However, instead of delving into the subject, Mr. Winston just writes about what kind of alterations he prefers (and I guess he still misses something there). A friend of mine has been altering cards for quite some time (you may know him, he signs as âbigupâ), and he told me that by far the most difficult kind of alteration is actually the âfull artâ alteration as you have to meticulously mix and choose your colors so that the exactly match the original artworkâs. So I guess instead of calling it âbasic alteringâ, one should point out that this is the most difficult alteration technique of all.
But letâs consider the economic aspect of altered cards. How much value can you âgainâ when altering cards? Which cards and what kind of alterations are in demand? Could you consider investing in a âaltered cards onlyâ binder?
The most critical question is the value gain of altered cards, as it depends on so many factors like whether the alteration is well done, whether itâs unique (or âjust anotherâ Spiderman FoW), and whether the card is acutally played. I will only consider cards that are sought after by players, because we all know that the occasional collector will pay irrational prices on a card of his choice.
So the big question is âWhy do players alter cards?â, which is pretty close to âWho are the players that want altered cardsâ. Of course, the standard PTQ grinder couldnât care less about altered cards, heâs using the cards as a means to win a tournament and has exactly zero attachment to them. No, the typical candidates for altered cards are Eternal players: Vintage, Legacy and to a lesser extent EDH. Vintage players and Legacy player often play the same deck for several years, so they donât need to buy new cards, so they have to find other way to spend money on Magic. They will try to âpimpâ their deck by buying foreign cards (Japanese rulez!), Foils or altered cards. So, itâs in the Vintage and Legacy staples that you should look out for those alterations.
It is therefore no coincidence, that the most-time-ever-altered card is Force of Will, *the* format-defining card in Vintage & Legacy. Force of Will by itself is quite an expensive card (40â¬), and good alterations can sell at over 100⬠(check out this monster, altered by bigup, signed in gold by Terese Nielsen).
By altering a card, the artist creates an added value that the buyer has to pay for. This value depends of course on the time the artist has spent on the card. The total price of the altered card would therefore be standard card price + alteration price. Letâs assume our artist would need the same time to alter a either a Force of Will or a Brainstorm and would value his work at 30â¬. The Force would be 40+30 = 70⬠whereas the Brainstorm would be 1+30=31â¬. And this is where consumer behaviour comes into play. Paying 70⬠for a Force of Will seems reasonable, as itâs like twice the basic price and thatâs okay for a unique piece of art. But paying 30⬠for a Brainstorm? Câmon, itâs a freaking common! You get the picture, itâs hard to get your time worth on an altered Brainstorm, although itâs tough work.
The same goes for cards like Ponder or a âsimpleâ Forest.
So, the quick conclusion of these observations could be that the higher the card’s base value, the better the chances to sell an altered card. However, although the âpimp driveâ, as we might call it, applies to all cards, not all pimp methods are available / sought after for all cards. An extreme example is the Power 9. Of course there are neither Japanese nor Foil Power 9, as these cards don’t exist, but you will have a very hard time looking for altered art Power 9. Or Workshops / Libraries / Mana Drains, although these are the backbone of Vintage, the pimp format. How come? It’s due to the very high basic card values. I mean, if you had a card that’s worth several hundreds of euros, would you ship your cards to an unknown guy on the net to have him alter the cards? Would you buy altered art Power, risking that it be a counterfeit? I guess not. That’s why we will only see altered Power if it’s altered by Dan Frazier himself.
Note: The same is true for signed cards. I would advise you to not have your 100+⬠cards signed, if you’re planning to resell them.
But except for the 100+⬠cards, just any Vintage card will do, like this marvelous Mana Vault.
So where does this leave us? Let’s sum up:
- Altered art cards are for the Eternal market only.
- Extended art alterations tend to add the biggest value.
- Any card except for Power/Workshop/Library will be in demand.
- The biggest demand will be for cross-format multi-deck all-stars like
- Force of Will
- Brainstorm
- Polluted Delta
- Flooded Strand
- Duress
- Dark Ritual
Thanks for reading,
Matthias
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