Pretty nice stuff. I recognise where all those rarities come from. Am good friends with the duress' previous owner, so hopefully it's found a good home.
Printable View
Approximately once a year I choose some stuff I've added to my collection in the past 12 months or so and share them with everyone. This set of cards was a nightmare to put together, both in terms of searching and in terms of cost, and is quite easily the best scan I've posted. Hopefully this one is worth the wait:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...isprintser.jpg
Some individual scans:
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
1: Summer geddon.
2:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...urricane-3.jpg
Blue hurricane. Should speak for itself.
3:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...llaxisland.jpg
8e test print Island. Some might recall that I posted another previously. This is its sibling, so to speak.
4:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...wol84/frat.jpg
Fraternal Exaltation. Should also be self-explanatory. Picked up card #6 first, and simply had to pick this one up too.
5:
Summer Serendib Efreet. The most expensive obtainable card, bar none. To put things into perspective, this is worth twice the next most valuable card is (summer hurricane/sea). Those who know me know that I've searched a long, long time for this. And procrastinated a fair bit as well.
Sadly, I don't have a larger scan I can share of this right now. I'll post one within a couple of days, I guess.
6:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...dgenesis-1.jpg
Splendid Genesis. Love the art, love Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
7-9:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...l84/3sotfs.jpg
Foil Exodus Survival of the Fittest Test Prints. I know, I should have posted a playset. That one is coming soon enough, in black border.
A bit of a crappy scan, and I probably should post a better one soon. I'll also post better scans of some of the cards, and possibly some other interesting scans.
If I ever stop being lazy and complete the deck, I'll post my UBrg Doomsday deck too.
Glad to hear that, and best of luck finding some more stuff to add to what you already have. I managed to find my Island a playmate :)
The Island is like the ultimate coolest Magic card ever. What did it cost, and is there any reason they printed the art of Parallax Tide on it?
It definitely cost quite a bit, but it was worth it as the other one I own is my favourite card, and getting the other version of the card was a natural progression when it became available. As for why, I really have no idea, probably just because they could. Turned out pretty good though.
I posted the hurricane before I believe, stating that it would get into this particular scan. I posted another geddon in the past, but this is another copy.Quote:
I've seen most of your stuff before, except the other parallax island, but there aren't sufficient words to explain how awesome that summer efreet is. Kudos to you sir.
Splendid Genesis used to be my favorite rarity, but that Island is giving it a run for it's money. That thing is a treasure.
Congratulations, that is really amazing. What is the purple mark on the middle Survival of the Fittest?
Hey Occam,
The close-up scan of the Armageddon isn't showing up, if you could repost it, that'd be swell :)
Also, I'd love to see the Summer Serendib close-up. As well, if I recall correctly, isn't the Hurricane about 2k, and the Sea is about 4-5? Why is the Serendib tipping the scales at 8 (am I in the right neighbourhood of price?) ? Is it just because it's so iconic, or are there less of them than the other summers?
As well, I'm sure this was in someone's collection. How were you able to persuade them to part with it, or had you planned to buy it for a long time? I'm not interested in your source, since that's your private information, but I'd like to hear more of the story about the generalities of it's acquisition.
Overall, I'm very impressed with your collection. Excellent job!
-Matt
My Beta Volc came in the mail today. Huzzah!
-Matt
I'm definitely interested in upgrading, but a lot of summer cards are lower than mint these days due to their origin. This one is pretty unique for being labelled as revised by the good folk at PSA, though.
Thanks, I really like the two Islands too (I like Splendid Genesis as well, of course). I'll try to post a picture of the Islands together, side by side, together with scans of the geddon and the efreet soon.
A lot of legitimate exodus foil test prints (silver bordered ones) were marked as part of batches. All the sotfs here (and the cots from before as well as other prints) are 100% legitimately obtained. Not saying that clean silver bordered ones were illegally obtained, though.
I didn't have one handy, to be honest, same as the efreet. Wasn't sure that people wanted to look at arguably the cheapest card in that scan.
