MTG - end of an era

I use to play MTG when it was BIG. It peaked just around the time the Ice Age expansion came out. MTG was the only card game out there, there was nothing like it, everyone I knew who collected comics or was into D&D also played. I collected until Urza's Saga came out, and the addition of yet more stupid annoying rules made me quit collecting and playing altogether. I should have sold my cards then. But I was hoping that either they would make a comeback, or I'd be able to play again w/ some regularity. So I kept them.

Not that I played a single game of magic in the last 10 years, but I've kept them close to my heart. Hoping some day that I could find people to play with, people who were not impatient impolite teens with $400 decks that had all the time in the world to study the new rules that come out every 3 months, and no time for old codgers like me who just wanted to play open, unlimited, for fun. I tried a few comic stores that had an extra room for Magic The Gathering back in the 90's, and had no luck finding the right vibe.

Today I sold them to a college student who supplements his income by reselling them. He paid cash, and I am now out 1 entire box of magic cards. A file box full that I didn't have to part out card by card, look up, research, package, and sell individually. Sure I could have gotten 5x what he paid, but it's out, gone, and it won't be looking at me with big 'MTG' in red ink every time I walk by the bookshelf. It won't taunt me any more with potential playability. I have too many other projects and art and things to do.

I dreamt about the cards all last night, of selling them or of keeping and selling them myself. That I'd make so much more if I focused on just selling them, time I don't have, and when I woke I knew that I was getting time back by getting rid of them. If I really wanted to put in the effort to sell them, I had a decade to do it, and didn't.

I did spent 2 hours last night taking one last loving look at the cards, remembering favorite decks, long hours playing with friends, the first few excited days of learning what the hell the game was all about with a friend who was equally lost, the days when I would eagerly await the next expansion, of saving for a handful of booster packs.

OK, I did keep 4 cards. I sold over 3000 of them, so it's not like I kept a whole card box. It was an odd 4, nothing rare, just because I loved the cards, not the art (otherwise I would have dug out all the Quinton Hoovers, and it would have been another couple weeks before I got around to posting the ad) and used them a lot.

Now I wish I could hand every box I have to a college student and he'd pay me that much. I'd much prefer the space than the stuff.