A friend of mine, Perry Stewart, is responsible for this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He shared an Imgur gallery with reddit and Facebook last night and I think you should all see it. Before you click the link, be warned that you may scream involuntarily and these pictures are shocking and disturbing and may trigger the vomit reflex.

Imgur Gallery

So what happened?

On my way home from GP Cleveland this weekend I was playing mental magic with my cube in the back seat of the car. Around midnight we had to pull over on the shoulder and after a while I set the cube down on the top of the car. Needless to say we drove off and I did not notice it was missing until I got home.

Well, today a couple of friends were nice enough to go "geocaching" for it on the highway at the border of Indiana and Ohio (we live in western Michigan - 3 hours away).

When we found it there wasn't a single card left in the box and we went on the most profitable Easter Egg hunt in history. The cards were in a ditch just off the shoulder in about a quarter mile stretch.

All in all, we found 311/360 cards and (probably) all of the basic lands. Notable cards lost to the elements are: Tundra Flooded strand Hallowed fountain Sacred Foundry Stomping ground (will update as I think of them)

The pictures in the link are as follows:

1. Notable expensive cards that came out completely undamaged - I'd say I got relatively lucky here.
2. The notable cards that are no longer sleeve playable - May they rest in peace.
3. Everything we gathered at the site of the accident - The sleeves are dragon shield and held up really nicely. Countless sleeves were noticeably scraped or run over without any damage to the cards themselves. The lid to the box was run over and unsalvageable.
4. Expensive real estate that was recovered - I got extremely lucky in this department. They're all MP at best now, but it's mostly just minimal corner damage. Unfortunately, the volcanic and tropical islands were gem mint before it happened.
5. Ratio of cards that are still sleeve playable to those that are not - While the importance obviously lies in what is in each pile, I'd say that this more that acceptable. The pile on the right is 57 cards while the one on the left is ~250. Keep in mind there is an invisible 50 card pile representing the cards that were not recovered.
6. This is just an overhead view of the cube after it was desleeved and laid out.
7. The three piles of lands represent those that are in great condition, those that are probably sleeve playable, and those that are not sleeve playable (left, right, top respectively).

Needless to say, the last 24 hours have been a roller coaster. I would have liked to have gotten footage or a picture of all the cards lying in the grassy ditch, but the cards were still blowing in the wind as each car passed and time was of the essence. I hope you all appreciate my story and didn't cringe too much.

 

Perry is lucky the cards were there when he went back and that the sleeves took most of the brunt of the damage. Don't leave anything on top of your car, coffee cups, babies, or Magic cubes. Newton's pretty clear about what happens when the difference between the vehicle's velocity and the box's velocity is enough to overcome the coefficient of static friction. Or whatever the correct science words are.