The times they are a'changing

This is likely not news to most reading this, so I will keep this short overall.

Don's Magic and Sundry, the store, has ended. It was a great ride, and I loved what I did as a seller of MTG and a Tournament Organizer for WPN events.

But worry not - out of the ashes rises something bigger and better. I and my partner, Rick, have started Play More Games - currently an online only gaming store (focused primarily on MTG but soon expanding) which will, if all works the way we are planning, become an honest-to-goodness brick & mortar Friendly Local Gaming Store.

Once we have a lease finalized, I plan on recounting the process that we went through to get there, much as I did the process of getting started working with the WPN in my series "The Road to WPN".

In the meantime, follow us on Twitter (@PMGStore), Instagram (pmgstore) and Facebook (Play More Games).

The Don's Magic and Sundry Logo Contest!

In case you are unaware, two major changes happened recently for Don's Magic and Sundry:

1. I changed service providers from ProStores to Crystal Commerce. The latter is specifically tailored towards online gaming stores, and includes a whole slew of advantages, like built-in databases of all cards from the game, market price checks, a Point of Sale system that lets me very easily buy & sell cards at events....all for less than I was paying at the old provider. Definitely a no-brainer. The only question is why it took me so long to move!
2. I have, at long last, finally become an actual legal entity. It is now Don's Magic and Sundry LLC! Woo-hoo!

Anywho, with all these changes comes the desire for a fresh new logo. My old store logo:

Created by Josh of VirtualInflux

won't quite cut it, as the rather blatant use of WotC's intellectual property (IP) - the subtle Magic card back at the left, the use of the Magic logo, as well as the five-color pentagon - would most likely get me in hot water with their legal department. In fact Crystal Commerce flat-out told me they wouldn't let me use it!

So my current store logo:

Crafted by the amazingly talented Justin Treadway (@GriffnValentine)

while awesome, was not intended to be used as such. It was crafted by @GriffnValentine to be used on stickers to be given out with orders (and some of you may even be sporting such a thing on your deck box or trade binder!). If you'd like more info on these wonderful things, you can see this post.

So - that brings us to the point of this post (finally!). I am in need of a new store logo! But I am a poor small business owner who can't afford to pay a real honest-to-goodness graphic designer what s/he would need/want to be paid to call it a real gig. So, instead, I am running a contest to all and sundry (slight pun intended), amateur and pro alike, to see who can design the new logo to be used on my store!

Want to win $50 store credit to my site? Think you have the creative talent to design my new logo?

Here are the details. Please read all if you are interested in submitting a logo to this contest.

1. Contest submissions will be accepted from today (Wednesday, June 12, 2013) until midnight (EDT) Sunday, June 23.
2. Submissions should be sent to Don at DonsMagicAndSundry.com with the subject line "Logo Contest".
3. If more than 8 submissions are received within the specified time frame, I will cut to a "Top 8" based on my own personal tastes.
4. I will then post the Top 8 (or less if fewer submissions are received) on this blog (anonymously, so there is no favoritism based on creator vs. creation), and put them to a vote via all my various social media outlets (Twitter, tumblr, Google+, and email newsletter). Voting will be open for five days (12:00 noon [EDT] on Tuesday June 25  through 12:00 noon [EDT] Sunday June 30).
5. The winner of the open vote will be used as the logo on my site. The creator of that logo will win $50 store credit at www.DonsMagicAndSundry.com.
6. The logo will run as a banner at the top of pages on my store site (see my Home Page to see where the "sticker-logo" currently resides).
7. Designs should be submitted in the .png format.
8. Designs should be 200 pixels high by 800 pixels wide. 
9. Designs must incorporate the name of the store (Don's Magic and Sundry).
10. Best designs will impart that the bulk of the store's nature is selling cards from Magic: The Gathering, without using the Intellectual Property of WotC. That's a fine line to straddle, but I know you're up to the challenge!
11. All submissions become the property of Don's Magic and Sundry LLC, and can be used in any promotional way on the site. While only the winner of the popular vote will get the coveted spot atop the site pages, the other logos may be used for other purposes.

A Struggle with Shipping

This is one of those posts designed purely to explain to you, the reader, some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes along with running an online MTG store. This may be boring for many of you, but it goes a long way towards explaining some of the oddities that happen involving what I list where.

To start with, let me say this: I try, very hard, to not make money on shipping. I think that this is a terrible policy, and I sometimes jump through hoops to make sure that a customer is only paying what it costs me to ship to them. This means the cost of the postage, plus a small materials charge to cover toploaders, cases, bubble mailers, labels, etc. For US orders that materials fee is $1, and it's only $1.25 for non-US (more for them because I actually need to travel to the post office for these, whereas US ones I can print a label from PayPal and hand the package to my mail carrier).

Most online stores have one of three shipping systems:

1. Shipping is based on total order cost. I just could not do this in good conscience. It costs me the exact same amount of money to ship a single $1 card as it does to ship a single $50 card. Why on Earth would I charge more money to ship the $50 one? It makes no sense whatsoever.
2. Shipping is based on weight of package. This is the one that I used to use for my eBay listings (before I switched to a "free shipping" model, but that's a story for another post). The problem with this method is simple to understand once it's explained (but probably isn't obvious without it being pointed out): A single MTG card, in a toploader, in a bubble mailer, weighs one ounce (keep in mind the post office rounds up to the nearest ounce for determining shipping cost). So do 2 MTG cards, in a toploader, in a bubble mailer. In other words, it costs me the exact same amount of money to ship 1 card as it does 2. But if I tell my system that a single card weighs 1 ounce (to get the shipping correct for a single card) then it will think that 2 cards weigh 2 ounces, and charge shipping based on that. By that system, 16 cards would weigh 1 pound - absurd! So, weight does not really work in this situation.
3. Shipping is based on the number of items in the order. This, really, is what I need. I can set up a tiered shipping system, where 1 or 2 cards is charged one rate, then 3-10 cards (which would be 2 ounces) is charged another, and so on. I just figure out how many cards it takes to get to 3 ounces, and I have my next tier. And this is the system that I currently use at my store (and why my shipping scheme is based on the # of cards in your order).

