In any case, because MtG is a collectible card game, it brings out the collecting streak in me. For many years, whenever I bought a new set, I saved at least one empty box from the set, and those empty boxes became a collection of their own.
Well, it turns out empty boxes take up space. Quite a bit of it. How much? Well, here's the collection, pulled out and put on a table.
So as you can see, that's a lot of boxes! (And that's just one box from most sets. If I had a duplicate box, I did not put it on the table.) And they were just sitting in my den closet, taking up space. So over the weekend, I decided it was finally time to stop devoting space to a collection I never decided to start in the first place -- it just sort of happened.
Sherry pointed out I could make it a little easier to let go of the boxes if I documented them somehow, so I took a few photos. Here are the boxes, in groups.
Oldest: I didn't actually get rid of these two. They are storing a few pieces from other parts of my MtG collection - original rule books, deck boxes, that sort of thing. Hey, I can't go cold turkey here!
The earliest sets I have. The two boxes above, plus the oldest sets after them. Man, I had almost forgotten about Alliances and Weatherlight. I wonder if there are any cards people use today which started in those sets. And, if you're a Magic junkie, you know that this grouping contains a mistake. By the way, technically I do have a Fallen Empires box (or two) but they are unopened and full of packs, so I didn't put them here. In fact, I left all the "unopened" boxes out of these shots. This sub-collection is for empty boxes.
Magic: the Gathering has a new base set of cards every year -- well, it's annual now -- it didn't used to be. Anyway, here are boxes from those sets. I did not buy those base sets for several years, because starting with 4th Edition (middle box, left) they used to be made up entirely of reprinted cards from prior sets, and I had plenty of those. Once Wizards of the Coast started creating new cards for these "core sets," the sets became more interesting to me, and I've bought at least a box each year for the last several, I guess.
The next group of boxes is from Invasion, when I started buying actively again after a few years off. Yes, I missed the Urza's block. Sad -- so many over-powered cards in those sets. And I also skipped the Mercadian Masques block. However, this photo also showed me that I didn't really start "collecting" boxes until Invasion, because I know I bought boxes of Mirage, Tempest and other sets between Alliances and Invasion (see the Weatherlight box, for instance) but I don't have those boxes. This photo does demonstrate one more gap in my buying though -- the Odyssey block. I wonder what was going on in my life and finances which made me skip that one.
And now we're into sets which I was actively buying by the case, so I could try to sell rare cards to try to make enough money to support my habit. Financially, it worked, but eventually I decided it was too much effort. I did end up with a lot of extra commons and uncommons, which are great for my deck-building. And I also have multiple copies of rares which didn't sell . Typically, these are rares which are hard to use -- low-powered or narrowly designed -- but that provides a challenge in deck-building: how to make use of them?
That phase of buying for selling lasted a while. Here are some more.
And then I just started buying for myself again. Here are the most recent sets.
There are a few boxes which survived the purge. A few to store other parts of my MtG collection, and several to hold some materials which my friend Paul can use. They will move from taking up space in my house to taking up space in his. But I know he's going to use them, so I'm glad my collection can be put to a bit of use.
Well, that's that. I have plenty of other things taking up space in my closet. Maybe someday I will get rid of those, too. But until then ... I have some space to fill.
No comments:
Post a Comment