The Magician’s Dilemma
In the summer of 2019, I attended a MagicFest, an enormous Magic: the Gathering event at the Dulles Expo Center right outside Washington, DC. Toward the end of the day, I traded some cards I acquired throughout the day at a table I found in the corner. It was manned by a guy named Jimmy, who was the owner of a game store in Wheaton, Maryland.
When I traded my new cards for some cards from Magic’s first sets, Jimmy asked if I was in the “old school” community. I wasn’t, and Jimmy told me about a Facebook group for old school MTG players. Within a few weeks, I was in the group, several other groups, and a member of several Discord servers dedicated to playing old school Magic.
Within a few months, I had several hundred dollars worth of OS cards, a few months later, several thousand.
During the past few years, I acquired significantly more valuable cards. In total, I paid somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000 for them. That’s a lot, but it’s nowhere near what the collection is worth: about $30,000 in retail value.
As the value of my collection has continued to increase, I’ve spent more time thinking about the immense value that are in these thin pieces of cardboard, for which I have no insurance if something were to happen to them. I spend time looking at the cards, even when I’m not playing. I spend time thinking and looking up the card values. I spend time looking at various websites and chat groups related to old school Magic. Maybe it’s 20 minutes a day, which could be a couple hours per week, and maybe eight hours or more, each month.
That’s the dilemma: why?
Why do I think about these cards so much? Is it just because I have them? What if I didn’t have them?
Why do I have such immense value in something that I don’t use often? Most of the time, old school Magic events are held online via webcam. There are some local events, but they are rare, and usually held only annually.
Why do I spend time on something I don’t often use? Why am I looking at the cards…just because?
Why do I look at the same chat rooms, with the same people, talking about the same cards and the same strategies that I’ve seen for years?
Why?
Recently, I decided to dive into this deeper and make a decision about what I want to do with my collection. Even this thought process bothered me…why was I spending more time thinking about this?
I decided I needed an outside opinion, so I recently reached out to my therapist, so I could discuss the issue with an impartial person who knows me quite well. I wanted to ask her for her thoughts on why I was doing what I was doing and hopefully help me get to a decision I’m happy with.
As of the publication of this post, I’m leaning toward selling the vast majority of my collection. Doing so would allow me to reinvest the funds in more traditional investments, things I don’t think about/check on an almost-daily basis as I do now for the Magic cards. I’d also have the opportunity to take the funds and take my wife on a much needed vacation or fun one-off events like a Capitals hockey game, really nice night out, or a hotel stay in the city while having the money to pay for an overnight babysitter.
Due to our mortgage plus the cost of two children in daycare, funds for these types of activities are tight. It seems to me, at least currently, that it would be ideal to use the value of these cards for actual experiences rather than the thought of potentially playing with them at some future yet-to-be-determined date of an annual old school event that may or may not happen.
That said, I could change my mind tomorrow and think: “How (or why) could I ever get rid of these?”
Again, that’s the dilemma.