So, you may be asking yourself, what is the problem?

The problem comes when I try to sell anything other than single cards in my store. Take my "Revised Edition Toolkit" product, for example. This product contains 100 cards, and should really already be in the 100-114 card tier on shipping. However, as far as the system is concerned, it is "1 item" for purposes of shipping, and would be located in the 1-2 card tier. I run into the same problem with any sets of cards (my grab bags, complete common sets if I were to offer them here instead of eBay, etc) and any other non-single product (sealed MTG product like booster packs, packs of sleeves, etc).

For items such as these I can add into the listing a shipping surcharge, so that an additional amount on top of the calculated shipping is added in. But let's look at the potential problem here, using my Revised Edition Toolkit as an example. It's 100 cards, but 1 item. So the system would charge a US customer $2.75 for it, but shipping should really be $3.77. So, easy, right - just add a $1.02 surcharge to the item - no problem. But, what if someone in Europe buys a Toolkit? Then the system would charge $2.97 (the 1-2 tier rate for Europe) plus $1.02 (the surcharge to adjust the US shipping) or $3.99. But the Europe rate for 100-114 cards is $10.85! I just lost almost $7 in shipping, on a $10 item. And I can only assign one amount as a shipping surcharge, I can't assign one for each region.

This is the reason I have left my complete common sets, complete uncommon sets, complete basic land sets, booster packs, sealed decks, etc, etc on my eBay store. It's far less of a hassle over there - and when eBay combines orders and overcharges the customer on shipping, I can just send a partial refund and everything works out grand.

What I REALLY, REALLY wish is that ProStores would introduce a new category in the inventory spreadsheet (it seems to me like this would be ridiculously easy to do, but what do I know). This category would be "Counts as How Many Items?" The vast majority of my listings would be 1 for this category. But my Toolkit could be set to 100 - and then when shipping is determined that item would count as 100 items for determining shipping. Elegant, beautiful, simple...and it'll probably never happen :-(

But if it does, I'll likely be abandoning eBay for most of my MTG items and happily moving them all over to my main store instead.

So, you say you want stickers...

Yeah! The stickers are finally here, and I couldn't be more excited. Well, actually, I suppose I could, but then I would explode, and that would be messy. So I will stay at just this level of excitement, thank you very much.

Here's what they look like, in case you never saw them, or you have a poor long-term memory:

Before I say anything else, I need to once again give a HUGE thank you and shout out to Justin Treadway (AKA @GriffnValentine on Twitter). He is a supremely talented artist who has a soft spot for Magic. I proudly sport his shirts (the ones he designed - I haven't stolen clothing from the man) at MTG events. You can find his work at http://othersideoftheplanet.wordpress.com/, and I strongly recommend you do. You won't regret it.

Okay, with that plug out of the way, let's get down to business. You want stickers. I got stickers. How you gonna get 'em?

There's two ways to get stickers! One is to simply place an order with me. From now on I will include a sticker and a business card in each order as a thank-you and a "I hope you feel my store is worth telling others about."

"But," you say, "I don't want/need/plan to order anything in the near future and I want stickers!"

Not to fear! I will ship two stickers, free of charge, anywhere in the world, to anyone who would like them. All I ask is that you promise to use them wisely, like on your trade binder, or your shirt at an MTG tournament or FNM - something like that. Please do not just throw them away, affix them to the neighbor's cat, etc. That would be wrong.

All you need to do is drop me an email: Don at DonsMagicAndSundry.com! Use "Stickers" as your subject line so I know what it's about, and include your snail mail address. I promise that I will do nothing with your address beyond using it to send you stickers. It will not be entered into any kind of database, sold to marketers, or anything even the slightest bit nefarious (unless you count sending stickers as nefarious, in which case why are you reading this?).

Yes, it's that easy. Send me an email, I send you stickers.

Sometime in the not too distant future I am probably going to be setting up a program where you can earn store credit by sending me a photo of you proudly displaying your Don's Magic and Sundry sticker at an MTG event, or something equally devious to actually incentivize people using the stickers as intended. Get yours now in preparation for that day!

A Sticker Situation

Okay, here's the deal. For a while now I've been thinking that I need to get stickers made up that I can mail out to people who are interested. They, in turn, would stick these on their trade binders or what-have-you, and BAM - instant advertising campaign! It's worked very well for Yo! MTG Taps, MtGmom.com, and Quiet Speculation (all of whose stickers I proudly own myself).

But what would the stickers look like? I have business cards:


But while they are functional, they're rather boring. I don't think they'd quite grab the eye of someone when stuck to a binder.

So, I floated out the idea to @GriffnValentine, artist extraordinaire (see his work here), who designed the Academy West hoodie I have sported at all recent MTG events I've attended. He seems to have a soft spot for MTG-related pieces, so I thought he may be able to help. And help he has!

Here are the three mock-ups he just shared with me earlier today:

And here are his notes that accompanied the image:

"Here are my 3 ideas to start:

1. A very simple scroll design. It would be simple and crisp, not much going on.

2. A treasure room motif. The idea being that your sundries are basically a room full of treasure. Lot's of color, and lots of stuff.

3. A stylish, stoic angel. Again, clean and crisp, with a designy scroll at the bottom for info."

He also noted that he was up for suggestions should none of these three tickle my fancy.

Now, the problem is that it doesn't necessarily matter which one I like, because I am not the one who theoretically will be carrying this around on my trade binder! It's more important that it be something that people will gladly affix and carry around with them.

So, here's where you come in, faithful reader! Please make comments to this blog with your thoughts (or at least vote in the poll at the top of the page!). Do you particularly favor one of the designs over another? If you aren't particularly thrilled with any of these do you have an alternative suggestion? All opinions are appreciated!

Sell me your cards!

After much deliberation, and a successful experiment in buying (thanks, @xinpig!), I have finally decided it is time to adopt an official "buy policy". Many people have asked me if I have a Buy List, and this will be the closest I have to that for some time.

So, without further ado, here is (for the moment, at least) Don's Magic and Sundry's Official Buying Policy:

• I will purchase any cards from you that I would list at $2 or more in my store.
• I will pay 50% of my selling price as cash, 60% of my selling price as store credit (note that accepting store credit requires that you have an account set up at my store).
• EXCEPTIONS: If the card is on my Non-Foil Needs List, I will pay 100% of my selling price as store credit. If it is on my Foil Needs List I will pay 75% of my selling price as store credit. These cards are easy to identify in my store inventory: they are the ones that have the silly "No Image Yet Available" Snowman Photo:
• NON-ENGLISH CARDS: Chinese & Japanese cards will be purchased the same as English. All other languages I will buy at 85% of what I would pay for their English equivalent.
• SPECIALTY CARDS: (e.g. miscuts, misprints, signed, crimped) These will be priced on an individual basis.
• CONDITION: If the card's selling price would be over $20, I may be interested in buying it in played condition (Very Fine, Fine, Good or even Poor) but otherwise I am only interested in VF+ to mint cards (some very slight whitening from wear is okay).
• WRONG SALE PRICE:Note that many cards in my inventory do not currently have a valid price listed (they are listed at $0). If you wish to see what my sell price would be for these, please let me know and I will adjust the listing accordingly.

So, what do you do if you want to sell to me?

• Use my Contact Me form to drop me an email letting me know you're interested in selling.
• I will email you back and ask for a list of the cards you would like to sell.
• Once I have your list, I will create a Google Documents spreadsheet for you detailing my store sell price, my offer for store credit and for cash, etc. (see this document for an example of what that may look like). I will send you the link for that document.
• You review the spreadsheet, and decide which (if any) of the cards you would like to remove from the sale. We then agree on a final deal.
• You send the cards to me [you are responsible for any costs involved in shipping the cards to me].
• Once I receive the cards, and verify their condition, etc. I will then pay you. If you choose cash, I can pay you either by PayPal transfer or check, whichever you prefer. If you choose store credit, I will credit your account with the appropriate amount.

I reserve the right to...

• update my selling prices to reflect proper current market prices. For example, if a card has rotated out of standard and my current selling price is too high, I will lower the price in my store to reflect what the price should be now. Similarly, if I haven't had a card in stock for a long time and the price has gone up, I will adjust it up to reflect what it should be now.
• NOT purchase bulk commons or uncommons. Sorry, but I have just too many of them I still need to process right now, I don't need to pick up any more!
  
• purchase cards that may not be $2+ in the store, if I am out of stock of them right now.
  
• refuse to purchase for any reason.
  

All listings activated!

Okay, I bit the bullet, and unchecked the "Hide products from catalog when quantity is zero" option in ProStores. Now every single card I have in my database will be displayed in a search on my store, whether I have that card in inventory or not.

Some (potential?) benefits from this:
1) This may (I won't know for a few days probably) overcome the Google search issue where if I'm out of stock my items don't show up in a Google search.
2) If I can get off my duff and price everything (which I haven't yet - I've been pricing cards as I add them - so many quantity=0 items have price=$0 as well!) then people can comparison shop.
3) People can add out of stock items to wish lists (this has been confirmed - so this one's a definite benefit - next I need to figure out how to do a "Notify me when this comes in stock" thing).

Some problems with this:
1) I still don't have photos for many items. I need to figure out what to do with them - make a "Photo Coming" image to default to?
2) If you search with the hope of buying, there's now a LOT more cards to sift through - this may annoy many potential buyers. (I'm working on creating a "only display in stock items" option in the Advanced Search, but so far the programming has proven beyond me.)

These problems, hopefully, can be overcome. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you'd like to be amused, check out the search results if you search for items in the Beta Edition (the one I have the least products in stock for).

Another mystery signature...

Here's another mystery signature. I have four copies of this Wall of Roots (from Mirage) with a signature (initials, really) that looks like "LB":

But the artist on this card is John Matson, whose initials are clearly not "LB". And it just so happens that I have another card from Mirage, Purraj of Urborg, with art by John Matson that is signed by him:

So I think it is quite clear that the Wall of Roots signature is not Mr. Matson's. So, whose signature is it? Any ideas?

Can you help me ID these?

Okay, here's the deal. I just got done processing a bunch of photos of what I am calling "Specialty Cards". These are cards that are signed (some non-English), or misprinted, or miscut, or crimped, etc. In other words, cards that appeal to a more limited audience than your normal Magic cards.

While working on these, I came across three cards that have proven themselves a mystery to me. The biggest problem with the signed cards is that all of these have come to me from collections that I have bought in the past. This means that I cannot, 100% for certain, verify that the signatures are indeed the actual signatures of the artists involved. I will be certain to state such when I list them - I don't want to mislead anyone.

But these three cards CLEARLY are not signed by their artists. The signature is identical, but all three have different artists. Instead, I figure these may be signed by someone "famous" to Magic, perhaps even the designer of the card.

That's where you, hopefully, come in. Can you identify whose signature appears on these three cards? Please comment to the post if you have any ideas or suggestions!

All listings - Activate! (?)

Back in the Great Speculator Debate, I explained that my biggest issue with the process was that if these "hot" cards were out of stock in my inventory, they no longer loaded up into Google shopping, and therefore I would miss out on potential business from people searching for these cards.

There were several suggestions on how to deal with the issue, including never letting my inventory drop below 1 (which I find somehow a bit dishonest). The one best solution, I think, is one that I have been debating about with myself for a while.

I could, I believe, with a simple click of a check box, keep inventory active even when out of stock. This should mean that they would still get uploaded to Google, and would definitely mean that they would show up in any search within my store.

