Does anyone have any insight into why some cards are priced very differently in the U.S. and europe? I'm more interested in trends (e.g. fringe legacy cards, or recent foil commons) than specific cards (e.g. most recent WMCQ promo).
Also, does anyone know of any tools that make such comparisons easier? Similar to how some sites aggregate vendor prices and buylist prices, but for the U.S. plus Europe, instead of only U.S.
This is a difficult question, one that probably has no clear answer, but will rather be based on your own observations.
Each of the markets, eternal staples, standard, foils, etc all function differently.
Vintage is basically a category of its own.
Instead of making a generalization to unify each of the separate markets in each region, you're better off just observing the differences for yourself.
I will say this though,
the differences between the American and European markets suggest that trade barriers exist between the two.
These barriers are effectively transaction costs, and aren't necessarily dollar amounts, but include the labor and hassle to transact, the time and expense involved, and the considerable risk of trading with a random party overseas.
Pretty much as TomCat stated. EU is these days pretty much on the MCM (Magic card market) bandwagon, where regular players have for years competed with stores to bring the supply and demand to equilibrium much faster than in US, so we have lower presale prices and shallower spikes after buy-outs. The MCM fees are just 5% and it's very easy platform to use. For Eu prices, check MCM.
In US we have TCG-player and eBay, both, which take larger fees and if you don't have an american bank account incur pretty large fees, when you try to get real money out of PayPal.
I ran the numbers several times, seeing if I could start selling cards bought from MCM on eBay to make any money and found only few random cases where the shipping and fees actually allowed me to earn any money, and even those were cards, where the supply of cheap copies were already dwindling (Like Nm-/SP Italian Mana Drains for 40 euros each. After the first eight the price was nearly 50 euros and the profit margin became much less appealing. Also four of the eight were misgraded, and were MP instead of SP). The other card-set were foreign fbb dual lands, where the sales times were pretty long and insured shipping to US kills the profit margins.
In the end I can make playing this game pretty affordable just buying and selling on MCM, so why go through all the trouble to start creating a good eBay reputation, when it will not even earn me the minimum wage. And after I sat on the Drains for 18 months, the value for even MP copies has gone up 50% on MCM, and selling is much easier.
Each of the markets, eternal staples, standard, foils, etc all function differently.
the differences between the American and European markets suggest that trade barriers exist between the two.
These barriers are effectively transaction costs, and aren't necessarily dollar amounts, but include the labor and hassle to transact, the time and expense involved, and the considerable risk of trading with a random party overseas.
Thanks for the answer. I agree, differences have to be considered on separate markets. I still think it's possible to make generalizations within each group. E.g. spiked modern staples are nearly always cheaper in Europe. Are there other simple generalizations?
The differences are "protected" by barriers to fast and simple transactions. I think that a significant part of that may lie with the mindset of U.S. traders, many of whom are unused to trading across international borders, whereas international trading is common in europe, since the domestic market in each country is pretty small (comparable, perhaps, to trading within your state in the U.S.?). For me, the cost difference between shipping to U.S. and say Germany, is about $0.50 for small trade or $1 for a large (but not bulk-large) trade. What are the cost differences from the U.S. side?
Pretty much as TomCat stated. EU is these days pretty much on the MCM (Magic card market) bandwagon, where regular players have for years competed with stores to bring the supply and demand to equilibrium much faster than in US, so we have lower presale prices and shallower spikes after buy-outs.
In US we have TCG-player and eBay...
I ran the numbers several times...
I think the different ways MCM and TCG display prices can contribute to this. TCG price histories show the prices based on what sellers are asking for cards. MCM price trend is based on closed transactions. This means that someone buying all cheap copies of a card on TCG will show the price history spike to the high price of whoever has expensive copies listed, whereas the MCM history curve will ignore the expensive, but unsold, copies that no one wants to buy. Both those data points are "real" values (one is the current price for buying a card, the other is the price other people have been ok with paying), but it's important to understand the differences when comparing them. It's an inherent different between these two that MCMs will show less spiky behavior. But the difference between player-driven and vendor-driven prices is, as you point out, an important factor as well.
Thanks for the anecdote, I'm glad it worked out for you. You're probably be aware of this, but the common names for card conditions in europe are not the same as in the U.S., a comparison between the card condition guides of TCGplayer and MCM shows the difference. MCMs definition of "lightly played" actually allows for pretty significant wear, wheras TCG's doesn't!
TCGPlayer has actually taken some steps to improve their price history recently. They're showing "market price" now, which is based on recently sold copies. I don't think they've laid out exactly how they're coming up with the figure, but it's a visibly significant improvement over the previous method of basing it on listings. I'm optimistic that it helps to rein in some of the price spikes, or at least lower the longer term impact.
