By Tony Guo
I take a lot of pride in my ability to build a magic collection. However, it hasn't been easy getting to where I am today. I made a lot of mistakes trading and speculating. I hope to pass some of that wisdom to you.
Worst 10 Trades:
10. Trading with Store Owners: Foil misty rainforest for sleeves
I don't know whether I can really consider this a bad trade, but some times the investment does not pan out. I often give really good deals to store owners in hopes that they will later reward me for my loyalty. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Yesterday I traded a foil misty rainforest for some card sleeves, deck boxes, and a foil delver. When you trade to the store, you lose more than 50% of the value.
While it remains to be seen whether this was a good trade. It does leave a bitter aftertaste when you trade a 100 dollar card for supplies. I'm guilty of doing this very often. I like to support my local game stores and this is my favorite way. It is a bad trade in the sense I could get more from starcity games or just trading. But it is the type of bad trade I am most happy with.
9. Force of will for what?!
When coldsnap came out, people believed force of will would be reprinted. Instead of pouncing on this opportunity I got scared and traded away a playset.... that was a huge mistake. I traded them for a silver queen and a few other bulk rares.
Lesson: try to remain calm and rationale during specuation. I have lost a lot of value offloading when I panic. In hindsight, even if they were reprinted they would still be worth more than what I traded for.
8. The 200 dollar Craigslist Collection
While I was in college, I found an ad on craigslist for a magic the gathering collection. The description was sort of vague, but I could see a lot of older cards from the photo. I called the guy and we met in a subway station.
Long story short, he was very creepy and the collection was trash. He did not let me see it before buying and guilted me into buying the collection.
The most valuable cards in the collection were a few beta lands. Now I never buy collections without a very good description of what is in them. Try not to let people guilt you into trading. These trades are among the worst type you can make.
7. Silver queen for Avatar of Hope
The aforementioned Silver queen was traded for an avatar of hope. I was making an avatar deck and that was the last one I needed.
Lesson here is to never get carried away. Don't be afraid of saying no to stupid offers. I was guilted into doing the trade, since the guy said it was his favorite card (it wasn't; he traded it away the next week).
6. Foil tinker and Foil Tangle Wire for bulk rares
Long story short, I was consistently sharked by a few douches when I was in middle school (they actually had a wizards store in the mall that ran tournaments). They sharked everyone. This was my first real introduction to how cruel traders can be. When I look back at it, it is sort of sad. I don't feel sad for me, because I learned, I feel sad for those sharks.
The lesson is sharks never change. If you have been sharked once by a trader.... trust me they will continue to shark you until you have nothing left.
5. Selling Out.... The most recent time.
I sold my entire collection a year ago for 400 dollars cash and 200 dollars credit.... The credit ran out within two months.
What was in the collection? Two force of wills, a foil Akroma, four wastelands, a playset of windswept heaths, two foil eslpeths knight errand... and other stuff.
I am glad I sold to my friend who owned a store. He made back the 600 dollars in two weeks and made a significant profit. We still joke about how he threw in the 200 dollar credit to get me back into the game. I spent a lot in that store....
4. Buying a collection for 2,000 dollars on Craiglist
When I moved to Houston I saw an ad for an amazing collection. There were 10 dual lands and 8 force of wills. I did a intensive calculation and it seemed like a good deal. The guy originally asked for 10,000 dollars. I thought I was clever and negotiating him down to only 2,000 dollars.
Well.... it turns out the collection wasn't worth much more than I paid for it. When you spend that type of money, you really need to get at least buylist values. Outside the 10 duals and 8 force of wills there was not much else. I still have a ton of bulk cards from that deal and little hope of moving any of it.
3. Starting a new hobby by selling magic cards
I got addicted to cardfight vanguard which is a new card game. To fund this addiction I sold a lot of magic cards. Almost 1,000 dollars of magic cards at buylist.
It is impossible to buy at buylist, but when you want to sell.... it is easy as going to any tournament and finding a dealer. In fact random people on youtube will try to find you.
Also, never deal with someone who "owns a store" but can not verify this. Everyone on craigslist "owns a gaming store" and therefore is entitled to buying at low prices to meet overhead... give me a break.
2. Selling out for the second time....
Same story. Different cards. Similar price.
I sold 5 force of wills, 5 lion's eye diamonds, a mox jet, and 8 duals, among other lesser stuff for the low low price of 750 dollars.
This was when I was in high school, before starting college. I didn't think I would want to continue to play magic without my friends. As fate would have it, my floor at NYU had two extremely good magic players... so yeah...
1. Selling out for the first time.....
Again Same Story... but much worst.
Like I said, I've been playing since beta. I opened probably 30-40 beta boosters and a whole bunch of unlimited. I am not sure exactly how many duals I had... since no one really cared about duals. But I probably had at least a few beta duals.
I did remember a certain beta mox sapphire I had. Back in the day, we didn't use sleeves... so the condition was probably very poor... but still.
I sold all of this during middle school for a shocking price of 400 dollars which was more than I paid for the boosters....
Lesson: don't sell your collection ever...
Man, I gotta relate to you about selling a collection like that... Mine was not nearly as impressive as many stories but most of my collecting, trading and playing took place during the Weatherlight cycle and Urza's cycle. I had my first out at the end of Apocalypse because I was one of the few who actually enjoyed that storyline and hatted to see it go.
ReplyDeleteMy collection was 1,000+ and stacked full of the rares from Stronghold, Tempest, Exodus and Urza's. I was pressured into unloading it on eBay from my parents and was not smart enough to list all of these rares, many of which have become hallmarks of the game, like the Yawgmoths Will, Sliver Queen, Cursed Scroll, Volraths Stronghold, etc. Instead of getting proper value I barely got over $100 for the set. Today my 6-8 copies of each of those rares would have netted well over the $100 on their own.
It is a good idea to suggest we hang on to the same cards of today like that? This is a good question because the game has changed a lot. In the late 90's when I was playing the game was not as popular or widespread as it is today. I also don't think the print runs were nearly as much as they are today.
The bigger question is do I look around for all of these beautiful cards I gave up and hold on to them, knowing they are tournament staples for years to come? Many of these I consider better investments than dual-lands because they definitely do have upside in that more can be discovered with them and new combos can be made. Everyone has their radar on power-nine and dual lands.
Yeah that was a very nice collection. I loved the tempest set. It was probably my favorite.
DeleteWow a 100 dollars. Volrath's Stronghold is 20 a piece, Silver queen is 25, and you probably have a lot more valuables that have spiked recently.
Yes. You should hold onto to EDH cards. As long as EDH exists there will always be a market.
While the game has changed a lot. The principles are still the same. Some cards will go up. Some will go down. But on a whole, as low as people enjoyed the set, the cards will be okay.
There is nothing better than duals in my honest opinion. Make sure to study the reserve list. Things on the reserve list can not be reprinted. They are the most safe.
The biggest risk is reprints. Reprints typically plummet a card's price. It's a real and serious risk as Wizards has proven over and over again, that as long as it is not on the reserve list, they will reprint it. even if it is a hundred dollars.
That's why i try not to stock up on too many cards that are not on the reserve list.
It's all about how much risk you want to take. Duals are low risk, steady profit. While the cards you are talking about can spike, but they can also plummet.
The biggest danger, besides reprints, are wizards makes a stronger better version. Recently they have started doing that.