A Collection of Booster Packs

So, I recently began going through my collection doing some cleaning. Of course, I have saved every single booster pack I ever opened, so I had a lot. Like... this many:

That is actually a picture I took of the booster packs filling up one of those large black plastic trash bags. It fills up about half way. Now, I didn't voluntarily throw these away. That was my girlfriend's idea. Fortunately, she had another idea: Keep one of each art of a booster pack. Of course, this varies for each set with typically 5 for large sets and 3 for small sets, but I don't have a lot of sets from the earlier years, so I had to keep all of them for those (like for Kamigawa block and original Ravnica block, I only opened one pack for each set).

Anyway, I kept these packs and they are now sitting in a binder in card protector pages made for the oversized cards (but they fit booster packs with room to spare just fine). Without further ado, please check out the collection I've built:

4th Edition (White Border French), Portal: Second Age, Nemesis, Invasion

7th Edition, Apocalypse, Torment, Mirrodin

Mirrodin, Mirrodin, Champions of Kamigawa, Betrayers of Kamigawa

Saviors of Kamigawa, Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guildpact, Dissension

Coldsnap, Morningtide, Shards of Alara Block Premium Foil, Zendikar

Zendikar, Zendikar, Zendikar, Zendikar

Worldwake, Worldwake, [Missing Rise of the Eldrazi], Rise of the Eldrazi

Rise of the Eldrazi, Rise of the Eldrazi, Rise of the Eldrazi, M11

M11, [Missing M11], M11, M11

Scars of Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin

Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Beseiged, Mirrodin Beseiged, Mirrodin Beseiged

Mirrodin Beseiged (French), New Phyrexia, New Phyrexia, New Phyrexia

M12, M12, M12, M12

M12, Innistrad, Innistrad, Innistrad

Innistrad, Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Dark Ascension

Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Avacyn Restored, Avacyn Restored

Avacyn Restored, Avacyn Restored, M13, M13

M13, M13, M13, M13 (Chinese)

M13 (Russian), M13 (Chinese), M13 (Japanese), M13 (Korean)

Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica

Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Gatecrash, Gatecrash

Gatecrash, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Dragon's Maze

Dragon's Maze, Modern Masters, Modern Masters, Modern Masters

M14, M14, M14, M14

M14, Theros, Theros, Theros

Theros, Theros, Born of the Gods, Born of the Gods

Born of the Gods

So, how are these arranged other than by date of set release? Well, if I have foreign and English of the same set, I put the foreign after all the English packs, but then I arrange it by pack serial number. Let's flip over the Phenax pack:

Look at the bottom left. It reads 150A3446000003 EN. In all of these, Torment is the first to have one of these numbers, and during this search, I discovered my Apocalypse pack was made in Belgium while other packs I have were made in the US, but as near as I can tell, all the packs after Torment have a serial number that starts with "150" and ends with a number between 1 and 5. Of course, EN indicates the language, which  in this case is English, but the others in my collection are CS for Chinese, FR for French, JP for Japan, KR for Korean, and RU for Russian. Also, you may notice the "FABRIQUE AUS ETATS-UNIS." which is French for "Made in the United States" which I can assume is there for anyone in Canada.

Looking through, my the Mirrodin Beseiged French pack and the M13 Russian pack were made in Belgium while the other foreign boosters from M13 were made in the US. I'm not sure where the French 4th edition pack was made since it doesn't say, but it may be safe to assume it was made in the US that early.

If you know the answer to where the 4th Edition French packs were made, please leave a comment to let everyone else know. I know they did white and black border French for 4th Edition, so maybe that makes a difference. Also, if you have empty booster packs from sets I don't have or art from a set that isn't here, please contact me because I would be interested in obtaining those empty packs.

I hope everyone has enjoyed this short trip through some Magic history.