Vintage Sealed MTG in 2024
Haven’t kept up too much with the MTG writing since doing so much last year: https://www.thepoxbox.com/money
The big news is mostly: Collectibles are collapsing from the 2021 Covid spikes. I hear these stories from across the board from watches to comics to cards.
The data mostly speaks for itself and the conclusion is that prices seem to have corrected back just above 2020 levels. If you held this entire time, you just got 4 years of no returns. If you bought at the height of the pandemic in 2021-2022 you are continuing to get decimated.
Starting with 1993 here. These are mostly from completing Heritage Auctions and Facebook sales.
Interestingly this year a box of Arabian Nights actually sold on Heritage for 212 000$, creating a first data point in years. There's not enough of this stuff to go around to make really solid conclusions about the prices unfortunately. The trend seems to hold flat at least.
This is the stuff that is accessible to most investors and that you can usually buy any time you want. I'm showing all the data to put in context that the recent drop might be pretty drastic but the current prices still dwarf the pre-crypto boom of 2016.
Here we clearly see prices retraced back to 2020 levels. However notice basically a 30% haircut from the peaks of 2021-2022. Brutal. Remember these aren't even inflation-adjusted which might make their current price actually below 2020...
Let's look at the rest now:
7th edition seems to be the one outlier but that's from just one sale on Ebay so who knows.
In conclusion…. Is it time to buy this stuff or will this continue to decline? Is this the dip or was 2021 a once in a lifetime collectible craze as people were stuck at home during the pandemic with nothing to do but blow their money on dumb crap hoping to get rich quick? Has humanity learned its lesson with antiques and collectibles or are you seeing the lowest prices you’ll see in your lifetime and you’re just dumb for not loading up?
Personally I haven’t bought anything for years. I dodged the 2021 bubble ( genius ).
If there’s interest I will try to take a quick look at the singles market but I suspect similar or worse levels of price slumps.
Source/ Method for the MTG data: https://www.thepoxbox.com/posts/whats-my-card-worth
Other MTG related content:
Data Analysis:
Deconstructing Alpha - What rarities did the best in Alpha?
Deconstructing Beta / Unlimited - What rarities did the best in B/U?
4 Horsemen Deconstructed / Compared
Final Look at A/B/U - Best categories from each set compared to each other
Comparing A/B/U - Which set did the best as a whole?
General MTG content:
What’s a fair comparison? - Trying to fairly compare MTG to stocks
Omg should I grade this? - How rare is your card, really?
Magic Post-Covid market bloodbath - Coming off the 2021 cocaine high
Where do I sell my cards? - A flowchart for Timmy
Should I buy this collectible? - Another flowchart for Timmy
Investing in Collectibles - Is it dumb? - Initial look at the suspiciously high ROI of MTG