what is the oldest magic the gathering card?

Answer 1

Since the game is released in sets there isn't an oldest card.

The oldest set put into production for public sale was simply 'Magic the Gathering' with no additional sub titles, released in 1993.

It was first printed in two black bordered production runs known to collectors as Alpha and Beta. You may find them listed or sold as Limited edition Alpha and Limited edition Beta. These were followed by a third printing of the same cards known as Unlimited Edition with white borders.

Those three printings are the original core set; after that came expansions and than new core sets with new card lists.

Additional Information:

The Alpha card set was first, the Beta print run which followed was intended to simply be an additional printing of the same cards with a few typos fixed and color corrections (and a couple of cards card added that had been accidentally left out) , however the manufacturer accidentally changed the corner shapes of the cards.

Alpha cards have a rounded corner and do not align with other cards. The Beta print run had a more squared (though still clipped) corner; the Beta style turned out to be more popular and that shape has continued to be used for more than 20 years in all of the additional core sets and expansions.

With the game growing in popularity the company decided to change from a limited edition release to what is now known as 'unlimited'. The unlimited print run is a much larger printing of the same cards from Alpha/Beta but with white borders. The announced intent was to use black bordered cards to designate limited print runs and white border cards to designate unlimited mass production print runs.

This concept of border colors to define print run sizes and limited printings was never followed consistently and has in recent years been abandoned entirely with all cards from current sets (post 2010) being printed with black borders. Even the poorly named unlimited edition print run was quickly out of print; making the concept of 'unlimited' basically meaningless.

The Alpha, Beta and Unlimited editions represent the oldest magic cards released to the public and except for various minor changes in appearance they are essentially what would now be called a 'core set'. Alpha, Beta and unlimited are essentially 3 prints runs of the same original core set with their only major differences being color changes, typo fixes and various mistake corrections (such as incorrectly credited artists and the missing dual land from Alpha)

Though Alpha, Beta and Unlimited were originally designed to simply be three printings of the same set, and the card list (by name) is relatively the same there are enough visual differences between them that collectors treat them as three different sets.

After that initial core set of 'Magic the Gathering' (Alpha/Beta/Unlimited) came the first expansion to the game (with entirely new cards) Arabian Nights, which is also the first release to contain a 'set symbol' which made it easy to identify it was not part of the core set. Set symbols remain in use today and have evolved to include coloration to designate rarity. Even modern core sets now include set symbols to easily identify when they were released.

The next printing of a core set was called Revised and included attempts at clarifying the rules with revisions and new terminology; but the largest change was in the cards themselves. The revision of the core set removed many of the most powerful cards from the original set and cycled in some cards from expansions. This concept of cycling out old cards and mixing in new ones into the core set has continued to this day with each new printing.

The Alpha/Beta/Unlimited print runs of the original 'Magic the Gathering' release were all published in 1993 along with the first expansion Arabian Nights. Additional expansions and the 'revised edition' core set were released in 1994 and each subsequent year since than has seen new expansions and updated core sets.

269 cards (out of the original 302 from Alpha/Beta/Unlimited) were allowed to remain in the Revised set. Revised had a total of 306 cards; 37 of which were cycled in from expansions.

Note; the most famous cards from the original release:

The 9 most powerful and famous cards removed and not reprinted in revised are collectively known as 'The Power Nine' and include: Black Lotus, Time Walk, Time Twister, Ancestral Recall, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby and Mox Emerald. These are generally considered the most valuable and sought after cards from the Alpha/Beta/unlimited generation of core sets. Players and collectors alike desire these not just for their rarity, buy also because they can still be used in certain levels of tournament play.

While there are many other powerful out of print cards these nine are practically legendary.

The only cards which surpass them in rarity are a few non-playable special occasion cards and some rare misprints which are sought after by collectors but not necessarily by players.

Note; Summary of changes between the Alpha, Beta and Unlimited print runs:

The Alpha print run set is 295 cards (74 common, 95 uncommon, 116 rare, 5 basic lands (by name) each with alternate art for a total of 10 basic lands (by picture))

The Beta print run changed the corner shape, corrected printing errors, clarified some rules text and added the following missing cards:

Circle of Protection Black (common)

Volcanic Island (rare)

5 alternate art images for basic lands (one of each: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest)

The Beta print run set is 302 cards (75 common, 95 uncommon, 117 rare, 5 basic lands (by name) with 3 images each for a total of 15 basic lands (by picture))

The unlimited edition contains the same 302 cards (by name and image) with the border colors changed to white.

Note; Approximate total cards per print run of the first year of release:

Alpha: 2.6 million cards (August 1993)

Beta: 7.8 million cards (October 1993)

Unlimited: 40 million cards (December 1993)

Arabian Nights: 5 million cards (December 1993)

Note; cards older than Alpha: technically speaking there are 'play test cards' older than Alpha which were used to design and develop the game; however these were mostly hand made or printed on regular paper using copy machines and than glued to either Poker cards or index cards. Due to their easily copied paper images and the fact they were never intentionally released to the public these are generally considered a novelty to own as the only way to verify they are real would be to trust the source which passed them on to you. They also can not be played with any normal cards under normal rules since they are not the correct size or shape to shuffle into a deck.