced the football and basketball cards I used to collect of sports that I honestly didn’t even really understand! 😯
Now what’s really sad about these ones is that although some of the artwork on these things is just absolutely gorgeous (Hildebrandt Brothers, anyone?), apparently their value nowadays is kind of a joke – the idea that I could literally buy a complete set of any of the series that I used to collect on eBay for less than $20 a piece, with the special holograms and foil cards not costing that much more … was it that $20 was just A LOT more money to me back in 1992 than it is now or what?!
Anywho, lastly let’s talk – Comics!
I had relatively few comic books – in fact, I think most of these were probably acquired in bulk packs at Toys ‘R Us or maybe at the grocery store, but seriously, if anything … the #1 issue of Voltron: Defender of the Universe has got to be worth SOMETHING, am I right?!?!?!
- Current Value – $3.00
Alright, super friends – I’ll save you from the cockroach-infested garage, but it’s back into the closet with you for now…