So, you may ask, why haven't I done this already? The reasons are many-fold:

1. The biggest impediment is that, since I use only photos from my own "virtual collection" of Magic cards, if I have never owned a card before, I have no image to go with that listing. This is particularly a problem with foils, as I am nowhere NEAR close to finishing off my collection of those. As I explained in this post about potentially trading with me, I am fairly close to completing my virtual collection of non-foil Magic (my current needs list can be found here). So a giant hurdle I need to overcome is what to do with the listings I don't have pictures for yet. Do I make a "image forthcoming" placeholder for these? Do I raid images from magiccards.info or Gatherer? I'm not sure what to do for these.
2. There are many stores out there (I suppose it would be unprofessional of me to name them) that list every possible card, even if they're out of stock. Most of these somehow tell you right away [like it will say "Quantity in Stock: 0" or something like that) but on some you can't even find out until you try to put the item in your shopping cart. Fortunately mine would show Quantity: 0, but not until you got to the listing. So if someone Google searches for something & sees my listing, then clicks on it only to find out I'm out of stock - would there be hard feelings, like they were somehow tricked into my store?
3. Searches of my store (theoretically) would take longer. If I normally don't have a card in foil, only regular, then when you search for it you only get one hit. But if everything is active you'll be guaranteed at least two hits for any card since they started making foils. That's more stuff to filter through looking for what you want.
4. Second biggest headache: I have trouble enough as it is keeping up with the current prices for what I DO have in stock - if I keep everything active I need to keep track of prices of stuff I don't even have available (or mislead folks if I just don't keep up with them). Perhaps I just have a policy that an out of stock item has a price of $0?

So, anyway, these are the hurdles I need to overcome before I make every card active regardless of whether it's in stock or not. Any and all comments & especially suggestions on getting over these hurdles are massively welcome!

Musings on yesterday's post

Yesterday's post (on a store's side view of speculation) ended up becoming much bigger deal than I ever anticipated. In the last 24 hours I've had more page loads on this blog than ever before in the same period of time. The post also generated more comments than my entire blog up until this point (even if you don't count my comments which were replies to others' comments). My post and the post that inspired it were each linked to begin a thread in the MTGSalvation forums, and (my biggest shock of all), the post was featured on ManaNation's This Week in Magic. I am humbled and honored by the response. At least I can say it got people thinking :-)

I've had some thoughts about the comments left that have been percolating in my mind, and I thought these deserved a post of their own, so I'm jotting them down here. Two posts in two days is quite something for me, so hopefully this comes across as coherently as yesterday's seemed to. So, in no particular order...

1. It has been recommended that I limit the quantity of a card to some number (likely 8) to help combat the issue of being bought out entirely by a "speculator". This has the added advantage of the fact that if/when someone buys 8 copies of something (especially if that's ALL they buy) I can quickly price-check that item and make sure it's a reasonable market price. This won't 100% solve the situation. I only had 2 copies of Personal Tutor in stock when it went, and only 7 of Pyromancer Ascension - and while I had 19 Polymorphs when they were snatched up, I had less than 8 of any given version, so they still would have flown. Also, someone could come in and make several purchases of 8 each. But, I am looking into whether this can be automated in ProStores or if I will just have to have a posted store policy like the unfortunate store that canceled the alleged speculator's order.
2. It was recommended that I follow @mtgmetagame and Kelly Reid over @quietspec and folks like that that deal with these issues, so that I can hopefully be ahead of the game and catch these card bumps as they happen (or before) and not have the problem. I actually do already follow these folks (nice guys and savvy in the biz), but it doesn't always help. Sometimes it's my own darned fault (really, I seriously don't know what the heck was wrong with me on the Pyromancer Ascension card - that was just dumb!) but sometimes its out of my hands. Kelly Reid tweeted his recommendation on Polymorph approximately 20 minutes before every copy I owned was bought out at $0.75 each. This all happened after midnight, when I was sound asleep. Ditto when Kozilek was spoiled on DailyMTG and the price of Eye of Ugin skyrocketed. I awoke to an email showing that every copy I had was sold to one buyer. So, I do what I can, but I am only one man. I have to sleep sometimes!
3. It's been recommended that I keep my inventory active even when I'm out of stock. It's actually easy to do this, and I may have to ultimately go this route - but there are reasons I have not done so before. This topic I feel is deserving of its own post (because it's full of all sorts of convoluted Don-think) so I won't elaborate here. Suffice to say I probably will have to do this, but I'm gonna need the community's help in ironing out some wrinkles (you all as a whole are great at helping out and wonderfully creative at problem-solving).
4. I want to apologize for my use of the phrase "greedy bastard" in my post. I think I did a pretty good job overall of not coming across as nasty and spiteful (because, really, I didn't want to start a flame war or anything like that - just wanted to present a side that I felt hadn't been yet), but that one phrase really stands out like a sore thumb. I considered editing the post, but to do so would be disingenuous, and would also make the comments that refer to the phrase make no sense. So, I leave it in, but want to acknowledge that I could have certainly phrased things better.
5. I have finally come to believe that there really is a place for this Blog out in the MTG Blogosphere. There's blogs on strategy, on flavor, on trading, on just about everything else there is to do with Magic - but I don't know of any (and feel free to direct me to the one(s) I undoubtedly have missed) that discuss what it's like to run an online Magic store. So I want to try to be better about getting posts up that actually have more potential meaning than just "I added cards to inventory today" which is what my Twitter feed is for :-)
6. Did anyone get the joke in the title of the post? Hint: I meant volume as in sound, not amount of cards.
7. I am, first and foremost, a Magic player. I am a casual player (a phrase that may make some like @the_stybs cringe) who somehow ended up running an online store as a sideline to make a little extra money for himself and his family. It is not my family's only source of income, mouths do not go unfed if I mess up a pricing issue. For me it's all personal - which is why I wrote the piece I did, to share my feelings from the other side of the shopping cart. I am glad that it was, almost completely, taken in the spirit it was intended.

