You may realize by now I really enjoy writing about trading. Well, not only do I enjoy writing about it, but I also am a very active trader. Usually of course, I go for cards, but I remember one time I basically traded for dinner, and this past FNM, I also traded for a playmat. In fact, this playmat (24" x 14"):
What do you value this at?
Also, I have found myself trading for a lot of pimped out cards recently, ranging from chinese/japanese cards, to foil cards, to those signed by the artist. One in particular was a foil M11 Rootbound Crag signed by the artist.
What would you value that at?
Some other cards I have been trading for are the full art promos, most recently a full art Bituminous Blast for
What would you value all those at?
You see, the problem with all those things I just listed are that there is no easy answer. You can't just hop onto TCGPlayer.com and check what the promos are going for.
That being said, just because that's the price TCG Player says it is doesn't mean it's actually worth that much. Consider when Beseiged was getting spoiled, Knight Exemplar was still a $2 card, but everyone I was trading with wouldn't move it at less than 5 because in the coming weeks it would go that high (it actually went up to 7, but has since fallen back to 6.
Guess what? It doesn't matter what TCG Player says the prices are, because they are merely a database of what online stores are selling various cards at, then averaging them out. Here's an example from my binder: I recently took apart my Reanimator, and I have built a Countertop-Humility control deck. I moved all the pieces of Reanimator from my deck to my binder including 4x Entomb (1 Chinese), 4x Reanimate, 3x Personal Tutor, and 4x Lim-Dul's Vault. According to TCGPlayer, their prices are:
Entomb - 31.51
Reanimate - 6.13
Personal Tutor - 20.65
Lim-Dul's Vault - 4.69
However, if you ask me what I value them in trade, I would say:
Entomb - 38
Reanimate - 8
Personal Tutor - 24
Lim-Dul's Vault - 6
Now, if the person I'm trading with is savvy, they will call me out on jacking the price up (which has already happened). Here's the thing though: If I am the only person there with Entomb and they want it without having to pay cash, they will have to pay my price. I don't WANT to move the card, but should a good enough deal come my way, I will not take "I like that deck and I might make it again" as an excuse to prevent something really good from happening. Because I price jacked a little, I am garunteed on gaining value, so I really can't complain.
Now that's great in theory, but does that actually work? There are 2 gas stations across the street from eachother about a block away from Toys. They are both self-serve gas stations, but their gas prices yesterday for regular unleaded gasoline were 3.03 and 3.17. Both are fairly easy to get into and out of, but one of them is now shut down and getting the underground gas tanks removed. Guess which one it was? The one charging 3.03 for gas. Why? They had the most awkward pumps I have ever used. They were the kind were you had to apply pressure from a really weird angle to make work, and the only employee there sat in this 5ft x 5ft office that looked more like a stereotypical telephone booth, and he was quite unhelpful. Compare this to the place across the street, which charged 14 more cents on the gallon, but had pumps you don't need to focus all your attention on to make work plus they had a full convenience store attached. People are willing to pay more for convenience and service.
So bringing this back to Magic, I know some people who say they absolutely refuse to buy singles. They buy packs (and I have seen them whiff enough time to have paid for 2 of the card they were looking for) and they trade for singles, but they won't buy singles.
Quick Aside
{
Buying packs until you get a single card is the most ineficient way to get what you're looking for. Let's take the granddaddy of them all for an example: Worldwake. Obviously if you open a Worldwake pack, you're looking for a Jace. There were 35 rares and 10 mythics in Worldwake. There are 2 rares printed for every mythic, which means there are effectively 70 rares and 10 mythics (remember, there's 1 mythic per 8 packs, which is 4.5 mythics per box). 80 packs x $3-4 a pack (depending where you go) = $240-320 in packs in the hope of opening a single Jace, the Mind Scultptor, who can be purchased as a single for as low as $90.77. AKA You bought 80 packs, but you could have bought 2.66 Jaces with that money. Yes I know there are other money cards besides Jace, but adding it all up, you barely get over (at 3 a pack) or lose 50 or so dollars (at 4 a pack), and much of that is due to the explosion in price that Stoneforge has just received, although Creeping Tar Pit is currently 7-8!
}
End Aside
It's those kind of people that are willing to go ahead and play into my higher price for my card. It's not manipulative, it's business. I really enjoy reading Jon Medina's articles on SCG because he includes a ton of stories with his articles. One of those stories included someone who put his Watery Grave at $45 despite Jon telling him how SCG sells it for 10. The guy trading with Jon decided he values his Watery Grave at 45, and that's what he is going to sell it at, and here is where we get to some really interesting basic concepts; that of supply and demand. I have always enjoyed the concept of supply and demand, because I really like thinking about human psycology and how people will interact with eachother about various things.
Quick Aside
{
One of my girlfriends of old also enjoyed seing how people would react to various situations as well. Naturally, after about 5 or 6 months of dating, we decided to mess around to how people reacted, so we broke up over facebook, which was a very common and visual medium for us to communicate. We changed relationship statuses, posted those sad emo-like statuses, changed profile pictures if we were in eachother's, etc. The reactions were very interesting ranging from the ditzy OMG NO WAY!!!!?!?!?! to the skeptical "dude, you didn't seem like anything was wrong yesterday". It was a ton of fun and we "got back together" 3 days later.
}
End Aside
If a store had Stoneforge Mystic in stock at $15, would you buy it? I'm sure most of you would say YES!! but what if that store hadn't changed its price for the past year, and has been selling the card for $15 since it was released? When Stoneforge was released, it started at 1-2, then crawled up to 5-6, then LSV went 16-0 with it in his deck and it jumped to 10-12, then slowly settled back down to 6-7 again. Now at PT Paris, several pros have likened this card to Bitterblossom and it tripled in price from 7 to 21 overnight. That store may have looked like fools selling this $1-2 crap rare for 15 back in the day, but they would have competely sold out over the PT weekend. Maybe that store owner knew all along this card was nuts, but no one would take his word for it because "it's not in any top decks"
Quick Aside
{
Just because a card isn't played in a current overwhelmingly powerful deck doesn't mean it's bad. 2 months ago a guy told me GW Quest sucked becuase it wan't a deck pros were advocating. What just Top 8'd Paris?
}
End Aside
There are so many ways we can value cards, it's crazy! I'm going to go back to the Watery Grave Example for a minute. SCG has many languages of this card in stock:
English - 10
English (foil) - 25
German - 14
Italian - 11
Japanese - 13
Russian - 11
Interesting....
So where can we go from here? Am I just ranting? No, I'm saying as the one who owns the cards, you can move the cards at whatever price you want. You're the shop owner of your own trade binder. While this is obviously terrible timing on my part, you can use this mindset during preview season for a new set. From time to time, when I saw a new card, I told myself what I would buy that card at. I don't remember most because I would see half a dozen new cards at a time, but I do remember Thrun. I said to myself, "That looks like a solid $8-10 card." You know the rest of the story. But I haven't purchased any, I have only back drafted one, which I moved at 20 (he is currently at 17).
Anyways, that's all for me today! Until next time, stay classy!
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