Limited Edition Cards

[ssc9309]

before i say anything, merry christmas to everyone.

so in the recent release of S&M v5, i was just surfing through ebay and ran into some past S&M cards.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Smoke-and-Mirrors-V3-Luxury-Edition-Playing-Cards-/320632752399?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4aa733890f

Its just a reference link on ebay on wat i saw, so no need to click it.


Back to the main question.
I do understand why such decks as jerry's nugget is so expensive. because it is actually 40 years old, old finishes, etc.
but why cards like S&M, which can be manufactured as much as there needs to be, are being made as a 'limted edition'?
shouldnt cards be just Cards? just made for people to use for their magic, flourish, etc.?
its not like the quality changes because there are less of them in the world.

i guess having something that not everyone has makes to a little happier but should that really matter on what you do?
What are your thoughts on this?


ps. i was just in the mood for some serious talk . and again, Merry Christmas! (cuz i wont be able to say it again on the actual day)

 

[deckmastercards]

I like that some decks are so hard to get. It allows for it to be a hobby open to collectors such as myself. I would never buy as many cards as I do if they went out for $5, and stayed $5 until the day I died because they are ALWAYS in production.

Limited runs are awesome. I kind of wish they were even more limited than now. The beauty is that you can always get an amazing deck for real cheap. Like, if you missed out on the S&M just get a deck of Stingers! They're almost exactly alike.

However, for those of us that like owning something that few people can grab their hands on, we enjoy limited runs of cards. It also gives you a feeling of seniority. Three years from now when the v5's cost $40 per deck, it's nice to look at your collection and smile about how you got them for $6 a pack!

Granted what I am 100% against is artificially creating scarcity. JN's will never be worth what people buy them for. There are tens of thousands of unopened decks that one or two people hold.

Limited runs are fun, but artificial limited quantity is pathetic, selfish and cheap on the part of the holder.

That's just my opinion, though.

 

[formula]

shouldnt cards be just Cards?

Shouldn't wine just be wine, shouldn't cheese just be cheese. Also I'm sure you've heard the old saying,"quality over quantity". I think it's nice to have quality cards that arent very common.

 

[XabierL]

I would like to have some "special" cards, for magic, but I wouldnt pay 80 bucks for them, since Im not a collector! Ill be etting some brown wynns and white centurions soon and I dont know if Ill sell them or not, because even if theyre good and nice cards, if theres some collector that will pay me 100 bucks for them... I could get up to 100 packs of Bikes!

 

[ssc9309]

Shouldn't wine just be wine, shouldn't cheese just be cheese. Also I'm sure you've heard the old saying,"quality over quantity". I think it's nice to have quality cards that arent very common.

i guess thats very true. it may have been because i was just looking at the practicality of cards.
but looking at from that 'wine being wine' i guess anything can be more special than the others of the same kind.

thx for your enlightenment

 

[Haunter]

I think it makes good business sense. Printing decks in smaller runs has a few benefits.
1: If that particular design just does awful they won't have a warehouse full of a billion units that they can't do a thing with. It is much more financially responsible to print smaller batches in this case.
2: That the deck is printed in a limited run can pump buying temperature. You may never be able to get these cards again, especially at this price anyway.
3: If there is a huge demand for more of an out of print deck they can have that option to do an additional run if they really wanted to.
4: ...better yet they can do a revised or improved version. See: S&Ms.
5. The scarcity of these decks then adds to the perceived value after the fact that they have sold out so t11 can use their remaining reserves as prizes and the like for contests and promotions. Because the market value and perceived value of decks typically jumps significantly after the deck is out of stock, this equates to t11 having these 5 dollar decks with much more than 5 dollars worth of impact.

I know it would be much more convenient for the customer if we could get any deck we would like, in any quantity we would like, for the same price it has always been but the lengths these companies would have to go to make this happen are just flat out unreasonable.

 

[onimushalord89]

I feel that these purposefully limited runs are advertising crap. D1EI's are no different in feel than Sentinels. Just the design is different. They are printed to be special and that kind of unneeded marketing aggravates me.

Take S&M V1, from what I heard, they were printed for D&D themselves. However they had to get a lot to keep cost down so they sold the rest. They had no idea it would become such a popular deck. They became popular because they looked great and felt different to any other deck. Now S&M's are just a marketing ploy. Fake value. from purposefully limiting runs.

 

[formula]

That's business at it's core onimushalord89. It's the same as magic videos, they rarely show the effect in it's true form. It's commonly made to look much better than it really is to make people buy it. What annoys me is when it clearly states cards are printed in "limited quantities" but it doesn't state how many. "Limited quantities" makes people buy then but "limited" could mean 50,000 bricks. DnD cards sell out in a matter for weeks, other "limited" cards are on sale for months if not longer.

 

[XCMcardful]

One thing i dont get is why make them limited? You make them for less than you sell them so every deck you sell you receive money. S&Ms are not going to cost 6$ to make or they would lose money. They should just make more so they get MORE money, so they can make MORE cards, and make even MORE money.

 

[RikAllen]

One thing i dont get is why make them limited? You make them for less than you sell them so every deck you sell you receive money. S&Ms are not going to cost 6$ to make or they would lose money. They should just make more so they get MORE money, so they can make MORE cards, and make even MORE money.

What if the objective isn't to make more money?

How do we know what their true goals are?

 

[Vorezo]

Also making them limited make sales come faster. If they said they would be available for a long time I would not have bought 40 decks so fast. If they print 20 000 decks and say not limited it could be weeks before they sell out. So they end up making a nice amount in a short time span instead of a smaller amount over a long time.

 

[eostresh]

I guess I can't speak for them, but I would guess that a lot of these guys are real card afficionados. If you look at the history of Dan and Dave's curated shopping section, you will see that over the years they have not only sold their own brand but introduced a lot of people to some really unique cards. What's more, they also sold those cards for a reasonable price. Ie. the Steamboats, before their(D&D's) supply ran out, were still being sold for a reasonable $2.50/pack when Kardwell had already jacked their prices to $10.00/pack.