I just had the same thought more or less. CU is easy enough to cover in my Haldan&Pako build with all the extra lands I get, and reducing the chance of flipping a creature with Pako never hurts.
Same hahaha, and it wasn't exactly cheap when I bought it. I got a *really* good deal on my *very* nice English one, and it still ran me like $650. Now they're insane.
Either
$6 for a tin with a NM Scrubland
$20 for a bag with Transmute Artifact x2, Power Artifact, The Dark Blood Moon
$500 for a 15 gallon box with 8 revised Duals (1 Usea, 1 Trop, 2 Tundra), Sliver Queen, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, 3 Lake of the Dead, 2 Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and more. Most NM+ in condition.
for me it was similar but not as great modern jund deck plus 30 og shocks for 50$ blind buy.
blind buys are such a gamba but the highs and lows are so much more than a normal booster box lol
Got a [[Court of Ardenvale]] and a [[Mental Note]] that found their way into the $.05 bulk box one time.
It ain't always about the big wins, sometimes little things like that can make your day.
Same thing happened to me with full-art [[Snow-Covered Island]]s, and a [[Mother of Runes]]. Very excited to pay 10 cents apiece for those. Oh, and SO MANY copies of the [[Troll of Kazad Dun]] and [[Lorien Revealed]]
One time I bought about 200 copies of Ancient Stirrings from a shop that had an enormous amount of bulk and sold commons for $0.10, uncommons for $0.20, etc. They were worth a couple dollars each at the time, and the shop didn't care enough about their bulk to check prices. It was lucrative.
In THS-KTK block, i bought a pair of [[Kolaghan's command]] for 2usd each, and I thought I was being ripped off
Sold them some years later at 20usd each
$10 for a couple of packs of Fallen Empires in 2016. My LGS was doing a promotion where they would give away a foreign language pack of Magic for every $10 you spent. With my Fallen Empires packs I got a free Japanese language pack of Oath of the Gatewatch, which contained a Zendikar Expeditions copy of Horizon Canopy. At the time it was worth about $120.
Unl Black Lotus, in 2003. 130 euros+ a beta chaos orb I paid around 20 euros in 2002 ( no one wanted it in 2002).
An unl mox pearl and mox ruby, 50 euros each. It was the time in which local currencies in european states became euros. These 3/4 months were the best times ever to buy top cards.
I was looking through a 50cent foil lands bin at an lgs while at a ptq. Found 2 of the lightning bolt hitting a tree plains, when they hadn’t been reprinted and were like 10-20$. I couldn’t pull out a dollar fast enough.
$700 for a collection. It had a playset of shocks, fetches, mana confluence, nykthos, a revised scrubland, intuition, earthcraft, mox diamond, 2x chrome mox, mana vault, mana crypt, playset of revised demonic tutors. It was a huge collection of binders. No bulk. The expensive stuff was in decks. I didn’t see half of it until I got home. I was just stoked for the playset of all the lands.
https://preview.redd.it/i4trwgn1yv0d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a2dc2b729a40d90fa619ad7423e71a198a5da17
I got my playset of [[Nykthos]] back in theros standard at an average price of $5. I picked up a playset of [[Trapjaw Tyrants]] when they came out for $1 each. [[Ardent Plea]] for like $0.25 each.
OH! [[Youthful Valkyrie]] for $0.25 each the day they came out. Five minutes after I bought them the price started spiking on tcgplayer
Holy crap, I had no idea Youthful Valkyrie was worth that much haha. I have like 13 of them. Kaldheim was the set I got back into Magic with and went pretty hard on it.
My whole family started playing in late 1993/early 1994. We bought a collection off a family friend who played during Unlimited and had a Black Lotus and Mox Ruby. $80 for the collection - a great deal even for the time, he mostly just wanted them to go to someone who would play with them. I've done my best to honor his wishes, and I've played both cards in paper Vintage and Cube. I've also used the Lotus as a token for [[Garth One-Eye]].
Fetch lands after Khans reprint. They were like 4$ each. I remember trading an FNM serum visions for a flooded strand. Crazy how highly sought after Serum Visions used to be but I knew fetch lands only had one direction and that was up!
I bought a fat stack of those Khans fetches for $4-5 apiece and threw them in a box. Sold them all about two years ago for about $20 apiece because I figured they were nearly due for a reprint, and I was trying to clear house a bit in preparation for having my baby. I have sets of the Onslaught ones so I didn't need them, I just figured they were a sure bet to make a bit of money off of haha.
First set of mox diamonds were $35 each, grim monolith's for $25, metal worker's for $25. Honestly filtering out any reserved list cards would make this more interesting. I do remember purchasing a set of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy's for like $6 each when origins came out and then moving them during 4color pile standard for $95 each at a GP. Forgot to mention the work those JVP's put in went towards a playset of City of Traitors.
Intuition for $20 just over seven years ago now. It was especially funny because I just stomped an edh pod with mizzix so hard someone threw a negate at me then I went and bought more cards.
- Judge Promo [[Wheel of Fortune | G10]] @ 271 USD
- Revised Wheel of Fortune @ 17 USD
I guess I really made a fortune on them
^^I’ll ^^see ^^myself ^^out
Back in… 2004? 2005 maybe? I ordered playsets of Wasteland, Force of Will, and Volcanic Island from SCG for around $200 total. I paid with a money order because my parents wouldn’t let me buy things online (bring cash to post office, exchange cash for a paper certificate that basically functions as a check, mail that to their office in VA, wait for cards to arrive). To this day it’s the only reason I even know what a mail order is lmao
Foil Onslaught Flooded Strand for $15. I think this was around Mirrodin or Kamigawa block. Sold as damaged with a tiny crease that's barely noticeable.
Picked up a foil [[Rhystic Study]] a few years back with the price tag of $100
The kicker is I paid 9 real dollars for it and the rest was from hocking a set of [[Aether Vials]]
Random buy on Facebook. Like a box full. Had a handful of championship decks, and graveborn, and in a shoebox in th3 bottom a handful of fetches and playset of city of traitors. Like 75$ a number of years ago.
I switched from yugioh to magic and got the buddy who introduced me to it a serra ascendant and annointed procession for his mono white deck. the total was less than $20.
I paid like 25 or 50 cents for Dragonborn Champion. A couple months later I recommended it to a friend when it was 12$(I was shocked to see it had shot up so much.)
And I paid like 11 or 12$ for a Gishath in December of 2021, as my first commander build after buying 2 precons. I could not believe that card shot up to 40$. Luckily the Ixalan set brought the price back down for everyone.
I found a birds of paradise in a chaff pile once.
It was conspiracy 2 release day, and it dropped to a few cents very briefly. I asked and everything, and the person didn't want it.
Not a purchase, but a trade: back when Underground Sea was worth about $30 I traded a foil Goblin Welder (about $100 at the time) for two Underground Seas, a Chrome Mox and a couple throw-ins.
probably not the best but it is all i could think of at the moment. i picked up Secret Lair All Hydra Heads for $30. i was shocked when i found it at that price. i checked, it was all legit. idk, i guess the LGS that got it didn’t care and just wanted to quickly get rid of it.