Okay, enough rambling for now. I have The Great Foil project to get back to (repricing and adding inventory due to a collection of hundreds of foils I recently purchased). I only have the Kamigawa and Time Spiral blocks left to process. Then, due to your vote in my blog poll a few weeks back, it will be time to start getting the hundreds of non-English cards (mostly Chinese, Japanese and Korean) up into inventory - good news for anyone who is a lover of non-English Magic.

A Case Against Speculation (of any volume)

This is a topic that I have been thinking of writing about for quite a while now, ever since the first time I got burned by a speculator (who shall remain nameless, as this is not about casting blame, but hopefully to offer an alternate point of view to my readers). What made me finally get off the fence and write about it? This blog post was the final nail in the coffin.

First of all, to clarify - what do I consider speculation? Sometimes also called hoarding, the basic idea is this: I have a card for sale on my site that is cheaper than it should be listed at, or cheaper than it will soon be listed at. Most likely cause: a deck (or decks) has hit the scene that is winning tournaments, and a key card or cards in that deck, being a previous "unknown" as it were, suddenly sees a peak in popularity, and therefore price. Secondary possibility: some decision made by the DCI has caused some card to somehow become more desirable (as in the recent case where the banning of Mystical Tutor lead to a leap in price for a similar card, Personal Tutor). Someone then comes along to my site, and buys out every single copy of that card, with the intent of selling or trading that card for a profit - not for personal use in decks of their own.

As a store owner, I have a massive problem with this. And it's not completely the problem that you would automatically think it is. Yes, I will admit, it hurts to have 8 copies of a card sell for $0.75 when the prevailing market price is more like $2.00. And that is certainly a reason I don't like this practice. But there are other issues here that I think need to be discussed from the store owner's point of view that the speculators may not think of. So, in no particular order, I share some thoughts...

1. The most common response when I gripe about this behavior is that I should just be better at keeping track of prices. I fully admit that this is my least favorite part of running a store, and I don't keep up as well as I should. In my case my store has a single employee: ME. My two sons sometimes help me with sorting cards, but that's about all they can handle (they're only 7 and 10 right now, after all - maybe when they're older I can hire them on with more responsibility). In addition to this store, I am essentially a full-time stay-at-home, homeschooling Dad. I have a part-time job that occupies me one day a week. In other words - I have a lot on my plate. Those who follow this blog or my Tweets on Twitter know that I rarely have time to sit and work on store stuff beyond pulling orders - and when I do, it's usually getting new inventory listed. It takes a long time to reprice inventory, and a great deal of time to try to follow the many blogs, tournament coverage, etc. that I would have to follow to stay up-to-date on what the hottest deck tech is, and therefore what the hot cards are. Time I usually don't have. Sometime this leads to kick-myself-in-the-pants moments (how many days did I hear about the freaking Pyromancer Ascension deck and not keep up on the price of that damned card?!?! ARGHHH!!!!!).
   
2. My personal biggest grief (even more than loss of potential income) is loss of hits. What do I mean? The vast majority of the hits on my web site come from Google searches or something similar. People looking for the hot new card for their own personal deck will Google search for that card. But if I don't have a card in stock, I don't show up in that Google search. Which means a potential new customer (who would possibly have bought more than just the hot new card, and may have become a long-term return customer) never finds my site. All because one greedy bastard came by and bought every copy I had. THIS is the part that really steams me: when you come and buy me out of a card, you come to me only when it serves your wallet. Potentially, then, people who MIGHT come to me because I offer amazing service, reasonable prices, quick shipping, etc. may never even know my site exists because YOU bought every copy I had. it's not JUST the card in question that you burned me on - who knows what all business you may have robbed me of?
   
3. Unlike some stores out there, I do not limit the number of copies of a card you can buy, nor do I (nor will I ever) cancel an order I deem to be "speculative". Sure, I'll whine about it on Twitter (and have), but I honor my commitments, even if it hurts and I'm ticked off at the speculator.
4. I take it as a personal insult when someone only buys at my site for speculative purposes. We sellers can tell who these people are. A very famous speculator has bought from me several times - and only for these purposes. I'm good enough to make a quick buck off of, but not for anything else. That hurts.
5. If you want companies like mine to stay in business, don't be greedy. If you find a cheap card that's hot or about to become hot, buy 8 or so (so you can make SOME profit) then be a nice guy and write to them to bring the low price to their attention. Everybody wins - you make some profit, and they get to adjust their price to make it reasonable and still potentially draw in traffic.

Okay - those are the things I wanted to get off my chest. I know I probably come across as a whiner, and hard-core speculators will probably just say "screw you, man - if you list a card low I'm gonna buy 'em all 'cause that's how I roll" or some such BS. But, hopefully, at least one reader will possibly think a little differently about the situation hearing the other side of it.

Comments welcome!

Store & Contest Updates

Just a few quick updates that would take more than 140 characters...

1. The "Great Foil Project" continues. I still have hundreds more foils to process (which includes processing their photos & getting them into inventory). While I am doing this I am also readjusting the prices on most foils in inventory. I used to have these somewhat arbitrary lower limits on foils when I was pricing (I wouldn't let a foil common be under $0.75 for example) which ended up with many of the cards being overpriced. That's being fixed.
2. The giveaway last night was successful. The Ninth Edition Force of Nature box-topper was shipped off to the lucky winner this morning. The next giveaway will take place on Thursday August 19 at 9 p.m. EDT. Again, all one needs to do to be eligible is sign up for my email newsletter on my store's home page: www.DonsMagicAndSundry.com.
3. Which card will be given away next? Voice your opinion by voting in the poll at the top of the page. Deadline for your vote is next Thursday (August 12).
   
4. I'm trying to decide what to tackle next after the Great Foil Project is finished. My choices are basically two-fold: get back to processing common cards from that 400,000+ collection I bought over a year ago, or work on the non-English cards I have. Maybe I'll have a poll to see what y'all think I should work on next :-)

That's all for now - just wanted to get those up quickly. Perhaps a more substantial entry in the next couple of days.

"Revised Edition Toolkit" Revisited

Just a quick update - the Revised Edition Toolkits are now live on my store and at eBay. Sharp eyes will notice a slight bump in the price from my store to ebay ($15 vs. $16.50). This is to cover the eBay Final Value Fees.

This means smart & informed shoppers will buy them from my regular store, hint, hint.

Comments on the listing, the product, the photo, etc. are still gratefully accepted!

"Revised Edition Toolkit": A new product from The Sundry!

Okay, so for those who do not know about it, Wizards of the Coast recently released a new product they call their Deck Builder's Toolkit. Inside it are 100 land cards, 125 "semi-random" cards (all of which are Common or Uncommon) from sets that are currently in Standard, and four 15-card booster packs. They are designed to be a supplement to fleshing out existing decks, or a place for newbies to start - they provide lots of different cards from lots of different sets to meet lots of different deck-building styles. A pretty cool product that my son Sebastian and I got to test out early thanks to Adam Styborski (writer of the weekly Casual Fun article on DailyMTG, @the_stybs on Twitter, and all-around pretty cool guy). His write-up of the results of our testing can be read in this article.

Anyway, the creation of this Toolkit has inspired me to create one of my own. I have for quite a while now (well over a year, in fact) been wondering what to do with the literally thousands of common & uncommon cards from the Revised Edition core set that I have lying around thanks to my purchase of the over 400,000 card collection of Bill (about which I could have sworn I'd written before, but I can't find the post right now to link to). Now I have the answer: Don's Magic and Sundry's patented (not really) "Revised Edition Toolkit".

What I have done is taken all of the Revised Edition Commons & Uncommons that I had sitting around (not already in inventory) and culled out any cards that were beat up (they will go to be used to make Grab Bags for sale at the store). For some more popular, playable cards I allowed for more beat-up versions to stay available (very few people are going to be thoroughly disappointed to get a played copy of Lightning Bolt from Revised). When all was said and done, I ended up with 7054 Commons and 2756 Uncommons, for a total of 9800 cards.

My plan is to make 98 sets of 100 cards (generally 72 Commons and 28 Uncommons) from Revised and sell these as a package - my "Revised Edition Toolkit". They'll ship in a hard plastic hinged-top case as any 100-card order would. I'm still trying to figure out a fair price - something that you can help out with in the comments!

Here's how you can help (if you're so inclined): Below I will present the text of the description of this item as it will appear (still debating whether to put these on eBay or just at my regular store - I could do both). Please read this and offer any comments on the whole issue. Is this something you'd buy? If so, how much would be a reasonable cost? If not, why not? Is there something missing, or are you just not interested? Anything and everything constructive you have to say will be appreciated! If these prove popular enough, I may have to do the same with Fourth Edition, as I have way too many Commons & Uncommons from that set as well!

---------------------------

Up for sale is a Revised Edition Toolkit. What is a Revised Edition Toolkit, you ask? Well, read on!

What you'll find in a Revised Edition Toolkit:

• 100 semi-random cards from the Revised Edition core set of Magic: The Gathering;
• Roughly 72 Common and 28 Uncommon cards from the set;
• Cards of generally NM or better condition (with some notable exceptions - see below);
• No more than 4 of any given card. You may get a playset, but not more than that;
• An amazing blast of nostalgia for some of the old-school greatness that was the Revised Edition, or;
• If you and your friends are relative newcomers - the awe and envy of your friends when you break out the old-school greatness that was the Revised Edition.

What you'll NOT find in a Revised Edition Toolkit:

• Cards in any language other than English;
• Basic Lands;
  
• Rares;
• Foils (there weren't any back in Revised, okay?);
  
• These 4 Uncommon cards: Clone, Sengir Vampire, Serra Angel, Sol Ring. I didn't have spares to put in these toolkits. Sorry! But every single common card from the set, as well as all the other 91 Uncommons are fair game and could be in your box!

So what's the deal on condition? I've done my best to get rid of any cards that showed noticeable wear from play, leaving only NM or better cards, with the exceptions of some of the more staple, "playable" cards. The following cards may be in the toolkit with noticeable wear from play, and possibly be graded as low as "Fine" or "Poor":

• Dark Ritual
• Kird Ape
  
• Lightning Bolt
• Llanowar Elves
• Animate Dead
• Black Vise
• Counterspell
  
• Demonic Tutor
• Hypnotic Specter
• Swords to Plowshares

If a card is not in the above list, it SHOULD be in "Near Mint" or better condition in the toolkit. To cover myself, I'll say it is POSSIBLE that other cards in as low as "Very Fine" condition may sneak in, but they should be extremely rare if they do.

This toolkit would be a great gift to a Magic: The Gathering player of almost any level. Those who have been playing "forever" will love the burst of nostalgia. Those who missed Revised when it was out in 1994 will love the chance to own some of the oldest cards in the game. Everyone will love the mix of cards that will allow supplementing existing decks - and many of these cards (like Lightning Bolt) are even still Standard-legal!

Wanna trade? In search of a few good Magic cards...

I have a Magic: the Gathering collection. It is an unusual one. I collect photographs of M:tG cards. I call it my "virtual collection".

What makes this especially strange is that, if I wanted to, I could just go to any one of many websites that have photo images of all of the cards in the game, download the ones I want, and that would be that. But in order to "count" for my collection, the photos must be ones I have taken myself, of cards that were actually in my possession. This is where the strangeness comes in.

I have always had a "collector's mentality". It's part of what drew me to Magic in the first place. A game I can play AND collect? Awesome! At one point in my Magic history (right after the expansion set called Visions for those who care), I owned at least one actual physical copy of every Magic card in existence except for 11. [At that time, I did not care what set the card came from, so if I had a Revised Bayou, I did not need an Alpha, Beta or Unlimited one (this was a much cheaper way to have a "complete" collection, I assure you!)].

