hosted_card_vault

Just another hosted static site. (But this time to help group and display my very modest foray into the world of Graded and Vaulted TCG's and CCG's!)

It's a personal site only (intended to practice some e-commerce, UI/UX, and basic web dev - basically where I got my start before getting into digital banking/finance)!

It's like having office desk photos ... of TRADING CARDS!!!

Shout Outs and Contact Info

Specialist thanks to the many outstanding traders, players, customers, card shops, enthusiasts, and trading platforms that made this small collection possible!

Turns out many find over a period spanning almost a decade(ish) is starting to coalesce into a cool (Heirloom? Possibly?) collection! Many kudos and my sincerest well wishes to all others embarking on the same journey!

Please PM me for inquests, trades, requests, questions, and the like!

Contents

A gallery of cards I've collected from a variety of formats and games (and either have graded or will). Including:

• Doomlings - A fun, symmetric, Deck-Builder game.
• Sorcery: Contested Realm - Card Chess, awesomely combines classic Trading Card Game play with a 3D field of play (grid, flying, submerging), I'm a Kickstarter "super"-backer ("adventure capital" lol) and backed this, League-play.
• Altered TCG - Card Race Track (be the first to first unite with your pet friend), newly released, (a? the?) first mainstream non-violent Trading Card Game, Kickstarter-backer.
• Magic the Gathering - One of the "Big Three". Constructed, EDH Commander, FNM Promos, PTQ's, DCI, etc.
• Flesh and Blood - Constructed, like League of Legends in card format.
• Pokémon - First among the "Big Three". Various and random popular cards.
• Otherverse - Mostly defunct but interestingly unique artwork and gameplay.
• MetaZoo - Defunct. (But returning!) Animated, tongue-in-cheek, game about famous monsters/cryptids.
• Nostalgix TCG - Mostly defunct, Pokémon challenger game, Kickstarter-backer.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! - Another of the "Big Three", cool dragons.
• One Piece - Recent hit, based on the successful manga, intriguing backstory.

Benefits of Slabbing and Vaulting

1. Reduced shipping and handling - sell and stash your loot in the same place. Frictionless.
2. Reduced manual handling of your most valuable cards.
3. Risk averse - keep those cards safe from fires, earthquakes, and natural calamities. (Automatically insured too!)
4. Grading assigns a "quality" score that can increase the value of the raw card.
5. The "slab" itself is UV resistant (most "slabs" are acrylic polymers - BPA and PET free) and pretty much the best sleeve/protector you can get today. They are PVC and acid-free (unlike, as it turns out, many toploaders)!
6. "Slabs" may potentially see play (IMO) given cool new widgets like: https://gradedguard.com/. I personally despise sleeves (they break, they sometimes have PVC in them, you have to resleeve, etc.)! Broken sleeves add up over time.
7. Most importantly (IMO), you know you're getting a real card. Not a counterfeit.

Analysis

Definitions:

• Cost of Grading = the cost to Grade a card through PSA, CGC, etc.
• Raw Value = the face-value of an un-Graded NM card.
• Slabbed Value = recent buying/selling prices for a Graded card.
• Input Cost = Cost of Grading + Raw Value

Some assumptions, empirical observations, and data points being tested:

1. Slabbed Value >= Input Cost
2. Eventually, the supply of Raw cards will diminish to near-0 populations.
3. Slabbed Value is a composite of rarity (artificial, actual, etc.), aesthetics, playability, demand, age, nostalgia, and so on.
4. If people continue to buy up Raw cards (reducing Raw supply) and have them Graded (increasing Slabbed supply), Slabbed Values will nevertheless continue to increase (since age, playability, and Raw Value will continue to determine Slabbed Value).
5. The best time to buy cards is within a year after they're released Raw (but not immediately after set release). More precisely, the interval <= 12 months and >= 3 months.
6. The best growth of a card occurs if one holds a card purchased during the above window, has it Graded (at an 8 to 10 level) and for about a decade.
7. Cards Graded at 8 - 10 will see a premium reflected in their Slabbed Value. Cards at 7 shouldn't dip below Input Cost.
8. Even cards Graded below 8 will often increase to multiples of their Raw Value after 10 years.

Details of Use

This site is programmatically generated using my simple Card Lookup Helper tool through the command:

bash run.sh

1. Images used on this page are retrieved from the Official PSA and the Official CGC Certificate Population public registries!
2. Listed vault values are estimates based on time-specific snapshots.