As Brad above stated, Hurricanes are typically at least 3.5k. Some people speculated that they would be obtainable for about 2-ish grand a couple of years back, but not only has that never happened, but hurricanes have been moving for well over that amount. Summer prices are a bit weird too -- I'd put sea/hurricane in the exact same price bucket -- you'd expect sea to be higher, but I know of one EX one that moved for about 3k, and a NM+ one that went for 3.7k, same as another hurricane that went at about the same time. You also have Tropical Islands going for less than Volcanics and Tundras, and so on.
The Efreet goes for about 8ish because people took its correct printing to be a misprint of sorts, when put against the misprint revised one. That, and the fact that it is rare, meant that it easily became the most expensive summer card pretty quickly after the summer boom in the early noughties. If hurricane were a rare, that would be an interesting tussle, but I reckon the efreet will still come out on top.
As for sources, I pretty much laid out the groundwork to get the efreet a long time ago, with prices agreed on etc. Which was why I passed on the one on ebay last year. I pushed back on the actual purchase date as I was busy bringing in some of the other stuff you see in this scan and the last, but it was already done and dusted some time ago. It also helped matters that these rarities were going to a good home -- something I'd like to see if I ever sell in the future. For the test foil EE, I probably got it for a tad lower due to that, as its previous owner informed me when I spoke to the person.
Quick question, is that Serindib the only one with that picture not counting the Arabian one? I recently acquired one that was white border (in Spanish or Portuguese) with that picture and was wondering about why it had the old pic on it. It's the only one I have seen that was white bordered with the correct picture and was not a Summer.
Occam: I've heard someone talk about a green-foil City of Traitors, and that there are only 5 of them in the world. Can you confirm this?
Only the english revised versions have a green border. This is why the german revised bb and wb versions fetch way more then their English counterparts in comparinson to other revised cards (extremes like the bb Duals excluded). Never seen spanish versions of it, so I can't say anything about price, but all non-English revised Serendibs have blue borders and the original art.
Wow, I've been a bad boy. I just bought another Beta Dual, but a NM Scrubland. Impulse buying for the win!
Now, I'm at a crossroads: I now have 4 Beta Scrublands, 1 Pack fresh, 1 NM, 1 EX/Ex+, and one BGS 7.5. I'm tempted to crack the 7.5 to play with, since it was so difficult finding a beta copies (I could have completed this months ago if I accepted Alpha, seriously), and I'd like to play them in my Rock deck. When I'm not using them in tournaments, I'll binder/slab them anyway, so I figure I might as well enjoy it when I want to, and slab it afterwards rather than being slabbed without playability. If it were graded 8 and up, I wouldn't, but I figure 7.5 is fine. I'll post a scan before I crack it, though.
Thoughts?
-Matt
Crack it! I bought a PSA 7 Lotus 3 years ago and cracked it, too. These cards are made for seeing play not for having an inch thick layer of dust on them in a safe.
Let it breathe!
I decided to scan them, since I had taken all of them out of their cases for a large tournament tomorrow to put in the Pimp binder. I know you're all still hard from Brad and Occam's posts, so hopefully this pitiful case of greed in comparison is somewhat liked :P
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...f/scan0164.jpg
Savannah: Alpha Ex- (hey, it was $80, I couldn't resist)
Plateau: Beta, Ex/Ex+ (back has some wear)
Left Scrubland: Beta, NM- (the smudges are on the sleeves)
Middle Scrubbie: Beta, Ex+/Nm- ( a few nicks here and there)
Right: BGS Beta Scrub
Left Bayou: Ex+ Beta, some nicks.
Middle Bayou: Ex Inked Beta. No reason to ink an Ex or better anything, so sad.
Right Bayou: NM/NM+ Beta, trace amount of wear 1cm to the right of the title on the top border, with small printing circle. That's the only flaw, rest is on the sleeve.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...f/scan0165.jpg
Tundra: Ex+/NM- Beta, tiny nicks.
Volcanic: Ex/Ex+ Beta, traded a Tundra in similar shape for it.
Left Badlands: Overall NM- Beta except for wear patch on the left, bringing it down a bit. I didn't look at the left edge, only the wear on the right corners, and it was on a white background, so I didn't notice the other side right away. I got it in the mail and freaked and rechecked the scan. I wondered why I got a smoking deal on it. I found out why and was sad :(
Right Badlands: Nm- Beta through and through. Minuscule dings.
Enjoy! I'll post my new Taiga, Bayou, and Scrubland when they come in the mail.
-Matt