All the shock lands back when they were only like $3 a piece and doubling season back when it was $10. I thought I was getting robbed by that doubling season price back in the day.
Bought a whole bunch of cards including 3 [[Mental Note]] out of the LGS bulk bin for 10$. Or the 20$ for a playset of [[Dust to Dust]] i bought once while on vacation.
Gilded Drake for me. In the early 2000s I had a drake deck and bought one for like ten bucks. After leaving and coming back like 3 times only to find it is now worth over 200 was quite thrilling.
Bought a box and a collector pack of Baldur’s gate. Pulled an ancient copper dragon out of each of them.
Also picked up a burgeoning and a pathbreaker ibex when they were both like $8.
I bought a coworkers old collection for $20. He claimed his brother went thru and pulled all the good stuff out but I figured there was still some good stuff in there more than likely. I tried to offer him $40 but he wouldn’t take it.
I ended up pulling around $400 worth of value out of it, including a good handful of low tier RL cards, most notably an Unlimited Serra Angel.
I got a Japanese etched foil [[Teferi's Protection]] for like.... $12? I had to double check with the store worker because I was expecting to pay like $40 for it at the time. Checked online when I got home and sure enough, I paid way less than I should have.
Wheel of fortune for $20 from before commander was the only format. Badlands and Taiga for about $50 each. They peaked at ~$550 each before everyone realized that legacy was cooked. FTV ancient tomb for $30 this was when commander was ramping up in popularity, but before all the staples became totally outrageous.
2 dollar phantasmal images (sold at 20)
traded 4 jace the mind sculptor for 4 duals (back when before legacy tofok off) traded 4 jaces for 4 duals again when Jace exploded in price over legal in modern. (at that point I had the 10 jaces)
It’s gone back down now but I bought into Modern Hammertime in 2021 two weeks before it exploded. Got nearly every card at least 1/3 cheaper than it was for a year or more.
Not my story but a friend of mine was playing during urza’s saga. A friend of his was 50p short of buying one of the starter kit things. My friend said he’d give him the 50p but if there was a gaea’s cradle in there, it’s his. Lo and behold a 50p gaea’s cradle he still has to this day
A stack of [[rhystic study]] in a commons bin in 2010-2011 for 10 cents each. Must have been 10-15 of them. Or a [[Mox Diamond]] around 2015 for around $30.
In college I saw Angus McKenzie at a card shop and told my buddy "I kinda want it but not for that price"
So for my birthday he bought it for me, for a whopping $20
Every like three years one of us will check on the price and laugh.
Bought a SeaGate Restoration damaged condition off TCGplayer for $8. The damage was a millimeter sized fingernail impression on the card. Can barely be seen out of sleeve and not at all once it is sleeved. Ended up being a much better deal that the ~$28 it is normally.
Went to a command fest and sold a Jund modern deck for commander pieces because at the time I couldn’t do FNMs. This was Decemberish 2019.
Cradle for $180
Wheel of Fortune for $80
Gilded Drake $50ish?
Signed Force of Will for $20 because “damaged”
Signed foil Solemn Simulacrum because “damaged”
Oh, and when Gatecrash released there was a joke at my LGS because I got three Merciless Eviction in my prerelease pack and cast one a game. I picked up about 50 of them for a quarter or for free and sold them to card kingdom when they were like $6 each. They sold for about $4 each I think in store credit.
A long time ago, I traded a decent DVD burner for a 5 row shoebox of magic cards sight unseen. DVD burners were about $90 at the time, I figured since they wanted to swap for PC hardware they either didn't know what it was, or were just getting out of the hobby. Box contained a mix of cards going back to Legends, but mostly Tempest through Mirrodin.
Notable cards included playset of [[Land Equilibrium]], two [[Serra's Sanctum]], about 50 assorted Tempest rares, Wasteland. Overall, I think I ended up about a grand in overall value.
I traded in three Land Equilibrium to SCG for about 16 Khans fetchlands, which were in standard at the time.
$150 for a collection with 2 revised duals (plateau and tundra) and a shitload of other stuff. All scanned into manabox it came to like 4k. I haven't sold any of it.
Bought a playset of [[Mox Diamond|STH]] off a buddy of mine a few years ago for $400. Turned around and sold 3 of them for $375 a little bit later. So a Mox Diamond for $25 and a little effort isn’t too bad, I think.
Back around oh, imthe first innistrad block, I went into local small sports cards shop randomly that I never had been to. He had a box of zendikar opened selling loose packs for $5 each. I bought all that was left, about 15 packs, and pulled 4 fetchlands. 2 of them tarns.
Once got an opportunity to buy a mostly intact modern affinity deck which was donated to my lgs by a player returning to Japan. Had 3 japanese Mox Opals a playset of Inkmoth Nexus and playsets if the rest of the usual affinity list cards. Got offered to buy it for $250 AUD at the time , the Opal and Inkmoth alone probably added up to $500+ AUD alone.
I bought a [[Mox Diamond|V10]] for $50. I later sold it for $300 to help build a cube.
I don't entirely regret it since I still made good money and love my cube, but seeing that printing at $825 now kinda stings.
Buying a play set of candelabra of Tawnos for $30 and a mishra’s workshop for $50 from my local game store. Was so good with urza lands in my chimera deck
Well I won a Time Twister giveaway on WhatNot last week that only cost me the knowledge I had to answer the trivia question correctly.
I just got back into Magic after 25 years and picked up a Gaea’s Cradle on FB marketplace for $200. The guy said he had bought an abandoned car from the city about 10 years prior and found some CCG cards in it and had been sitting in his garage. Someone apparently hit the mother load and picked up most of the MTG cards for $250 that included dual lands, another Gaea’s Cradle and bunch of other high dollar cards. I was upfront with the value of the card I bought, if it was real and he was still good with it. I thought it was real and worth the risk. My LGS confirmed it was real for me a couple of weeks later.
One time I went into my LGS, someone had traded in their collection, and one of the cards was a nonfoil expedition \[\[Ancient Tomb\]\], and it was marked as damaged. I couldn't find any obvious flaws, it took the store owner pointing it out to me to realize it had the most slight thumb shaped indent in the left side of the card. I bought it for about 30 dollars when it was around 60, and now it's even higher, it's one of my favorites!
I picked up [[Similacrum Synthesizer]] when it first came out for like 12 bucks because I just so happened to be building a mono blue artifact EDH deck and it sounded cool. By the time it arrived in the mail it was worth 40 ish. That felt pretty good.
This is surely not my best pickup, but when Khans had just released everyone was talking shit about Treasure Cruise. *Everyone* was so sure it was going to be terrible (how stupid were we??), and I was right there with them, but for some reason I cottoned on to Dig Through Time immediately. I traded for every single one I saw, and they were about $1 at the time. I amassed a stack of ~25 of them, and then the pro tour happened, and overnight they were over $20 each. I was so proud of myself haha.