The nice thing about my "virtual" collection is that, after I have photographed it, I can then turn around and sell the card in my store - while still having that card in my collection. Genius!

Anyway, on to the main point of this post. I am getting close to completing my collection. The total number of cards I still need is low (relative to the number of cards that exist, at least). So, I am starting to make trades for these cards, which I would not normally have considered. I recently traded that Foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor I blogged about for a whole bunch of cards off my wish list (thanks, @mtgmetagame!), and then traded a large passel of foils to another gentleman (thanks, @the_stybs!) for another batch of needed cards.

So here is my proposal. I have put my wish list up as a Google spreadsheet here. This list is for all Core sets except Alpha and Beta, which I may try to complete SOME day when I'm daring, and every expansion, starter set, and boxed set that has been printed. It does NOT include the various and sundry promo cards, which I may also be interested in getting if I don't already have a photo of them. There's just so blasted many of those guys that I don't maintain a wish list for them as yet, either.

If you think you may be interested in trading, check out my wish list and see if you have anything I need. Cards that are highlighted in yellow are cards that I have pending trades for, but have not actually gotten in my hands yet. If you find you have cards I need, then send me a list [either send me a DM through Twitter or use my Contact Us page at my store]. I'll price the cards, as if I were to list them at my store. Then, as long as you agree with my pricing, you essentially have that much "credit" to spend on cards at my store. Let me know which cards you want, and a trade is born! In case it needs to be mentioned, I'm looking for cards in NM or better condition, since the photo needs to look pretty!

Now, as I am an established store owner with a good reputation, I will ask you to send first (just as I would expect a customer to pay first before I sent the cards to him/her). Upon receipt of your cards, I will then send to you the cards you requested. That simple. Since we'd each be shipping to the other, I figure that cost cancels out, so there should be no shipping charges on either end. I'd ask you to ship securely (no loose cards in a regular envelope, please!). I personally ship in hard plastic (toploaders or hinged cases) in bubble mailers. I use PayPal to print a shipping label with a tracking number (I can give you the URL to print your own if you like).

Oh - if you live within reasonable distance to Dream Wizards in Rockville, MD, then I would be willing to meet you there to swap in person if you prefer.

OMG! Foil Jace, the Mindsculptor

Yes, I did just OMG. It's worth it. Trust me.

Today my pre-order of 2 cases of Worldwake came in. As I write this, I have opened 8 boxes of the 12. The plan is to open another 2, then sell the remaining 2 boxes' worth (72 boosters) unopened.

In box #7 I got my fourth copy of the most popular card in the set (Jace, the Mindsculptor) in an early pack (pack #4 for those keeping score). Then, in a later pack (I lost count - sorry), I pulled a FOIL copy of the card. FOIL! [Photo will be inserted tomorrow if you want to see]

To emphasize how amazingly cool this is, let me give you a little market research.

As I type this, there is not a single copy of the foil version available on eBay, nor has anyone sold one in the past however-long eBay keeps "completed listings" data. A Google shopping search reveals only two stores that have this - Troll and Toad for $99.99 (quantity available: 1), and The Wizard's Cupboard (who has it available "for preorder" for a mere $125).

This single card, potentially, pays for over 10% of my entire 2 cases.

At this point I am giving serious consideration to listing this card on eBay tomorrow, just to watch people fight over it. Should be fun. I will keep you updated!

Japanese Chronicles Booster Pack - worth?!?!

There are many aspects of this business that I love. When a new set starts getting "spoiled" and you get a first look at the cards that will be coming out (as Worldwake is being spoiled right now). Getting positive feedback on eBay, or positive reviews at ResellerRatings. Helping a customer get that card they've been looking for to complete a collection. All of these are wonderful.

Sometimes, though, there are parts that are a pain in the butt.

Tonight I listed up on eBay 10 booster packs of Japanese Chronicles. The Chronicles set was a set released in 1995 (in English) to reprint some cards from the earliest 4 expansions (Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends and The Dark). The cards were printed with the same expansion symbols as the original set they were from, but with white borders instead to to follow WotC's policy of using white borders to distinguish reprinted cards.

In 1996 the set was released in Japanese, with the significant difference that they were printed with black borders. Now there were cards that had early set expansion symbols, but Japanese language and black borders. This has led MANY a person to believe (incorrectly) that they had in their possession, for example, Japanese Arabian Nights cards (Arabian Nights was only ever published in English).

[SIDE NOTE: This same problem happens in German, French, and Italian thanks to the reprint set Renaissance - feel free to read this post to get a more in-depth treatise on that set.]

The pain-in-the-butt part of this experience is that I can, NOWHERE, find anyone else who has these blasted things for sale. NO ONE. NADA. ZIP. As a result, I have no prices to compare to in order to determine a fair market price. A quick Twitter request yielded one person with an opinion (thanks, @mtgmetagame!), and that's all the data I have to work with. I vaguely remember someone on eBay having them for sale a while ago, at ~$16 per pack. The fact that they are no longer up would suggest that maybe they sold (if I am in fact remembering correctly). So, what to do?

I finally decided to list them for $20 per pack. Too much? As my father once said to me, "something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it." So, if in a month's time or so these haven't had a single sale, I may consider dropping the price on them. For now, as the (apparently), only game in town - if someone wants a Japanese Chronicles Booster Pack - they need to come see me!

[SIDE NOTE PART DEUX: I also have available Booster Packs of Renaissance in both French and German should anyone be interested in those as well!]

Where the Magic happens

Or: A visual Tour of Don's Magic and Sundry!

