Portal Three Kingdoms cards now available

I have recently acquired, and only just listed, some cards from the Portal Three Kingdoms starter set of Magic (hereafter abbreviated P3K). From what I understand, this is probably, with the exception of the original Limited Edition (Alpha) set, the smallest print run of any set in Magic history. It was only published in 1999 in four languages, English, Japanese, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. From what I have gathered, this set was never offered for retail sale in the US.

As you would expect, then, this set has become wildly popular and cards sell for very high prices, comparably. Unopened booster packs of the set sell for in the $40 range. The most popular and sought-after card, a rare card called the Zodiac Dragon, sells for over $100 by itself. Unfortunately I didn't obtain one of these when I got my P3K cards!

"Lot 35" is actually two sets of cards that I purchased on eBay from two different sellers. One was auctioning off 6 lots - one of basic Lands, and one of each of the five color of Magic. These cards were in English. I won the Land lot, and the White, Blue, Red and Green lots. I was unfortunately outbid on the Black lot. The seller was a very nice individual, who sent me a partial refund when one of the cards in the Blue lot somehow failed to make its way in the package (one of the Rares, unfortunately, but he reimbursed me what I could have reasonably sold the card for, so it works out). The only other problem is that the basic Lands turned out to NOT be actually from P3K, but from a boxed reprint set called Battle Royale. The seller was unaware of this himself, and had this to say when I told him:

"That's hilarious. I bought those lands from Star City Games when I was trying to complete that P3K set. Obviously, they are oblivious of that info as well. If you would like to send them back, I can refund your money if you like. Let me know."

I did not take him up on his gracious offer, as I believe I will still be able to sell the cards (albeit not misidentified as they've apparently been at least twice previously).

The second batch of cards was a group of Japanese P3K cards. This batch was made up mostly of basic Lands and Common cards, and actually included some English Swamps. Many of the cards are the Japanese versions of English ones I got, making it easy to duplicate their entries and change the photo and language to make the new listing.

I have so far listed English Rare and Uncommon cards from P3K at eBay, and will soon get the English Commons up at www.donsmagicandsundry.com. This will then be followed by the Japanese P3K cards at both Stores.

While I'm giving a Store update, here's some highlights since I last wrote:

• I'm a Power Seller again! Sales have been very brisk of late, and I have once again risen to the ranks of eBay Power Seller (this time without the dubious assistance of selling a piccolo trumpet for my brother). I'm not sure if it's the increase in stock (the Lorwyn sales have helped a great deal), or the approaching holiday season, or the weakened US dollar leading to an increase in non-US sales, or all of the above...but I'm not complaining!
• I've gotten all of the Lots up to "Lot 34" listed now. The last to be listed, "Lot 33", was all Foil cards and should hopefully prove to be popular as gift items.
• "Lot 36" and "Lot 37" have already been purchased. These are collection of over 5000 cards (including commons) and a set of over 400 Rares and Foils, respectively. They should be processed faster than previous lots. As I get more and more cards in my database, the listings get faster and faster, as the photos are already taken and the descriptions are already written.
• I've pre-ordered a case of Morningtide, the next Magic expansion to be released at the end of January. I have discovered through 10th Edition and Lorwyn sales that it definitely pays to be among the first to list these cards on eBay. With few sellers to choose from in the initial week or so, sales are brisk and prices can be quite high, as people are willing to pay a lot to get the cards they really want RIGHT NOW.
• For some unknown reason the Squirrel Token photo I included in a previous post has been drawing a phenomenal number of hits to the Blog. I'm not sure why so many people are doing Google image searches for Squirrel Tokens, but it's bringing people in! If you're one of them - Welcome!
• Sales have actually been picking up at www.donsmagicandsundry.com of late. Again, I can't say for sure why, but I'm hopeful that it will continue to grow, and I can start sending over some of the higher ticket items from eBay and save a boatload on listing and final value fees. About 33% of my sales get lost to eBay and PayPal fees right now! That hurts!

Well, I think that's enough for one post. I promise to do my best to get another post up soon, this time focusing on one of the Lorwyn issues I said I'd write about that I haven't addressed yet.

Happy happy joy joy - Lorwyn is HERE!

Yesterday was both a good day and a bad day. Let me tell you about the bad first...

If you've been following this Blog for a while at all you know that I once, a couple of years ago, received a negative feedback from some crazy woman who never sent me a check, then was amazed that her item didn't ship. She left a nasty negative feedback, and apparently did this for several other sellers and her eBay account was closed down as a result. But, still, I had this one mark against me and a mere 99.9% positive for my eBay account. This made me seethe. But just a few weeks ago my score crept up high enough (I guess over 99.95%) that the score finally rounded up to 100.0% again. Yahoo!!!

That is, until yesterday. Some bloke who bought some cards, and later asked why they hadn't arrived, although the USPS tracking site says it was delivered. I don't know, I tell him - ask at his post office, maybe they can advise (maybe they marked it delivered, but couldn't fit it in the mailbox? Maybe it was left on his front porch and stolen? How am I supposed to know).