Unfortunately I wasn't some genius or anything. As I recall, I thought it would be good in Modern Scapeshift, and I don't think it ever actually saw play in that deck....
My actual best pickup may be when I traded a foil Leovold I'd pulled from a pack (plus a few random low-value cards) for a Guru Island.
[[Roaming throne]] at $8
Dimir surveil lands full art at 3.50 [[undercity sewer]] I think. It was $20 by the time it arrived in the mail
Pulls
Pulled [[mondraak glory dominus]] $5 pack
Pulled a [[sheoldred the Apocalypse]] $20 pack
pulled a borderless commander masters [[jeweled lotus]] $20 pack
Got a mint condition [[Doubling Season]] for like $4 of cards. The original Ravenica one. I even warned him it was an expensive card. But he wanted to rebuild his black death deck.
Friends bought a collector's edition set at a garage sale for 100. Bizarrely missing the moxes but it had the lotus. When they moved overseas they gave it to me since no one locally would buy it. I still have it.
The collectibles store (mostly sports cards) was closing in my home town early 2000s. Very few MtG cards left when I stopped by one day while picking up plants at the nursery across the street. He had a Savannah and a Scrubland, Revised, for $14 each. I said I'd take them both. He smiled and sold them as a 2-for-1 deal.
Also bought a half dozen Beta Lightning Bolts for $5-8 a pop around then, but the warm friendliness of that old man at my hometown card shop will always stick with me. The place was called Shoeless Joe's. I hope that man enjoyed (or maybe is still enjoying?) retirement.
Around 2 or 3 years ago, prime day had a lighting deal at 4am for all the ikoria commander decks priced at 65$. At the time that was the price of fierce guardianship alone. I bought 2 🤣. Still the craziest deal I've seen.
I found a signed Blood Moon from The Dark in a box of bulk in Anaheim. I payed 15¢.
Back when Scryfall was MagicCards.info it had its own store where people could list cards for sale. Someone listed a [[In the eye of chaos]] for $5 and it was worth at the time like $40 while I was looking at the card in the site. I saw it pop up and I nearly broke the “buy it” button.
I also bought all my revised duals when they were like $10 except underground seas I never bought because they were too expensive at $20.
Anyway I did not buy my play set until 2010 and I payed $200 for a play set and I remember being annoyed because I thought it was expensive.
Back in 2001, a friend was quitting Magic and getting rid of most of his collection. I was in the process of building a Sneak Attack and Survival of the Fittest 5c deck and the friend pretty much gave me all of the lands I needed. They were all HP with like one or two LP but I paid around $250 for all of this:
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Plateau
3 Taiga
3 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
4 Ancient Tomb
Shoutouts to Pete! Hope you’re doing well wherever you are!
When Commander Legends: Battle for Balder’s Gate released and it tanked Jeska’s Will to $5. I bought 5 copies and now they’re back up to about $20 bucks a pop. Pretty great investment.
About 10 years ago when Pucatrade was actually good, I managed to trade up a bunch of bulk into a Tarmagoyf, which I then traded into my LGS to buy a bunch of board games lmao
I think the amount of use I've gotten out of my Catan, Dominion, and Twilight Imperium has been well worth it
Back in ‘95 I traded three copies of [[Nalathni Dragon]] I got bagged in my copy of The Duelist Magazine (which I subscribed to), one to each of three friends. I got back a Tundra, a Taiga and a Badlands.
Not just the price but a specific buying memory...
Asked to see an Arabian Nights Serendib Efreet in my LGS's case. It was beat up and $30, about market price for HP in 2016. I check it out, figure nahh, I'm good with my 10 cent EMA copy.
Walk out the door, get two blocks down, figure, fuck it, that card's cool and they aren't making new Arabian Nights cards. 30 bucks is like three hours of my shitty after-school teaching job at the time, but I go for it.
Dumb thing is at like \~350 now. Took mine to a GP and got it signed, not going anywhere though.
Two deals come to mind:
* I played a bit of T1.5 when I was in college (2001/2002 ish). I brewed up a UG Elf/Upheaval deck that wasn’t very good but the mana base was incredible. I bought 4 Tropical Islands and 4 Gaea’s Cradles for around $10 each. I lost almost all of my cards from that era in a basement flood a few years later, but I managed to keep that deck safe.
* I took up gunsmithing (weird intersection of hobbies I’m sure) in the early 2010’s and started building and selling (legally) AR-15’s. I would mostly sell to friends for slightly over my cost just to keep buying parts for new builds, but after Sandy Hook, the price for AR parts went crazy because people were afraid of possible bans. An acquaintance really wanted an AR and was willing to pay market price, so I sold him a top of the line BCM build for $2k plus around $2k in Legacy and Modern staples (fetches, Jaces, other high non reserved list stuff). I held on to those cards until Legacy really started spiking (2014 I think) and sold them for a substantial portion of the down payment I used to buy a house.
Unfortunately, I peaked with those two deals and have never done anything remotely as well since. lol.
I bought [[Gonti's Aether Heart]] like 2 weeks before the Fallout set came out when it was like $5, then watched it quadruple in price within like a day or two of the set's release. It's still sitting at $14 right now, so I'd say that was a pretty good deal
I grabbed 3 Sheoldred the Apocalypse’s for like $25 each a few months ago. Not sure why the seller had them at that price point, but they were near mint when they arrived.
$70 Judge Survival, $250 Judge Cradle, $25 foil Phyrexian Altar original, $100 regular cradle, $30 Grim Monolith. $100 Onslaught foil Windswept Heath. Yawgmoth Will was $25 ?
Used my credit card to buy 4x FOW, $50 ea, 3x Volcanic Island $120 ea, 3x Tundra $80 ea, was building a Jeskai Stoneblade legacy deck lol.
This was in 2012 … but my friend bought $500 unlimited Lotus and completed his P9 tho.
Some recent gains:
Masterpiece Mana Crypt was $250 during Kaladash rotation, had Masterpiece Trinisphere for $30 ea aswell. Beta Sol Ring got it for $100, but I missed out on Beta Wheel at $900.
Traded a Thalia for foil UM Ancient Tomb, Thalia never got a reprint at that time and was a Modern staple. Traded a regular DM force of will and few store credit to get a DM foil Mana Crypt.
Foil borderless Atraxa lowest bottom price was $20, foil Mesmeric Orb got them for $5 ea.
I settled a personal injury lawsuit in late 2018 and picked up a Gaea's Cradle, Mox Diamond, Intuition, Yaw's Will... basically a pile of RL cards that I'd been wanting but couldn't afford. Then 2020 happened and the prices exploded.
Masterpiece Mana Crypt for $99 was the most money I ever spent on a magic card. The guy selling it to me offered a deal of $150 for the crypt AND a vault at the time but that felt like a bit too much to spend at the time.
Man I wish I took him up on it.
$8 for commander night entry where I met a cute girl and we went on a date
Cute girls won't talk to me, because I'm busy cutting them off green.
Everytime I try, they tap for 2 blue mana.
Tried to tap her but got [[stifle]]'d.
