From the Community board: Japanese Mirage

[gashole]

A few people are discussing the rarity and high quality of Japanese Mirage. I was just wondering if that holds true for the other sets. Is the Japanese printing usually the smallest? Is that print run info available anywhere?

[jpmeyer]

Japanese Mirage was IIRC a test run.  Japanese cards usually aren't really considered to be worth more than their English counterparts ever since like Invasion, because at that point it became the common practice to offer both Japanese and English booster drafts as side events in order to divide the more skilled and less skilled drafters.

[Michael in Osaka]

Hi,

I have know idea of the print run of Japanese cards, but I am sure there are less of them compared to English.  Pro Shop owners in Japan　 that I have talked to say that they sell about 70% more English boosters than Japanese.  

The main reason is the price, English are about 20% cheaper than Japanese.  

Pre Releases and PTQ (sealed events) are usually with Japanese packs, but most other shop sealed tournaments,  English packs are used.

I started Magic when Saga came out, so I don't know too much about Japanese Mirage.  

I do know that the average player  here plays magic for only 2 years than quits.  So, most of the cards that people have in their trade binders are from the last 2 big expansions.  I am seeing less and less of Saga and older.  

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I wanted to post a reply to this, but couldn't:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16151

Someone wrote about me:

Micheal French. He's on Motl (if you need a link to his e-mail is in my references [sig] ) I've dealt with him numerous times (and he gets an A++++). He lives in Japan and has quite the impressive collection. Drop him an e-mail and see if he can pull some strings, but keep in mind he charges top dollar for his stuff, he'll charge a bit extra (cash wise or throw-ins) if you ask him to get a specific card not on his list and depending on how hard it was to get that card he might tack on a bit more.

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I price my good Asian stuff @ the same price as English ebay high.  I price my timmy cards lower, and my casual stuff that if I can get cheap I try to sell at a cheap price. Some  very playable type one cards, I let demand figure out the value.  I know my prices are cheaper than shops sell cards in the states and what dealers charge at events.  I have been charging $5 for the Japanese Mirage Tutors, I sold at least 15 of them in the last two months, I just started charging $6, but after reading these post I will have to bump up the price a bit.

---Michael