Okay, I promised a Store update for those who really get into these things (of course, I promised the "Create your own Dragon Cycle" as well, and we see how well THAT'S gone!).
The truth is that I've been extraordinarily busy of late. First it was with class stuff - my last week of classes had two take-home tests, two research papers, a lab notebook for two courses and then studying for two finals in the same day. Oy! But I got A's in both classes, so I can't complain too much, I suppose.
Anyway, what with all of that and not getting my contract renewed with my writing gig, I'm back to having lots of free time and no regular source of income. So, why not try to make this store stuff really work I think to myself. How to do that? Better advertising for one (thus the return to the Blog, and the recent more search engine friendly URLs at http://www.donsmagicandsundry.com/) but also....MORE STOCK! That's right - I decided that getting in more cards that would draw in customers would help. So, I went on a little bit of a buying spree. Here's how it happened...
It actually started with a 5000+ card lot from someone in New York. Lot 11, as it was to be called, included many unopened booster packs and what looked to be very nice cards. So, I bid that sucker up to like $314 and won (it included free shipping), and paid immediately. I waited. And waited. No word from the seller. Finally, after two weeks and several unanswered emails, I filed a complaint with PayPal. That then led to a claim (or is it the other way around?). Anyway, I finally got my money back from PayPal so at least nothing was lost. But Lot 11 will never be.
BUT, this freed up money which I had, in my mind at least, already spent. SO, off to look for more bargains.
First I found a whole bunch of cards from a variety of sets by this one guy. I put in minimal bids, figuring if I lost, no big deal. Instead, I won several, and got lots of good cards from Ice Age, Alliances, and Mirage that have been dubbed Lot 12.
Next I found a group that had two sets of 1000+ cards each, who obviously knew nothing about Magic. They had bought a Scrye magazine to identify the cards, and had misidentified cards in the reprint series Chronicles as being from the original sets Arabian Nights, Antiquities Legends, and The Dark. They did, however, have an (almost?) entire set of the Deckmasters special boxed set (including the metal tin it originally came in). These cards are in Near Mint condition and very hard to find. Lot 13 also included one of the Revised Edition dual lands, Bayou. I think the dual lands will be the subject of their own Blog entry someday...
Lot 14 was a set of 460 Rare cards that someone was trying to sell for the second time. He had a reserve price on the thing, but someone had asked him how much it was, and he published the answer - $100. I bid high enough to be the "high bidder" but not win it. I hoped he'd extend to me a Second Chance Offer for my high bid - and he did. Woo-hoo! This is the Lot that produced the two Flash cards I wrote about last time.
I found a guy who was selling his collection of Coldsnap cards. He basically had the contents of an entire booster box worth of these, up for sale as three lots - one of all the commons and uncommons, and two for rares. No-one had bid on any of them, so I was able to get them for the minimum bids. With shipping the whole thing (around 540 cards, including 30 rares) came to about $17. So the commons from Lot 15 are up at the new store and the rares and uncommons are up on eBay. This included a copy of a card called Ohran Viper that should hopefully sell for $14, almost paying for the entire set by itself.
Lot 16 was a huge collection of over 4500 cards that I got for a little over $60 plus $30 for shipping. FedEx delivered these babies from California, and I'm still working on sorting them all out. LOTS of Black cards, and lots of repeats. Many are in obviously played condition and may not be sellable in my opinion. These often go to my older son, who is loving learning to play Magic and even beats his Dad sometimes.
When a new set is released these days, Wizards of the Coast likes to set up and sell pre-made "Theme Decks" that you can open up, shuffle, and play right away. You are guaranteed to get the same batch of cards in every box of the same Theme Deck, so there's no surprises. I bought a box of unopened Planar Chaos theme decks, broke them open and am selling them individually. Except for two I set aside for my son and I to play with :-) This was Lot 17.
Lot 18 is a set of 1000 cards which hasn't come in yet. I have emailed the seller and he apologized for the delay - he had said in the listing that he was selling an "unsearched" collection for a friend (meaning he supposedly hadn't pick through and gotten all the best stuff out), and to make sure that there were rares included he was going to through in some from his own collection. He had almost mailed them without remembering those, he says, so he had to break out his binders and pull those. Thus the delay. I hope there's some goodies in there when it gets here.
Lot 19 is a set of 310 rares from someone in Canada. They also haven't yet arrived, but given that they're from out of the country, this isn't a panic area yet.
And, finally, Lot 20 is a whole bunch of cards which includes a Chaos Orb (a very cool long out of print card) and some others, judging by the photo, that should turn a nice profit. However, they were supposedly sent out from New York on Friday 5/11 and still aren't here by Saturday 5/19 - over a week to travel halfway down the east coast? Seems excessive....
In addition to Lots 12-20, I've also purchased over 250 unopened booster packs that I have lumped into "Lot 7" for bookkeeping purposes. This includes a whole box of 8th Edition and an unopened box of the brand new (just released in early May) set called Future Sight.
So, in other words, now that I tally it up, I have purchased in the last two weeks around about 10,000 additional cards for the Stores.