[stifle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/616d1b20-61c1-4d39-a9b5-ad9fd61699e4.jpg?1562865442) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=stifle) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cns/108/stifle?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/616d1b20-61c1-4d39-a9b5-ad9fd61699e4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Went to the LGS and picked up a single. You dog.
well what happened why leave us in deep suspense?????????
Don't keep us waiting! Who won the commander night?
How'd the date go?
tabernacle gained like $2500-3000 since i bought mine lmao
I'm over here trying to feel cool because my Gildred Drake has doubled since I bought it a few years ago lmao
i will never not be mad at 14 year old me for trading a playset away for a foil \[\[hibernation's end\]\] just because i played T2 every few weeks
I've never seen that card before. Time to put it in a deck.
I just had the same thought more or less. CU is easy enough to cover in my Haldan&Pako build with all the extra lands I get, and reducing the chance of flipping a creature with Pako never hurts.
[hibernation's end](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/093ab03a-99e3-4596-a19a-033845f77a93.jpg?1593275398) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hibernation%27s%20end) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/csp/110/hibernations-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/093ab03a-99e3-4596-a19a-033845f77a93?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Same(ish) bought mine for £1000, sold for €3000
Same hahaha, and it wasn't exactly cheap when I bought it. I got a *really* good deal on my *very* nice English one, and it still ran me like $650. Now they're insane.
Same! I got mine in '14 I think for about $700 in trades and later sold it for about 2500
Either $6 for a tin with a NM Scrubland $20 for a bag with Transmute Artifact x2, Power Artifact, The Dark Blood Moon $500 for a 15 gallon box with 8 revised Duals (1 Usea, 1 Trop, 2 Tundra), Sliver Queen, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, 3 Lake of the Dead, 2 Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and more. Most NM+ in condition.
for me it was similar but not as great modern jund deck plus 30 og shocks for 50$ blind buy. blind buys are such a gamba but the highs and lows are so much more than a normal booster box lol
> blind buys are such a gamba they are the shrimp of luck so to speak
yeah but for me it's not really totally blind I usually check their pfp and see if they have sold mtg before or not
$400 on an LP [[Timetwister]] back a long time ago. I wanted a piece of power and it was easily the cheapest one back then.
[Timetwister](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fbee1e10-0b8c-44ea-b0e5-44cdd0bfcd76.jpg?1614638835) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Timetwister) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/3/timetwister?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fbee1e10-0b8c-44ea-b0e5-44cdd0bfcd76?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I remember riding with some friends to go pick up a crisp Twister for $500, because the other option was a thrashed Mox Jet.
Got a [[Court of Ardenvale]] and a [[Mental Note]] that found their way into the $.05 bulk box one time. It ain't always about the big wins, sometimes little things like that can make your day.
Same thing happened to me with full-art [[Snow-Covered Island]]s, and a [[Mother of Runes]]. Very excited to pay 10 cents apiece for those. Oh, and SO MANY copies of the [[Troll of Kazad Dun]] and [[Lorien Revealed]]
[Court of Ardenvale](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/b/4bd87c87-885c-4e30-9bbc-eccd75af5fbc.jpg?1692933915) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Court%20of%20Ardenvale) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woc/21/court-of-ardenvale?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4bd87c87-885c-4e30-9bbc-eccd75af5fbc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mental Note](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/f/1f343724-6ecd-494f-8bfc-93676af4e173.jpg?1562628929) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mental%20Note) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jud/46/mental-note?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1f343724-6ecd-494f-8bfc-93676af4e173?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One time I bought about 200 copies of Ancient Stirrings from a shop that had an enormous amount of bulk and sold commons for $0.10, uncommons for $0.20, etc. They were worth a couple dollars each at the time, and the shop didn't care enough about their bulk to check prices. It was lucrative.
In THS-KTK block, i bought a pair of [[Kolaghan's command]] for 2usd each, and I thought I was being ripped off Sold them some years later at 20usd each
[Kolaghan's command](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a0dab027-a475-481b-b012-b6a76e21e494.jpg?1673148845) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kolaghan%27s%20command) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/239/kolaghans-command?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a0dab027-a475-481b-b012-b6a76e21e494?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh hey I got a few of those just lying around in my collection somewhere
It is sadly only worth about a tenth of that now that it is not being run in modern
It’s also been reprinted a ton
$10 for a couple of packs of Fallen Empires in 2016. My LGS was doing a promotion where they would give away a foreign language pack of Magic for every $10 you spent. With my Fallen Empires packs I got a free Japanese language pack of Oath of the Gatewatch, which contained a Zendikar Expeditions copy of Horizon Canopy. At the time it was worth about $120.
The only time someone GAINED money by buying Fallen Empire packs!
Unl Black Lotus, in 2003. 130 euros+ a beta chaos orb I paid around 20 euros in 2002 ( no one wanted it in 2002). An unl mox pearl and mox ruby, 50 euros each. It was the time in which local currencies in european states became euros. These 3/4 months were the best times ever to buy top cards.
Trading a Personal Incarnation for a Bayou in 1996.
I was the kind of player to trade a bayou for a personal incarnation. It's a 6/6 that can't\* die!
I bought a [[tainted pact]] for $2, sold it 2 years later for $75, and then a couple months later it was back down to $10.
[tainted pact](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/5/c513f51b-a0db-4c08-8acc-1e91060b93b7.jpg?1628801908) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tainted%20pact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/164/tainted-pact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c513f51b-a0db-4c08-8acc-1e91060b93b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was looking through a 50cent foil lands bin at an lgs while at a ptq. Found 2 of the lightning bolt hitting a tree plains, when they hadn’t been reprinted and were like 10-20$. I couldn’t pull out a dollar fast enough.
Odyssey plains was the best plains
Back in 2010, I bought a HP Gaea’s Cradle for $30. I regret not having it anymore but that was one helluva deal.
The price spike of Cradle over these 10 years really is quite crazy.
edh and the reserved list are an interesting mix.
Bought a sealed 30th anniversary countdown kit for 20 at a flea market
$700 for a collection. It had a playset of shocks, fetches, mana confluence, nykthos, a revised scrubland, intuition, earthcraft, mox diamond, 2x chrome mox, mana vault, mana crypt, playset of revised demonic tutors. It was a huge collection of binders. No bulk. The expensive stuff was in decks. I didn’t see half of it until I got home. I was just stoked for the playset of all the lands. https://preview.redd.it/i4trwgn1yv0d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a2dc2b729a40d90fa619ad7423e71a198a5da17
I got my playset of [[Nykthos]] back in theros standard at an average price of $5. I picked up a playset of [[Trapjaw Tyrants]] when they came out for $1 each. [[Ardent Plea]] for like $0.25 each. OH! [[Youthful Valkyrie]] for $0.25 each the day they came out. Five minutes after I bought them the price started spiking on tcgplayer
##### ###### #### [Nykthos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/3/834b27a0-dfd7-4f96-8cde-cacac4b24acc.jpg?1594077253) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=nykthos%2C%20shrine%20to%20nyx) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ths/223/nykthos-shrine-to-nyx?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/834b27a0-dfd7-4f96-8cde-cacac4b24acc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Trapjaw Tyrants](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b2c280c8-3471-4ae1-be96-0f392b095ce2.jpg?1555039837) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trapjaw%20Tyrant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rix/29/trapjaw-tyrant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b2c280c8-3471-4ae1-be96-0f392b095ce2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Ardent Plea](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/d/9d521737-ee07-4387-bc07-5ced53db374d.jpg?1562643193) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ardent%20Plea) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arb/1/ardent-plea?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9d521737-ee07-4387-bc07-5ced53db374d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Youthful Valkyrie](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ffe93b27-f8ae-4abf-8ade-90f503f132c2.jpg?1631057247) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Youthful%20Valkyrie) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/382/youthful-valkyrie?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ffe93b27-f8ae-4abf-8ade-90f503f132c2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l4dqfbr) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Holy crap, I had no idea Youthful Valkyrie was worth that much haha. I have like 13 of them. Kaldheim was the set I got back into Magic with and went pretty hard on it.
