I just moved into a new rental a week ago. The landlord said a past tenant went AWOL and just left some of their stuff. He tried to contact the person in question (now an expat in Thailand now) to tie up any loose ends, but to no avail. 

Some of the stuff left behind include a few appliances and gym equipment which now serve as furnishings for the place. There were also some random “junk” that my landlord said I could either take or throw away to free up space. It was a console table containing some dvds, WWE action figures, and this collection of Magic cards.

I have never touched Magic in my life, but I know what a black lotus is at very least. That being said, I now have at least a thousand cards in hand, with 21 small boxes each housing 60 or 70-ish cards. I took a few pictures of some of the cards located at the top of each pile/deck, as shown above. Most cards come in fours, but some cards reach up to 12 or 16 copies, and a few have foreign text on them. 

I also have three big card albums full of stuff. Some pages are pictured above. By the look of things 99% of the cards are from the 1990s and 2000s. Very old stuff, but interestingly it has a few cards from 2020 featuring Godzilla and friends which is located at the back of one of the albums. 

I assume the ones in boxes are decks, which makes me want to learn and play them. I just don’t know where to start of if there are any people to play with nearby. I really dig the look of the red cards/decks, they’re frickin beautiful. 

Part of me wants to sell but it’s very difficult to audit everything. I have thousands of cards but not much free time. I know what Google is but it’ll take forever to research everything. 

I’m contemplating on what to do with these. Having an instant collection is pretty nice, they look really cool, and these kinds of stuff isn’t too far from my alley anyway (I played Yugioh in middle school, love video games and anime). But the potential for a bit of extra cash is definitely enticing as well. 

How do I even go about such a huge collection, and are these things even worth playing/keeping at this point?

I’m a non-collector who just acquired a huge collection. Looking for advice on what to do next. (See post for context)