This is an idea I've had percolating through my mind for a while, and I finally decided I'd sit down and do it. I've taken photos of my work space in my basement, the base of Don's Magic and Sundry, where the work gets done. Come with me, gentle readers, as I give you a tour of where the Magic happens...
This is the main work area. The boxes that take up most of the space are where the single cards are stored (more on these later). They sit towards the back of a large drafting table (which would almost certainly be tipping backwards if the wall behind were not helping hold these suckers up). In the space in front is where I work to get new acquisitions ready (such as the piles of boosters seen here, including some Japanese Chronicles and German Renaissance boosters that I'm eager to get listed). Also of note in this photo:

• I'm not only a Magic gamer. See the pile of Munchkin (original & expansions) and other games?
• ...including video games (Oblivion & Gothic II + 3 can be seen). Not shown is my current favorite (Dragon Age: Origins)
• I like to read the Magic novels as well - sitting on the table is the one I'll finish later today, The Thran.
• Off to the right can be seen "shipping central" were I store the plastic cases, toploaders, bubble mailers, packing tape, etc. that I use to package and mail out orders.
• Hanging from above in the center is a nifty LED lamp from Ikea that provides a nice spotlight on the work area when I'm pulling orders.
  

Taking a closer look at the aforementioned boxes of singles...
They are all labeled with little Post-It notes bearing the names of sets. Let's look even closer...
Here's the boxes storing single cards from the most recent sets. The last box of Shards of Alara up top & left, then the three boxes containing Conflux & Alara Reborn. Next the three boxes of Zendikar and look! I'm ready for the next two sets, Worldwake and Rise of the Eldrazi! Larger sets (generally the first in a block) tend to get three boxes each, where smaller sets get 1.5 to 2 boxes depending on how many cards I have. There are exceptions: Ice Age has 5 whole boxes - I have a LOT of Ice Age cards!

What does it look like inside these boxes? I'm glad you asked! Those who know me know that, in certain ways, I am crazy fastidious (some would say "anal retentive") about organization. These boxes help prove this point:
Here's the interior of the 3 Zendikar boxes. You can see little Post-It tags sticking up (these are stuck on beat-up Magic cards of various sets I appropriated from my "cast-off box" [more on this later]). A set like Zendikar has tags for:

• Tips & Tricks
• Tokens
• Basic Lands
• Foil Basic Lands
• Commons
• Foil Commons
• Uncommons
• Foil Uncommons
• Rares
• Foil Rares
• Mythic Rares
• Foil Mythic Rares

Phew! A small set like Worldwake will only be missing the two Basic Land tags. Within these subdivisions I have the cards sorted alphabetically. Unlike most people (especially players), I do not organize my cards by color, as my primary use for the cards is selling them - I need to be able to find these cards quickly when I pull an order, and my listings (and therefore the packing slips I use to pull an order) take the form of "Card Name - Set Name - Rarity". Set Name & Rarity tells me which box (for example, Zendikar Rares are all in the 3rd Zendikar box), then the name I find alphabetically. Quick & simple. I also organize my photos of the cards in a similar way (folders nested within folders on my hard drive).

Okay, that covers the single cards, which are available at www.donsmagicandsundry.com. But I also sell other items at my eBay store - namely unopened boosters, decks, and complete subsets (Commons, Uncommons, Basic Lands). What about those?

Here's what my booster pack storage looks like:
In this shot you can see, mostly, the boxes of booster packs. But also in view are the "cast-off boxes" along right edge of the bookshelf. These contain single cards that are not in good enough condition to sell as singles (in my opinion). They vary from having slight wear from play to creases and heavy damage. Some were once obviously used as proxies (i.e. other card names are written across their backs in marker). From these cast-off boxes I make my "grab bags" which you can see on the bottom shelf center. 100 cards of various conditions, various sets, various rarities.

A closer look at these boxes again shows my tendency towards crazy organization...
You can see that the booster boxes are organized chronologically by block, so the three "Kamigawa Block" sets are on top of each other, in order top to bottom, followed by the Ravnica block sets, etc. I was fortunate that the shelf that the Lorwyn 4-set "mega block" ended up on just happened to be the shelf that four boxes stacked up could fit on!

Pre-constructed decks and Tournament/Starter decks are stored here:
Above the lovely framed Wizard artwork.

Complete sets are stored in the next room over:
[No fair peaking at my book shelves on the left]. This dresser is a hand-me-down from my brother. If he ever decides he needs it back I'm in trouble! Besides the extra packing tape in the background, you can also see piles of plastic cases. These are complete common (& uncommon) sets, organized chronologically by set. On top of the dresser are sets ranging from The Dark to Future Sight. The gigantic tower of cases you see in the back right bears a closeup:
These are near complete common sets. These sets are missing a card or two (or ten) before they can be listed & sold. The multi-colored Post-Its tell me which set the box contains, and which cards are missing so that when I obtain a new batch of cards (buying someone's collection, or opening packs, etc) I can hopefully someday complete these and get them up for sale. I'll be honest - complete common sets are mostly made to get rid of cards. I end up with SO many commons that those singles boxes I showed you earlier just can't hold them all. So, I make complete (or near complete) common sets to make room in the boxes.

Inside this dresser are more goodies as well:










The top two drawers contain common & uncommon sets from various Core Sets. The second row drawer has basic land sets & more recent set common & uncommons. The third row drawer:

Has the Zendikar common & uncommon sets, and has room for Worldwake once it gets released.

The bottom drawers contain extra boosters that I use to refill the booster boxes you saw earlier.
Seen in the bottom left is evidence of my children's voracious appetite for all things Lego, especially Star Wars Lego.

I will spare you the mindboggling piles of boxes of cards (mostly commons) that I still need to process from the 400,000+ card collection I obtained nearly a year ago.

I would like to leave you with this photo, a picture of one of the best presents I have ever been given, by the aforementioned brother. It hangs on the wall next to the dresser, so I see it every time I go to pull a common set...

Happy New Year - I'm BAAAAACK!

I was finally able to get my M10 post from JULY up today, as I admitted defeat (after my lovely wife scoured the web for a way to conquer my FTP problems, only to find that there IS NO WAY to do so), and returned to blogspot for my blog hosting.

Hopefully I will now return to semi-regular blogging in addition to my Twitter activity. I don't think I'll jump in the wayback machine and write a Zendikar entry - but who knows?

For now, let me just say Happy New Year to everyone who reads!