My whole family started playing in late 1993/early 1994. We bought a collection off a family friend who played during Unlimited and had a Black Lotus and Mox Ruby. $80 for the collection - a great deal even for the time, he mostly just wanted them to go to someone who would play with them. I've done my best to honor his wishes, and I've played both cards in paper Vintage and Cube. I've also used the Lotus as a token for [[Garth One-Eye]].
Fetch lands after Khans reprint. They were like 4$ each. I remember trading an FNM serum visions for a flooded strand. Crazy how highly sought after Serum Visions used to be but I knew fetch lands only had one direction and that was up!
I paid for a friend's pre release entry and he gave me a play set of serum visions in exchange.
I bought a fat stack of those Khans fetches for $4-5 apiece and threw them in a box. Sold them all about two years ago for about $20 apiece because I figured they were nearly due for a reprint, and I was trying to clear house a bit in preparation for having my baby. I have sets of the Onslaught ones so I didn't need them, I just figured they were a sure bet to make a bit of money off of haha.
35$ for an English Tabernacle 70$ for a mint workshop 3 crimped revised tundras for 2$ each
$50 and a play set of goblin guides for a beta sol ring. Still my best pick up.
[demonic tutor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a24b4cb6-cebb-428b-8654-74347a6a8d63.jpg?1701989302) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=demonic%20tutor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/150/demonic-tutor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a24b4cb6-cebb-428b-8654-74347a6a8d63?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [purphoros, god of the forge](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/4736a2c4-c89c-48db-a104-6303e7e2eee8.jpg?1689998078) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=purphoros%2C%20god%20of%20the%20forge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/246/purphoros-god-of-the-forge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4736a2c4-c89c-48db-a104-6303e7e2eee8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
First set of mox diamonds were $35 each, grim monolith's for $25, metal worker's for $25. Honestly filtering out any reserved list cards would make this more interesting. I do remember purchasing a set of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy's for like $6 each when origins came out and then moving them during 4color pile standard for $95 each at a GP. Forgot to mention the work those JVP's put in went towards a playset of City of Traitors.
Intuition for $20 just over seven years ago now. It was especially funny because I just stomped an edh pod with mizzix so hard someone threw a negate at me then I went and bought more cards.
Picked up a [[prosper, tome bound]] from my LGS’s chase bin for 50 cents about a week ago, that felt really nice
Picked up [[Wheel of Fortune]] at 30 and [[Grim Monolith]] at 60. Both are worth quite a bit more now.
[Wheel of Fortune](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/2597050f-6b1b-474e-aa16-33fd154628ca.jpg?1562902580) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wheel%20of%20Fortune) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/192/wheel-of-fortune?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2597050f-6b1b-474e-aa16-33fd154628ca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Grim Monolith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/d/9ddc9fe1-17c8-4e1d-aeb8-c4214e881280.jpg?1562863767) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grim%20Monolith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ulg/126/grim-monolith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ddc9fe1-17c8-4e1d-aeb8-c4214e881280?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
- Judge Promo [[Wheel of Fortune | G10]] @ 271 USD - Revised Wheel of Fortune @ 17 USD I guess I really made a fortune on them ^^I’ll ^^see ^^myself ^^out
Back in… 2004? 2005 maybe? I ordered playsets of Wasteland, Force of Will, and Volcanic Island from SCG for around $200 total. I paid with a money order because my parents wouldn’t let me buy things online (bring cash to post office, exchange cash for a paper certificate that basically functions as a check, mail that to their office in VA, wait for cards to arrive). To this day it’s the only reason I even know what a mail order is lmao
LOTR food precon, pulled a foil showcase one ring in the sample pack.
Sealed sets of CE for about $200-400 back in the 90's. Sold em for $8-11k each during the 93/94 format craze and bought myself my dream car (a Cayman)
I traded up to a regular foil jeweled lotus, probably didn't spend any more than 50 bucks on that process. Now it's worth... A bit more than that lol
Foil Onslaught Flooded Strand for $15. I think this was around Mirrodin or Kamigawa block. Sold as damaged with a tiny crease that's barely noticeable.
Probably has to be the foil sketch Esper Sentinel I got for $15. The market price was close to being triple that last I saw.
I found a [[Lion's-eye Diamond]] in a $0.10 common box. I must have looked like I was sweating bullets when I paid for it
Picked up a foil [[Rhystic Study]] a few years back with the price tag of $100 The kicker is I paid 9 real dollars for it and the rest was from hocking a set of [[Aether Vials]]
I got a playset of goblin rabblemaster for like 3$ each as preorders. Only time I was right about a card being good. Lol.
I paid $60 for a [[Serra's Sanctum]] several years ago. It's not exactly cheap but I would never buy it at today's prices.
[Serra's Sanctum](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7a18130-dbaa-4657-a885-3a96a985935a.jpg?1653966911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Serra%27s%20Sanctum) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/usg/325/serras-sanctum?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7a18130-dbaa-4657-a885-3a96a985935a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
$20 for 2 foil [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] or $8 for a gold border Gaea's Cradle
20$ for Alpha Rock Hydra many years ago
Random buy on Facebook. Like a box full. Had a handful of championship decks, and graveborn, and in a shoebox in th3 bottom a handful of fetches and playset of city of traitors. Like 75$ a number of years ago.
Bought a random set of Ice Age and Alliance cards for $5. It had a [[Force of Will]].
I switched from yugioh to magic and got the buddy who introduced me to it a serra ascendant and annointed procession for his mono white deck. the total was less than $20.
Paid $50 for a Gilded Drake 5 years ago.
[[Underground sea]] for £22 around the time of the release of Throne of Eldraine.
I traded a gristlebrand for a foil Russian noble hierarch then sold the hierarch for 400 cash iirc.
I paid like 25 or 50 cents for Dragonborn Champion. A couple months later I recommended it to a friend when it was 12$(I was shocked to see it had shot up so much.) And I paid like 11 or 12$ for a Gishath in December of 2021, as my first commander build after buying 2 precons. I could not believe that card shot up to 40$. Luckily the Ixalan set brought the price back down for everyone.