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TCGPlayer has actually taken some steps to improve their price history recently. They're showing "market price" now, which is based on recently sold copies. I don't think they've laid out exactly how they're coming up with the figure, but it's a visibly significant improvement over the previous method of basing it on listings. I'm optimistic that it helps to rein in some of the price spikes, or at least lower the longer term impact.
Great news! I mostly get tcgplayer prices through other sites that use their API, and some of those still use their old value, so I was not aware of this.
I see they still have their "listed median" values available. It'd be interesting to analyze the difference between the "market price" and the "listed median", if our assumptions are correct the "market price" should almost always be lower than "listed median", with an exception for sharply dropping prices (which happens on unexpected bannings, and almost nothing else). I don't have the time or inclination to crunch the data on this, but I looked up a couple of cards, for fun. One legacy card that gets skewed prices due to few available copies, one modern staple and one standard staple. Euro-prices from MCM converted to $ with google.
Moat, english Legends: Three copies on TCGplayer, all MP or LP. 40+ copies on MCM, all conditions.
TCGplayer "market price" $394.66
TCGplayer "listed median" $558.34
MCM "price trend" $485.70
Noble Hierarch, english mm15: nine prices on TCGplayer, 100+ prices on mcm.
TCGplater "market price" $55.12
TCGplayer "listed median" $66.43
MCM "price trend" $48.49
Tireless Tracker, english SOI: 26 prices on TCGplayer, 1000+ prices on mcm
TCGplater "market price" $4.18
TCGplayer "listed median" $4.49
MCM "price trend" $4.19
One additional issue witk MCM is that any purchases through MCM, the buyer will always pay for shipping. On TCG, the seller quite often pays for shipping, or has standard 0.99 shipping. In europe the shipping is always minimum of 1.20 and quite often over 2 euros. All purchases over 25 euros need tracking, which is an additional 4-8 euros, depending on the sellers country.
MCM uses the 'old standard' grading, mint, nm, ex, good, played and poor with their own grading guide. I just generalized to the SP/MP categories.
One additional issue witk MCM is that any purchases through MCM, the buyer will always pay for shipping. On TCG, the seller quite often pays for shipping, or has standard 0.99 shipping. In europe the shipping is always minimum of 1.20 and quite often over 2 euros. All purchases over 25 euros need tracking, which is an additional 4-8 euros, depending on the sellers country.
MCM uses the 'old standard' grading, mint, nm, ex, good, played and poor with their own grading guide. I just generalized to the SP/MP categories.
That's great information Default User. Thanks for running through some examples. I find it interesting that the newer cards are pretty spot on with pricing once you factor shipping into the equation. It looks close enough that variance is minor.
More interesting are the old cards. Moat is over 20 years old and with so few out there prices vary wildly between continents. Something to consider moving forward is that if you're in the market for very old cards, it's certainly worth your time to search internationally.
One additional issue witk MCM is that any purchases through MCM, the buyer will always pay for shipping. On TCG, the seller quite often pays for shipping, or has standard 0.99 shipping. In europe the shipping is always minimum of 1.20 and quite often over 2 euros. All purchases over 25 euros need tracking, which is an additional 4-8 euros, depending on the sellers country.
MCM uses the 'old standard' grading, mint, nm, ex, good, played and poor with their own grading guide. I just generalized to the SP/MP categories.
That's great information Default User. Thanks for running through some examples. I find it interesting that the newer cards are pretty spot on with pricing once you factor shipping into the equation. It looks close enough that variance is minor.
More interesting are the old cards. Moat is over 20 years old and with so few out there prices vary wildly between continents. Something to consider moving forward is that if you're in the market for very old cards, it's certainly worth your time to search internationally.
Not just for Moat, but any card with less than, say, ten U.S. sellers. When the number of sellers is that low the difference can be quite big. On the other hand, grading is a huge issue for old cards. Sellers on MCM can be quite loose with their grading, as in Default User's story. I know players in my country who are willing to pay the extra premium to buy cards from the big name stores in the U.S because they are almost always super strict on grading and have good custommer service if they mess up. So they pay 20 - 30% extra, to be sure that they'll get NM cards.
Default User, I'd figured you knew what's what in terms of grading guides (making money on market arbitrage on Italian legends staples isn't exactly where beginners start ), my explanation was mostly included for other readers. I'm glad to see you could expand on it.
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Also, does anyone know of any tools that make such comparisons easier? Similar to how some sites aggregate vendor prices and buylist prices, but for the U.S. plus Europe, instead of only U.S.
Each of the markets, eternal staples, standard, foils, etc all function differently.
Vintage is basically a category of its own.
