Show me something Cool!!!

A rock show purchase from quite a few years ago. I think I've posted this before. When my sons were young, they each had a "treasure" display.

 

I'm so eclectic and all over the map that I don't know that anything from me would necessarily surprise anyone.

But I'm not especially into moderns, and if you had ever told me I would spend 75 bucks for a common Lincoln Memorial cent, I'd have doubted you.

Nevertheless, I did just that. Once.

(What can I say? It's from my birthyear.)

"Pops" just as much in hand as it does in the photos, too.

 

Ha, funny. I’m right in the middle of a bio of Napoleon right now (audiobook), and on my commute home they were just talking about the Swiss Cantons.

 

My two (currently) most valuable MTG cards:

#1) Mox Opal, originally printed in a 2010 set called "Scars of Mirrodin", my copy is a Reprint from "Modern Masters 2015". If you wanted one of your own, retails around $175. One of my sons opened this in a pack I bought for them at summer camp, when it was already worth around $60. MTG was HUGE at their summer camp, Camp Agawam, in Maine. I played in Middle school, and so did both my sons.



#2) Metalworker, from set "Urza's Destiny" from 1999. I was still in High School! Retails for around $170. On the MTG "reserve list", and cannot (in theory) be reprinted. I bought 2 copies of this card for $30 way back when, and still play this in one of my decks. I really like the old-school art on this card.

 

I did AD&D in the ‘80s. Aside from sitting in on one session of friends playing MTG, much, much later (post-millennium), I never did that.

Gotta hand it to ‘em- it was very clever of them to combine collectibility with gameplay like they did. I collected D&D modules and dice back in the day, but that didn’t have the “treasure hunting” aspect like opening card packs does.

 

Yes, CCG made some really good decisions in terms of human behavior and long lasting success.

At some point, most players/collectors get past the fun of opening packs. While exciting, its a money losing preposition. No where near as bad an ROI as opening packs of Baseball cards, but still not good. My younger son, who still plays actively and competitively, only buys singles. Same for me, only singles. Only packs we might see would be from grandma on Christmas.

But man, when I was a kid 1994 timeframe, and when my kids were in middle school and Highschool, it was such a blast buying them packs and sealed boxes as gifts, and especially mailing them packs to summer camp to open in the wilds of Maine, where any thing from the outside world garnered lots of "oohs, and ahhhs".

Collecting singles still gives me a similar rush, I collect for the art, the playability of the card, and the value and desirableness of some cards. Its just I get to target-farm exactly what I want from hundreds of thousands of cards.

 

Come to think of it, that MTG session I sat in on wasn’t post-millennium after all. I wasn’t married yet, so it had to have been late 1990s. I guess the stuff was really popular back then, huh.