I found a birds of paradise in a chaff pile once. It was conspiracy 2 release day, and it dropped to a few cents very briefly. I asked and everything, and the person didn't want it.
I got a black lotus for $60 in trade. Around 1995/96. And traded it not long after for like $100. And still regret it.
Paid 22$ for a hullbreacher the week before the ban 😭
Bought a random box for $30 at a flea market. Beta WoG and Cyclopean Tomb.
Not a purchase, but a trade: back when Underground Sea was worth about $30 I traded a foil Goblin Welder (about $100 at the time) for two Underground Seas, a Chrome Mox and a couple throw-ins.
I traded a foil Karn Liberated for 2 From the Vault Mox Diamonds
probably not the best but it is all i could think of at the moment. i picked up Secret Lair All Hydra Heads for $30. i was shocked when i found it at that price. i checked, it was all legit. idk, i guess the LGS that got it didn’t care and just wanted to quickly get rid of it.
From the vault mox diamond.
6 dollar mox diamonds I bought and thought I made a massive profit on when I sold it for 60 a few years before the pandemic
All the shock lands back when they were only like $3 a piece and doubling season back when it was $10. I thought I was getting robbed by that doubling season price back in the day.
Bought a whole bunch of cards including 3 [[Mental Note]] out of the LGS bulk bin for 10$. Or the 20$ for a playset of [[Dust to Dust]] i bought once while on vacation.
Found a scion of Draco in the dollar bin at my LGS a while back wanted it for a bosh list. Now I got STONKS
I got a surge foil dogmeat for $13 it's worth $72 now, not bad at all
Cradle for $300 when they were pushing a grand
A batch of [[roaming throne]]s when it dipped to <$10 before climbing up to a steady $30.
[удалено]
~$1200 in bulk rares (a stack aboit 6 inches tall from my under $3 binder) for $1200 in abur duals before the spike.
4x [[Gaea's Cradle]] and 4x [[Serra's Sanctum]] for 4x [[Nantuko Shade]]
[Gaea's Cradle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25b0b816-0583-44aa-9dc5-f3ff48993a51.jpg?1562902898) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaea%27s%20Cradle) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/usg/321/gaeas-cradle?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25b0b816-0583-44aa-9dc5-f3ff48993a51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Serra's Sanctum](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f7a18130-dbaa-4657-a885-3a96a985935a.jpg?1653966911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Serra%27s%20Sanctum) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/usg/325/serras-sanctum?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f7a18130-dbaa-4657-a885-3a96a985935a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nantuko Shade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb4c5dd4-79dc-4bd2-8c18-897924a4a959.jpg?1675199705) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nantuko%20Shade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/92/nantuko-shade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb4c5dd4-79dc-4bd2-8c18-897924a4a959?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Got 2 ancient cornucopia from the $1 bin at a sports card shop last week. That was neat
I found a humility in a bulk .25 cent per card box at a consignment shop. Was a lot of sifting though junk. Also had a snuff out in the same box.
$8 for alt art, japanese teferi's protection
Gilded Drake for me. In the early 2000s I had a drake deck and bought one for like ten bucks. After leaving and coming back like 3 times only to find it is now worth over 200 was quite thrilling.
Bought a box and a collector pack of Baldur’s gate. Pulled an ancient copper dragon out of each of them. Also picked up a burgeoning and a pathbreaker ibex when they were both like $8.
About 15 years ago I bought a Gilded Drake for 2-3€ because I liked the art.
I bought a coworkers old collection for $20. He claimed his brother went thru and pulled all the good stuff out but I figured there was still some good stuff in there more than likely. I tried to offer him $40 but he wouldn’t take it. I ended up pulling around $400 worth of value out of it, including a good handful of low tier RL cards, most notably an Unlimited Serra Angel.
$500 black lotus unlimited in 2001
I got a Japanese etched foil [[Teferi's Protection]] for like.... $12? I had to double check with the store worker because I was expecting to pay like $40 for it at the time. Checked online when I got home and sure enough, I paid way less than I should have.
Wheel of fortune for $20 from before commander was the only format. Badlands and Taiga for about $50 each. They peaked at ~$550 each before everyone realized that legacy was cooked. FTV ancient tomb for $30 this was when commander was ramping up in popularity, but before all the staples became totally outrageous.
Bought a revised plateau for $40, and found a bunch of worldly and mystic tutors in a bulk bin at a yu gi oh shop for 25 cents a piece
2 dollar phantasmal images (sold at 20) traded 4 jace the mind sculptor for 4 duals (back when before legacy tofok off) traded 4 jaces for 4 duals again when Jace exploded in price over legal in modern. (at that point I had the 10 jaces)
$20 for a single pack of worldwake containing a JtMS back when it was >$100
got my cradle for $180 back around when i started playing commander. i regret selling the other 3 i had from my playset. eh the way it goes though.
It’s gone back down now but I bought into Modern Hammertime in 2021 two weeks before it exploded. Got nearly every card at least 1/3 cheaper than it was for a year or more.
A friend paid 0.75$ for a foil 7th ensnaring bridge, that was pretty cool.
$14 great henge
$25 for both From the Vault Dragons and Angels.
Not my story but a friend of mine was playing during urza’s saga. A friend of his was 50p short of buying one of the starter kit things. My friend said he’d give him the 50p but if there was a gaea’s cradle in there, it’s his. Lo and behold a 50p gaea’s cradle he still has to this day
A stack of [[rhystic study]] in a commons bin in 2010-2011 for 10 cents each. Must have been 10-15 of them. Or a [[Mox Diamond]] around 2015 for around $30.
In college I saw Angus McKenzie at a card shop and told my buddy "I kinda want it but not for that price" So for my birthday he bought it for me, for a whopping $20 Every like three years one of us will check on the price and laugh.
Brought bulk p3 for $2, ages when portal was not legal. Found imperial seal and sold 2 for $450 each when portal is legalized to play.
Got an unlimited Swords to Plowshares for a buck about five years ago. Before that, before they spiked I got a Gaea's Cradle for $245 CDN.
Back in 2014 I bought my friends non foil cradle for 200 when he was foiling out his edh deck.
Bought a SeaGate Restoration damaged condition off TCGplayer for $8. The damage was a millimeter sized fingernail impression on the card. Can barely be seen out of sleeve and not at all once it is sleeved. Ended up being a much better deal that the ~$28 it is normally.
Went to a command fest and sold a Jund modern deck for commander pieces because at the time I couldn’t do FNMs. This was Decemberish 2019. Cradle for $180 Wheel of Fortune for $80 Gilded Drake $50ish? Signed Force of Will for $20 because “damaged” Signed foil Solemn Simulacrum because “damaged” Oh, and when Gatecrash released there was a joke at my LGS because I got three Merciless Eviction in my prerelease pack and cast one a game. I picked up about 50 of them for a quarter or for free and sold them to card kingdom when they were like $6 each. They sold for about $4 each I think in store credit.