Well, it seems that this is not good enough for him. So yesterday I get a negative feedback rating with this message: "cards never arrived, i'd rather have a refund instead of having to track it down"!?!?! How, I ask you, can it be MY fault if the USPS messes up on his end? Or if the package is stolen? I sent the cards he ordered and paid for - I arranged for a tracking number to follow. I offered to insure the package (not taken). What more am I supposed to do?

What's even more galling is that this user has a feedback rating of 18 (1 of which is mine - I left a positive when he paid...I'm starting to understand why some sellers wait for positive feedback for themselves before leaving it for the buyer), and he's only been an eBayer since May 2007, so he's a newbie, doesn't know how things work, doesn't understand that he should try to work things out with a seller before leaving negative feedback...basically he REALLY pissed me off.

But I'm not bitter. Really. Ask anyone.

Okay, enough of my rant, sorry. So why was yesterday a good day? Because my Lorwyn cards arrived! Woo-hoo! After opening up my three boxes (I love the fact that these showed up on the release date!) I have all of the 121 commons (no surprise there - probably at least 4 of each, actually) and all of the 80 Uncommons (only 1 of a couple of them, but all), 69 out of the 80 Rares (not too shabby, really) and around 35 foils (mostly basic Lands and Commons, but some Uncommons and 1 Rare). This includes three copies of the second most popular card (judging by current eBay prices - in the $10-13 range), Gaddock Teeg. [The most popular, Thoughtseize ($23-26 range), I only got one of]. And I got several copies of the Lorwyn Dual Lands, which will be the topic of my next post.

More on Lorwyn

Okay, Lorwyn is a pretty unusual set, for several reasons, and I want to discuss these over the next couple of quick posts.

Lorwyn is the first set in its block (logically called the "Lorwyn Block"). What makes it unusual here is that this block will only consist of two sets: Lorwyn, and Morningtide (the latter to be released in February 2008). Since the concept of the "block" was introduced, blocks have consisted of three sets, not two. Actually, one could make an arguement for the Ice Age Block as being an exception, as that originally consisted of only Ice Age and Alliances (Homelands, released between the two, was separate from the storyline described in them). However, when Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released Coldsnap back in July 2006, they "completed" the Ice Age block with a third set. But I digress...

For some reason WotC has decided to release two "mini blocks" this time around instead of a normal 3-set block. The Lorwyn mini-block will be followed by the Shadowmoor mini-block (which will consist of Shadowmoor and another set not yet officially named, but code-named "Doughnut" [Shadowmoor was code-named "Jelly" during development...and if you really care, Lorwyn and Morningtide were code-named "Peanut" and "Butter", respectively]). For a while WotC has been releasing 4 sets per year, those four being a 3-set block and some additional unconnected set (a "Core Set" like 10th Edition every other year, Unhinged, and Coldsnap). This year instead they will have two 2-set mini-blocks. Kind of a neat idea.

Okay...things to look forward to in posts to be released soon:

• New card type: bring on the Planeswalkers!
• New Dual Lands (and these look to be as cool as the Ravnica block ones were)
• Going tribal!

Lorwyn is coming!

This Friday (October 12, 2007) marks the official release of the newest Magic: the Gathering expansion set, called Lorwyn.

This is the first set of a new "block", and as such is a rather large set, and includes its own basic Lands. The set will be available in 15-card booster packs as well as large "Tournament Decks". The latter typically is the only way to get the basic Land cards. I have pre-ordered two boxes of booster packs and a box of tournament decks, so I should be well stocked in short order to start selling Lorwyn singles. I'll have a couple of more posts on the subject of this expansion over the next few days as we lead up to the release, and as I open up my packs and see what cool cards await!

Store Update: I just today finished getting the last of Lot 26 listed in the Store. I have three more lots to go - two lots of all Foil cards, and one largish lot of all Foils & Rares. I also have new stock of unopened packs coming (I just recently won boxes of 10th Edition, Unhinged and Planar Chaos) so I have more of "Lot 7" to go. I'm particularly proud of the Unhinged box, as I paid less than $1 per pack for the 36 packs in the box - and each pack contains a basic Land card that I can sell for $1 each. Not too shabby.

The 10th Edition cards have been selling quite nicely. I have had several orders consisting purely of dozens of 10th Edition cards.

I've been having several auctions each week up, mostly consisting of complete common sets, unopened booster packs, and promo Foil card singles. These auctions have often gone well, and have brought customers in to buy more from the Store, which is of course one of the main reasons for having them.

This week I'm trying a new experiment - I have several "playsets" of four copies of a given 10th Edition uncommon card. Since I've bought so many boxes of 10th Edition at this point, I have WAY too many uncommon cards, and it seemed that selling playsets would be a way to cull the herd somewhat, as well as advertise that I have lots of 10th Edition available for sale.

More on Lorwyn tomorrow!