Flipping through The Duelist Magazine

This week was my husband and I's 19th anniversary so we took a few days to hang out and get dinner and go shopping. While we were out we checked out the old comic book shop we used to buy cards from in high school. They have since moved to a larger location but the fact they were still in business is great. We got a few comics and such and I found a few hidden gems in the magazine section. Two early copies of Dragon magazine and a copy of The Duelist from 1995.

Lately I have been listening to Mark Rosewater's podcast while driving the kids to and from school every day. It's fun because he does it all on his drive to work. Anyway, he mentions the magazine from time to time and I was just stoked to find not only a copy but one that had the puzzler in the back that he had mentioned in the podcast.

I did a little video to show the inside of the magazine if you want to flip through the pages with me. I am also wrangling the audio on my videos because my iPhone mic isn't strong enough to pick up my voice when I'm standing above it to open packs and show off cards. There are four boxes of Journey Together coming in this Friday and I wanted my setup to be ready to go when I open them up. 

Anyway, going through the magazine was crazy because it showed not only vintage magic cards when they were first released but the prices that shops had for them. Several of the card shops that advertised in the magazine put prices for single cards and full sets.  You have to watch the video to see the prices, they will break your brain. 

I also managed to grab a few packs from older magic sets, which was cool to see just out on the shelf. 

One other small update this week, I added merch to the website via Printful. It was a toss up using Printful vs Printify and most people were in favor of the quality of Printful so that's what I'm going with for now. I've got a couple of shirts and some hats in there for now but I plan to add more fun things later this week. So just a heads up, I don't have these in stock, they are print on demand from a third party so give them a few weeks to get that to you. I don't plan to use that model for long. 

It is hard to promote collectible card games without using any of the IP whatsoever from the major games. Pokémon is more lenient I think with stuff because I see folks all over the place using Pokeballs and characters with the store branding all the time. Wizards on the other hand will send the Pinkerton's to your house if so much as a mana symbol shows up on something. So yeah, my merch will be card game "collecting" themed rather than "game" themed for now. More fun stuff to come, I'm working on a little mascot for the shop as well to make it more friendly and less motocross branding flavored. 

I'll do a post with the mascot soon, not sure what to name him yet. Anyway, I'll post again later this week with some updates and maybe some new Pokémon card hits.