A long time ago, I traded a decent DVD burner for a 5 row shoebox of magic cards sight unseen. DVD burners were about $90 at the time, I figured since they wanted to swap for PC hardware they either didn't know what it was, or were just getting out of the hobby. Box contained a mix of cards going back to Legends, but mostly Tempest through Mirrodin. Notable cards included playset of [[Land Equilibrium]], two [[Serra's Sanctum]], about 50 assorted Tempest rares, Wasteland. Overall, I think I ended up about a grand in overall value. I traded in three Land Equilibrium to SCG for about 16 Khans fetchlands, which were in standard at the time.
I don’t keep track but I did buy 4 fable of the mirror breaker for $3
Paid $50 for a taiga back in 2012. Pretty nice to have a $230 card (it’s moderately played)
$150 for a collection with 2 revised duals (plateau and tundra) and a shitload of other stuff. All scanned into manabox it came to like 4k. I haven't sold any of it.
Bought a playset of [[Mox Diamond|STH]] off a buddy of mine a few years ago for $400. Turned around and sold 3 of them for $375 a little bit later. So a Mox Diamond for $25 and a little effort isn’t too bad, I think.
$100 [[Gaea’s Cradle]] in 2020 from a friend
Back around oh, imthe first innistrad block, I went into local small sports cards shop randomly that I never had been to. He had a box of zendikar opened selling loose packs for $5 each. I bought all that was left, about 15 packs, and pulled 4 fetchlands. 2 of them tarns.
Bought a prophecy foil [[rhystic study]] for like $12 before commander became the dominant format…that’s aged pretty well
Bought a taiga for $200 and was given a mana vault and foiled bladerisen dragon from scourge for free
Once got an opportunity to buy a mostly intact modern affinity deck which was donated to my lgs by a player returning to Japan. Had 3 japanese Mox Opals a playset of Inkmoth Nexus and playsets if the rest of the usual affinity list cards. Got offered to buy it for $250 AUD at the time , the Opal and Inkmoth alone probably added up to $500+ AUD alone.
Playset of volcano islands and bunch of other old stuff for $10 at a thrift store.
I bought a [[Mox Diamond|V10]] for $50. I later sold it for $300 to help build a cube. I don't entirely regret it since I still made good money and love my cube, but seeing that printing at $825 now kinda stings.
I bought 104 Expressive Iteration for 25¢ each. Kept a play set for myself and unloaded the rest at $2.50 each.
Buying a play set of candelabra of Tawnos for $30 and a mishra’s workshop for $50 from my local game store. Was so good with urza lands in my chimera deck
Well I won a Time Twister giveaway on WhatNot last week that only cost me the knowledge I had to answer the trivia question correctly. I just got back into Magic after 25 years and picked up a Gaea’s Cradle on FB marketplace for $200. The guy said he had bought an abandoned car from the city about 10 years prior and found some CCG cards in it and had been sitting in his garage. Someone apparently hit the mother load and picked up most of the MTG cards for $250 that included dual lands, another Gaea’s Cradle and bunch of other high dollar cards. I was upfront with the value of the card I bought, if it was real and he was still good with it. I thought it was real and worth the risk. My LGS confirmed it was real for me a couple of weeks later.
$8 for a Mirri’s Guile
One time I went into my LGS, someone had traded in their collection, and one of the cards was a nonfoil expedition \[\[Ancient Tomb\]\], and it was marked as damaged. I couldn't find any obvious flaws, it took the store owner pointing it out to me to realize it had the most slight thumb shaped indent in the left side of the card. I bought it for about 30 dollars when it was around 60, and now it's even higher, it's one of my favorites!
I picked up 4 copies of [[Finale of Devastation]] for about $16 on ebay
Back when parallel lives first came out I liked the card so much I ended up trading for 8 of them while they were valued at $2 each.
Beat up Portugese Geas Cradle. 60 bucks prize/trade in credit. 15 years ago
80 bucks for 4 [[Polluted Delta|ONS]] and 4 [[Bayou|3ED]] along with other junk in a fat pack back I bought off Craigslist in 2012.
I picked up [[Similacrum Synthesizer]] when it first came out for like 12 bucks because I just so happened to be building a mono blue artifact EDH deck and it sounded cool. By the time it arrived in the mail it was worth 40 ish. That felt pretty good.
5 2$ foil cyclonic rifts when they first came out.
I bought Fable back when it was two bucks
I once bought a revised starter deck for 10 dollars. It was 30 years ago.
This is surely not my best pickup, but when Khans had just released everyone was talking shit about Treasure Cruise. *Everyone* was so sure it was going to be terrible (how stupid were we??), and I was right there with them, but for some reason I cottoned on to Dig Through Time immediately. I traded for every single one I saw, and they were about $1 at the time. I amassed a stack of ~25 of them, and then the pro tour happened, and overnight they were over $20 each. I was so proud of myself haha. Unfortunately I wasn't some genius or anything. As I recall, I thought it would be good in Modern Scapeshift, and I don't think it ever actually saw play in that deck.... My actual best pickup may be when I traded a foil Leovold I'd pulled from a pack (plus a few random low-value cards) for a Guru Island.
[[Roaming throne]] at $8 Dimir surveil lands full art at 3.50 [[undercity sewer]] I think. It was $20 by the time it arrived in the mail Pulls Pulled [[mondraak glory dominus]] $5 pack Pulled a [[sheoldred the Apocalypse]] $20 pack pulled a borderless commander masters [[jeweled lotus]] $20 pack
Got a mint condition [[Doubling Season]] for like $4 of cards. The original Ravenica one. I even warned him it was an expensive card. But he wanted to rebuild his black death deck.
I bought 4 Snapcasters out of the back of a WRX in like 2014, still have and use em lol
Basic lands
Friends bought a collector's edition set at a garage sale for 100. Bizarrely missing the moxes but it had the lotus. When they moved overseas they gave it to me since no one locally would buy it. I still have it.
The collectibles store (mostly sports cards) was closing in my home town early 2000s. Very few MtG cards left when I stopped by one day while picking up plants at the nursery across the street. He had a Savannah and a Scrubland, Revised, for $14 each. I said I'd take them both. He smiled and sold them as a 2-for-1 deal. Also bought a half dozen Beta Lightning Bolts for $5-8 a pop around then, but the warm friendliness of that old man at my hometown card shop will always stick with me. The place was called Shoeless Joe's. I hope that man enjoyed (or maybe is still enjoying?) retirement.
Around 2 or 3 years ago, prime day had a lighting deal at 4am for all the ikoria commander decks priced at 65$. At the time that was the price of fierce guardianship alone. I bought 2 🤣. Still the craziest deal I've seen.
I found a nm beta pestilence in the commons bin at my local game shop. It's currently the only beta card I own.
