Not talking about those, talking about ones prior to those that also help set the price point. Russian premium is the same as Japanese; imaginary.Quote:
Originally Posted by dernestor86
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Not talking about those, talking about ones prior to those that also help set the price point. Russian premium is the same as Japanese; imaginary.Quote:
Originally Posted by dernestor86
Then I must have taken a ton of imaginary money to the bank from sales. If you don't like something, leave it at that instead of making blatantly ignorant statements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ertai's Familiar
i don't get it, is there a shortage of russian boosters in russia? why are russian foil snaps 10x price of english one?
why isn't every friggin dealer in the US just buy russian boosters instead of US ones?
the supply of russian boosters is much lesser than with english boosters.
i dont know exactly, but i guess russian magic cards are maybe accessible in a territory of 50million people among russia (i am pretty sure they arent distributed in whole russia, because it has around 150mio people), belarus and ukraine (if that country is called that in english)
and english is accessible to how many people? a billion?
Vendors are only allowed to get a very limited amount of foreign product in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
Our local dealer who moves the most mtg in Georgia gets 2 boxes, same with korean. 2 boxes.Quote:
Originally Posted by oRen
You're missing the point. I'm not saying they don't sell for a lot of money. I'm saying the reasoning behind the premium is imaginary. I'm sure you make a ton of money off of people who don't know better. For serious man the first Foil Dark Confidants to go up were shill’d to all hell and since then there's been a premium price jack just like Japanese cards. You damn well know it’s easy to get Russian boxes if you know where to look and who to ask.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
It's just free markets at work, price is set - people use prior prices to determine future prices and it stays at that level for no reason other than sellers know buyers will pay said price no matter how stupid it looks on paper.
getting russian boxes in the US is really only possible through a european friend or the couple of boxes that WotC MIGHT let your premium LGS buy. Russia/USA trade relations are not so nice at the moment.
Pimping decks is all about 1 of 2 things: Rarity/Value and Asthetics. Russian is the top dog in both of these catagories for a lot of people in the USA.
$500 is not imaginary. people are buying them. Thats what they are worth. Learn some economics...
I will post some new stuff soon, just trying to get the last bits together.
and even for russians its not easy to find lets say future sight or zendikar boxes. havent seen one in a long while! or even 10th edition, that is so fucking rare you wont believe it.
If it were really that easy to get Russian cards and boosters, then shouldn't the prices validate your point? If there exists an arbitrage opportunity, then someone will take advantage of it. Eventually prices will normalize as supply becomes abundant. The only reason that the prices will not converge with that of English prices is due to the low supply in this case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ertai's Familiar
What you said is only partially true in practice as several confidants were sold at the 600-800 range post the $1027 shill bidded one. The prices have slowly risen since then and actually gone over $1000 mainly due to demand and their limited quantity.
Every dealer in the US to be stupid in this case if all they have to do if get a bunch of Russian boxes yet choose not to.
Don't want to interrupt your conversation, but this whole "herp derp learn ecnonomics herp derp" stuff always angers me. What EF basically is saying that by supply/demand the price should be much lower. People still buying at 500$ thus is meant to indicate that those people are just acting irrational.Quote:
Originally Posted by jjflipped
You would say that (sane) people spending money on something is always rational and will constitute the price of something at a certain moment. We challenge that assumption. Two weeks ago I bought a foil Vendilion Clique for 12€. Sure as hell, that's not the price of the card.
The market is never as close to perfect to neo-liberal bizarro world as some people think. Lack of information and transaction costs still exists, although I admit that both are at an all-time low in regards to Magic. Still, when someone buys something, don't naturally assume that that's "the price".
Discussing ecnonomics usually starts with realizing both parties are just arguing about a whole clusterfuck of different assumptions without realizing. I mean, I respect people having different very basic assumptions about ecnonomics but at least admit it, so others can say "nah, I don't buy it" and end the discussion.
The problem with your example is that you're trying to use an outlier to justify your reasoning, along with the fact that you're using a seller as opposed to a buyer in your example. Now I cannot say whether your seller was acting rationally or not since I don't have any information on if he sold it for that price just to be nice or if he was missing some information on the value of the foil Clique; however what one person's willingness to sell is cannot be used to determine the market price. You are using what one person sold something to argue against multiple people's willingness to pay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
The market for Russian foils is rather obviously structured like that of oligopolistic competition. Whenever a seller discovers a buyer's willingness to pay, he can price discriminate and charge exactly what the buyer values the item due to the limited supply. If the supply is abundant like EF suggests, then buyers would look elsewhere for better prices. The fact that multiple people are buying at a price of $500 gives the conclusion that supply is not as plentiful as EF would have you believe. It has nothing to do with whether or not these individuals are rational or not by your definition of rationality as long as they are consistent within their own actions. You may not think buying this particular card at $500 is rational, but if their goal is to own this card and the value they place on it is $500 or higher then they are acting perfectly rational.
Pimp cards are the a great example of a Veblen Good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
tl;dr - Higher prices represent higher status, thus demand increases as prices get higher. The more expensive, the more demand.
This is exactly the situation in the USA with regards to FBB dual lands from Europe. The supply is bottle necked, and the sellers can charge whatever they can milk out of interested parties.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
Sounds like Europeans trying to fuck over Americans. Sadpanda.
Sellers are charging what they think people will pay, no matter how outrageous. As soon as a few "desperate" people cave and pay, that becomes the new price, since there's "buyers" at that price, even though that may not actually be what the majority of the people value it at, is the main problem.
Suffice to say, a "rich" person could come along and buy a playset of Russian Foil Dark Confidants for $10,000. Guess how much a set costs now? $10,000. Ludicrous? Yes. But, the mentality of "if there's one, there's another" holds true in so many cases, unfortunately, even if you're manipulating the market on purpose.
-Matt
I don't actually know which one of you is actually right when it comes to the challenge in getting hold of boosters/boxes from Russia; I see your point about that.
However,
this leads me to believe, that if anything someone (sane) does is considered rational, nothing is rational. Meaning, that there's no scientific value in the term itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
I think you are confusing the idea of being rational with the idea of having the same objective. If an individual has a goal and systematically tries the best he can to accomplish this goal, then he can be considered rational. We can have different objectives as people and have different rationale in acheiving these objectives, but that doesn't mean we're all irrational just because we have different goals in life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
Also, spending $500 on shiny paper might seem irrational to one individual while it could be completely rational to another. The idea that $500 for one card is too much is relative to their discretionary budget.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
Everybody does that. By the logic of the homo economicus, everybody's got his own utility function that he's acting to accordingly.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
It's almost funny, when you look at it. When someone is lazy and doesn't do a lot to achieve a certain goal, neo-liberal economists would just argue, that he just doesn't want it enough. That his utility function rewards "lying on the couch" more than it does for goal xyz, relative to the cost of his actions. While the simplicity of neo-liberal theories is appealing, I've always been challenging for being to narrow and abstract.
As I said, when everything we do is rational, then what's the point in even bothering about the whole concept/term. I mean, rationality is defined by the existence of irrationality. If there's no such thing, the concept becomes obsolete.Quote:
Originally Posted by hukstor
Yeah, but seriously, who fucking cares? If you think it's a bad idea to overpay for Russian foils, don't buy them. It's not like gasoline or food or electricity. You don't *need* Russian foils in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt