Random collecting tips

[00:00:00]Hey there, kiddos, and welcome back to the channel. I'm Uncle Frank. I'm glad you are having a great day, and in today's video, I'm going to be sitting back in the very squeaky chair, relaxing, and having a little conversation with all of you guys about your favorite cards and collecting your favorite cards. You see, everybody, in my opinion, who is operating within the world of trading cards, not just trading card games, but trading cards in general, everybody has a favorite card, whether they know it or not. Everybody has at least one card that they could happily add an infinite number of copies of that card to their collection to have, hold on to, and admire. You know, it's just a fact, in my opinion. Although, I suppose that doesn't make it a fact, does it?

[00:00:54]Your uncle's full of contradictions, isn't he?

[00:00:57]You know, for every person out there, there could be countless reasons for having a particular favorite card, one that you definitely want more than the others.

[00:01:05]And sometimes, it can be hard for you to know exactly what that card is.

[00:01:09]You know, it might be hard for you to pin down. If I asked you right now, for instance, what's your favorite card?

[00:01:14]There's a decent chance you might not actually know. You might have no answer, or you might have several cards as an answer. But, a handful of you guys will know exactly which card you could always use more of.

[00:01:28]And for those of you who have figured it out, obviously, a question that you probably had at some point is, "How do I go about collecting this card? How do I go about just getting as much of these as possible?" And obviously, the answer is, "Just buy it, right? Just buy whatever that card is."

[00:01:46]And yes, that is a simple enough answer to the question, but there's a bit more to it that I encourage you to think about beyond just the obvious answer of throwing money at the problem until you have all the copies of basic island from unlimited that your heart could possibly desire.

[00:02:07]You see, having a favorite card is more than just enjoying the card itself. I encourage people who have identified their favorite card to learn everything they could possibly learn about it.

[00:02:19]Not just the name of the card, but also its releases.

[00:02:22]You know, how many releases has it has it had? What sets does it come in? What rarities does it come in? Does it have different arts for different printings, different artists for different printings, who works on it, etc. Can you easily identify which foil treatments it has?

[00:02:39]Uh does it have a special promo version?

[00:02:42]And things like that. Has it had an errata? Cuz some card games do that.

[00:02:46]Some card games will change the rules text for certain cards.

[00:02:49]And the reason I encourage you to learn everything you possibly can about a card, if it's your favorite, is knowing everything about it helps you quickly identify different versions and different appropriate price tags to pay for the different versions. Let's say, for instance, that your favorite card happens to be Charizard.

[00:03:09]Not the base set shadowless Charizard or its reprints in celebration or whatever, but just that Charizard card.

[00:03:17]Knowing what you need to know about the Charizard card, its different printings, how to tell shadowless versus uh unlimited edition versus, I think it's the celebrations reprint, all that stuff, can help you save money when it comes to purchasing various copies online since you can correctly identify whether or not someone has correctly listed a different version of the card.

[00:03:37]The same is true in things like Yu-Gi-Oh. Can you correctly identify which set a card is in or um which foiling it even is because uh some Yu-Gi-Oh cards will have different foilings within the same set and that can drastically change the price tag associated with the card.

[00:03:53]Same thing's true of Magic. Some cards have had dozens of reprints within Magic the Gathering.

[00:03:58]Okay, some have different art, others have very minute details. They tell me the difference between an unlimited and revised Sol Ring for instance, and there's a few of you out there who probably wouldn't be able to say it.

[00:04:12]I couldn't say it.

[00:04:14]For instance, I definitely I'm always struggling with figuring out the exact differences between unlimited and revised. I'm sure someone out there knows and will be happy to talk my ear off about it, but I have been involved with Magic for a very long time. I buy unlimited and revised cards and I still have a hard time IDing the difference.

[00:04:30]It's just crazy stuff. But yeah, learning everything you can about your favorite card, from its artists, its prints, its folding, etc., will help you in finding good deals with that card. It's just a fact of life.

[00:04:43]And you want the best deals for your favorite card that you can get because you want more of the card. You want to uh understand its price, compare the price on different markets, so that you can more easily gather more copies for your collection. If you're overpaying, you know, if you see a listing on eBay that has a shadowless Charizard base set one and you look at it, if you don't know how to identify a base set uh shadowless Charizard for Pokémon, you might be overpaying by accident on a card that the other guy couldn't identify either. Everyone else who's looked at that listing hasn't been buying it because they don't identify it. They know that that's not the right card, but you don't know the difference, so you just buy it and you accidentally overpaid for something that wasn't actually what the listing said it was, which is a thing that happens.

[00:05:31]So, just I really encourage you to get out there and if you have a favorite card, once you know what it is, learn everything you can about it, its different versions and variants and all that jazz. It's just uh something I encourage. The second thing is to be absolutely sure that it's your favorite card before you dump an assload of money on it.

[00:05:51]Um don't just buy you know, like I said before, if your favorite card happens to be uh unlimited island from Magic the Gathering, don't just go out there and buy every single copy you can. Buy a handful at a time.

[00:06:05]Be reasonable with how much money you're spending on it.

[00:06:07]Don't just spend $1,000 to buy up every copy of unlimited island.

[00:06:12]I know that's such an odd choice, but it was just the first card that came to my mind. Please don't yell at me. I know that none of you guys out there are actually trying to collect like unlimited basic lands or anything like that. Just don't eat my ear off. I Like I said, it's just the first thing that came to mind.

[00:06:26]Um you know, grab a few. Grab a few copies all all at once. Have them shipped out and once you have them in hand, you can admire them, enjoy them, and if you like them, grab more, but never too much all at once because in my opinion, a quiet collector is a successful collector. If you're raising a think if people are noticing that all the unlimited islands for Magic the Gathering are being bought up, well, people could take to the market really easily. You know, there's a big difference between oh, like three were sold today and three were sold a few weeks ago or 10 sold over the last month or so, and there's a big difference between that, occasional sales here and there, and someone notices that 30 copies of unlimited island have sold in one day.

[00:07:11]There's a big difference there.

[00:07:13]And that that kind of difference can cause people to uh quickly raise their prices, even if there's no real reason to raise the prices beyond the fact that people are buying. It can cause you to miss out on good deals, and it can cause other people to start buying as well, thinking that there's something going on, or that they're getting in on some good investment opportunity, when in reality, all that's happening is that you're trying to get a hold of some islands for your ultimate unlimited island collection.

[00:07:38]You crazy island dog, you.

[00:07:41]Um and another thing, beyond just comparing things on different marketplaces, you know, eBay versus TCGPlayer versus Card Market versus Card Kingdom?

[00:07:51]I think that was a Now, what was the one with the shark in its name? I'm forgetting.

[00:07:57]Card Shark? No.

[00:07:59]There was one that had a shark in its name. You guys will tell me what it was.

[00:08:02]I used to shop there forever ago and then I just stopped. I can't remember why.

[00:08:06]Um In addition to exploring the open market, there's also private markets that are Facebook groups dedicated to basically every card game ever. There's Discord servers for basically every card game out there. It would not be very hard for you to find one of those groups and just ask around seeing if people have extra copies of the card that they're willing to sell or trade to you.

[00:08:26]That's another outlet for you to explore when it comes to getting a hold of the cards you desire.

[00:08:31]You know, a bad way to get the cards you're looking for is to take to social media, create an account explaining that you are the Sultan of Island.

[00:08:43]Not Cars at Buy.

[00:08:45]You know, you're the Unlimited Island Sultan and you want to buy every copy of Unlimited Island you can get your hands on. You'll pay any price to get those cards in your collection. Well, if you do that, you put it out there that you're willing to pay whatever it takes to get them, you're going to have a bunch of people raising the price of that card exponentially. You could have done it silently and have as many Islands as you wanted for a relatively affordable price, but you put your name out there and you put a price tag on it and in my opinion, uh putting yourself out there at full blast saying you're going to buy every copy and it doesn't uh you don't care what the expense is.

[00:09:20]That's not really something that collectors tend to to do.

[00:09:22]They tend to be more silent because they're aware that, you know, a very small change to their ecosystem could absolutely ruin uh their opportunities to get more copies of the card they're hunting for, which is just something to uh keep in ca- keep in mind.

[00:09:36]And of course, after you get the cards, you know, I shouldn't have to say this, but I will anyway.

[00:09:41]You know, once you start actually collecting the cards, make sure you're taking good care of them.

[00:09:46]You know, store them in sleeves, put them in a binder, put them in uh top loaders, deck protectors, etc. Deck boxes, Jesus.

[00:09:54]Uh etc. Make sure you're not like you spent the money on these cards, you spent the money on the unlimited islands, don't just leave them sitting on your window sill.

[00:10:03]You know, don't just leave them sitting in a box in your basement next to the radiator.

[00:10:08]Don't do that.

[00:10:10]You know, take good care of your stuff because again, you spent the money on it, you like the stuff, you enjoy it, you appreciate it.

[00:10:16]Uh take good care of the things that you enjoy, and those things will bring you joy for much longer. I can tell you from experience that there are people out there who will claim that a card is their favorite, and they'll have like 15 copies of it, and they're in awful condition, and I'm like, "Why did you do that, guy? Why did you do that to your cards? You claimed to love them."

[00:10:38]But yeah, these are This is just some advice that I have, and there's more advice you can take into account, especially depending on the card game, because there's different uh conditions for cards can be in. You know, if you have a favorite card that's a promo, for instance, some promos from some card games come sealed in these little one-card packaging.

[00:10:57]Uh do you care enough about the sealed status of that card to keep it within the packaging or not? That's going to be up to you, but I think you should think about that before you start making purchases, for instance. Do you care about getting the card graded?

[00:11:10]How much is it going to cost you to get that card graded? What company are you going to go with?

[00:11:14]There's a lot of things to consider, and like I said, give it some hard thought. You know, do you really like this card enough to sink potentially thousands of dollars? Cuz some cards are very expensive, and if they're your favorite, you know, if if Dark Armed Dragon is your favorite card, and you you're out there to get every possible printing of Dark Armed Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh, you're in for a you're in for a wild ride cuz some copies are pretty affordable and others are definitely not. So, just something to think about is it can be an expensive journey to add what you like to your personal collection and build out a collection of a card that you enjoy.

[00:11:50]So, overall lessons from this video, one, figure out everything you could possibly learn about the card you enjoy.

[00:11:58]Two, don't just throw a bunch of money at it all at once.

[00:12:02]Buy a bit here, buy a bit there.

[00:12:04]Don't spend more than you can really afford, especially if you have a tight budget.

[00:12:08]And three, take care of your stuff.

[00:12:10]That's That's really all I'm trying to say in this video. Hope you guys enjoyed. Please like, share, subscribe.

[00:12:13]Check out the Discord, the Patreon, the TCGPlayer link. All that stuff is below.

[00:12:18]I'll see you guys next time. Ciao.