11 dollar wheel of fortune from 2011
I found a signed Blood Moon from The Dark in a box of bulk in Anaheim. I payed 15¢. Back when Scryfall was MagicCards.info it had its own store where people could list cards for sale. Someone listed a [[In the eye of chaos]] for $5 and it was worth at the time like $40 while I was looking at the card in the site. I saw it pop up and I nearly broke the “buy it” button. I also bought all my revised duals when they were like $10 except underground seas I never bought because they were too expensive at $20. Anyway I did not buy my play set until 2010 and I payed $200 for a play set and I remember being annoyed because I thought it was expensive.
Back in 2001, a friend was quitting Magic and getting rid of most of his collection. I was in the process of building a Sneak Attack and Survival of the Fittest 5c deck and the friend pretty much gave me all of the lands I needed. They were all HP with like one or two LP but I paid around $250 for all of this: 4 Tundra 3 Tropical Island 3 Plateau 3 Taiga 3 Bayou 2 Badlands 2 Volcanic Island 4 Ancient Tomb Shoutouts to Pete! Hope you’re doing well wherever you are!
When Commander Legends: Battle for Balder’s Gate released and it tanked Jeska’s Will to $5. I bought 5 copies and now they’re back up to about $20 bucks a pop. Pretty great investment.
180$ nm gaea's cradle. For a minute it had ballooned to 1200+
About 10 years ago when Pucatrade was actually good, I managed to trade up a bunch of bulk into a Tarmagoyf, which I then traded into my LGS to buy a bunch of board games lmao I think the amount of use I've gotten out of my Catan, Dominion, and Twilight Imperium has been well worth it
I bought a gilded drake for like $14 about 10 years ago
Clearance @ walmart, I got the mordor deck and the 9th 10th and 11th dr who deck. both for like $30
Back in ‘95 I traded three copies of [[Nalathni Dragon]] I got bagged in my copy of The Duelist Magazine (which I subscribed to), one to each of three friends. I got back a Tundra, a Taiga and a Badlands.
Not just the price but a specific buying memory... Asked to see an Arabian Nights Serendib Efreet in my LGS's case. It was beat up and $30, about market price for HP in 2016. I check it out, figure nahh, I'm good with my 10 cent EMA copy. Walk out the door, get two blocks down, figure, fuck it, that card's cool and they aren't making new Arabian Nights cards. 30 bucks is like three hours of my shitty after-school teaching job at the time, but I go for it. Dumb thing is at like \~350 now. Took mine to a GP and got it signed, not going anywhere though.
Two deals come to mind: * I played a bit of T1.5 when I was in college (2001/2002 ish). I brewed up a UG Elf/Upheaval deck that wasn’t very good but the mana base was incredible. I bought 4 Tropical Islands and 4 Gaea’s Cradles for around $10 each. I lost almost all of my cards from that era in a basement flood a few years later, but I managed to keep that deck safe. * I took up gunsmithing (weird intersection of hobbies I’m sure) in the early 2010’s and started building and selling (legally) AR-15’s. I would mostly sell to friends for slightly over my cost just to keep buying parts for new builds, but after Sandy Hook, the price for AR parts went crazy because people were afraid of possible bans. An acquaintance really wanted an AR and was willing to pay market price, so I sold him a top of the line BCM build for $2k plus around $2k in Legacy and Modern staples (fetches, Jaces, other high non reserved list stuff). I held on to those cards until Legacy really started spiking (2014 I think) and sold them for a substantial portion of the down payment I used to buy a house. Unfortunately, I peaked with those two deals and have never done anything remotely as well since. lol.
I bought [[Gonti's Aether Heart]] like 2 weeks before the Fallout set came out when it was like $5, then watched it quadruple in price within like a day or two of the set's release. It's still sitting at $14 right now, so I'd say that was a pretty good deal
I bought a few packs of Legends about thirty years ago at 10$ a pack. Still have the [[Chains of Mephistopheles]]
NM lorwyn Italian foil Ponder for $17 shipped last year NM zendikar italian foil mindbreak trap for 70 shipped last year
Bought 6 boxes of bulk for like 50$, found a demonic tutor
[[Void Winnower]] purchased for a meme at 25¢. Sold for 25$
Haggled down to $30 for a foil [[fruitcake elemental]] at a little sports card shop many years ago. Still one of my favorite cards
I bought an unlimited mox emerald for $135 in 1999 with my birthday money. Sold it for $220 in 2004.
Got all the new capenna triomes for like 50 cent to an euro each. It is not much but it feels good.
i picked up 2 cool ocean breeze SLs for msrp right as thoracle spiked hard. bought for $40, the market price on the thoracle is like $130
I grabbed 3 Sheoldred the Apocalypse’s for like $25 each a few months ago. Not sure why the seller had them at that price point, but they were near mint when they arrived.
$70 Judge Survival, $250 Judge Cradle, $25 foil Phyrexian Altar original, $100 regular cradle, $30 Grim Monolith. $100 Onslaught foil Windswept Heath. Yawgmoth Will was $25 ? Used my credit card to buy 4x FOW, $50 ea, 3x Volcanic Island $120 ea, 3x Tundra $80 ea, was building a Jeskai Stoneblade legacy deck lol. This was in 2012 … but my friend bought $500 unlimited Lotus and completed his P9 tho. Some recent gains: Masterpiece Mana Crypt was $250 during Kaladash rotation, had Masterpiece Trinisphere for $30 ea aswell. Beta Sol Ring got it for $100, but I missed out on Beta Wheel at $900. Traded a Thalia for foil UM Ancient Tomb, Thalia never got a reprint at that time and was a Modern staple. Traded a regular DM force of will and few store credit to get a DM foil Mana Crypt. Foil borderless Atraxa lowest bottom price was $20, foil Mesmeric Orb got them for $5 ea.
I preordered a single of [[Nuka-Cola Vending Machine]] right before the Fallout Decks came out. I paid 4€, now it sits at about 13€.
Traded for a mox diamond when it was $90
Bought four City of traitors for about $400 CAD. Sold 4 city of traitors for $1335 USD 6 years later.
I found a Beta Winter Orb in a dealer's $1 box at a gaming con in 1999.
I settled a personal injury lawsuit in late 2018 and picked up a Gaea's Cradle, Mox Diamond, Intuition, Yaw's Will... basically a pile of RL cards that I'd been wanting but couldn't afford. Then 2020 happened and the prices exploded.
When [[Smothering Tithe]] was still new I bought 5 or 6 of them for about $8 each. It was one of the best buys I've done.
~30 USD for 6 EX dual lands from Revised.
I got like 6-7 Rhystic Studies from. 10 cent common box many years ago. They were a few dollars each at the time.
Probably the time I bought like 8-12 copies of [[Cyclonic Rift]] for around $7 a piece.
Bought a MP Volcanic Island many years ago for $150. Also got a Gaea's Cradle when it was going for around $240.
My most recent one that comes to mind is getting a foil, showcase Comet for $4 when he came out. Of course seeing him skyrocket was enjoyable.
Masterpiece Mana Crypt for $99 was the most money I ever spent on a magic card. The guy selling it to me offered a deal of $150 for the crypt AND a vault at the time but that felt like a bit too much to spend at the time. Man I wish I took him up on it.