Instead of making a generalization to unify each of the separate markets in each region, you're better off just observing the differences for yourself.
I will say this though,
the differences between the American and European markets suggest that trade barriers exist between the two.
These barriers are effectively transaction costs, and aren't necessarily dollar amounts, but include the labor and hassle to transact, the time and expense involved, and the considerable risk of trading with a random party overseas.
In US we have TCG-player and eBay, both, which take larger fees and if you don't have an american bank account incur pretty large fees, when you try to get real money out of PayPal.
I ran the numbers several times, seeing if I could start selling cards bought from MCM on eBay to make any money and found only few random cases where the shipping and fees actually allowed me to earn any money, and even those were cards, where the supply of cheap copies were already dwindling (Like Nm-/SP Italian Mana Drains for 40 euros each. After the first eight the price was nearly 50 euros and the profit margin became much less appealing. Also four of the eight were misgraded, and were MP instead of SP). The other card-set were foreign fbb dual lands, where the sales times were pretty long and insured shipping to US kills the profit margins.
In the end I can make playing this game pretty affordable just buying and selling on MCM, so why go through all the trouble to start creating a good eBay reputation, when it will not even earn me the minimum wage. And after I sat on the Drains for 18 months, the value for even MP copies has gone up 50% on MCM, and selling is much easier.
Set to default
Thanks for the answer. I agree, differences have to be considered on separate markets. I still think it's possible to make generalizations within each group. E.g. spiked modern staples are nearly always cheaper in Europe. Are there other simple generalizations?
The differences are "protected" by barriers to fast and simple transactions. I think that a significant part of that may lie with the mindset of U.S. traders, many of whom are unused to trading across international borders, whereas international trading is common in europe, since the domestic market in each country is pretty small (comparable, perhaps, to trading within your state in the U.S.?). For me, the cost difference between shipping to U.S. and say Germany, is about $0.50 for small trade or $1 for a large (but not bulk-large) trade. What are the cost differences from the U.S. side?
I think the different ways MCM and TCG display prices can contribute to this. TCG price histories show the prices based on what sellers are asking for cards. MCM price trend is based on closed transactions. This means that someone buying all cheap copies of a card on TCG will show the price history spike to the high price of whoever has expensive copies listed, whereas the MCM history curve will ignore the expensive, but unsold, copies that no one wants to buy. Both those data points are "real" values (one is the current price for buying a card, the other is the price other people have been ok with paying), but it's important to understand the differences when comparing them. It's an inherent different between these two that MCMs will show less spiky behavior. But the difference between player-driven and vendor-driven prices is, as you point out, an important factor as well.
Thanks for the anecdote, I'm glad it worked out for you. You're probably be aware of this, but the common names for card conditions in europe are not the same as in the U.S., a comparison between the card condition guides of TCGplayer and MCM shows the difference. MCMs definition of "lightly played" actually allows for pretty significant wear, wheras TCG's doesn't!
Great news! I mostly get tcgplayer prices through other sites that use their API, and some of those still use their old value, so I was not aware of this.
I see they still have their "listed median" values available. It'd be interesting to analyze the difference between the "market price" and the "listed median", if our assumptions are correct the "market price" should almost always be lower than "listed median", with an exception for sharply dropping prices (which happens on unexpected bannings, and almost nothing else). I don't have the time or inclination to crunch the data on this, but I looked up a couple of cards, for fun. One legacy card that gets skewed prices due to few available copies, one modern staple and one standard staple. Euro-prices from MCM converted to $ with google.
Moat, english Legends: Three copies on TCGplayer, all MP or LP. 40+ copies on MCM, all conditions.
TCGplayer "market price" $394.66
TCGplayer "listed median" $558.34
MCM "price trend" $485.70
Noble Hierarch, english mm15: nine prices on TCGplayer, 100+ prices on mcm.
TCGplater "market price" $55.12
TCGplayer "listed median" $66.43
MCM "price trend" $48.49
Tireless Tracker, english SOI: 26 prices on TCGplayer, 1000+ prices on mcm
TCGplater "market price" $4.18
TCGplayer "listed median" $4.49
MCM "price trend" $4.19
MCM uses the 'old standard' grading, mint, nm, ex, good, played and poor with their own grading guide. I just generalized to the SP/MP categories.
Set to default
That's great information Default User. Thanks for running through some examples. I find it interesting that the newer cards are pretty spot on with pricing once you factor shipping into the equation. It looks close enough that variance is minor.
More interesting are the old cards. Moat is over 20 years old and with so few out there prices vary wildly between continents. Something to consider moving forward is that if you're in the market for very old cards, it's certainly worth your time to search internationally.
Not just for Moat, but any card with less than, say, ten U.S. sellers. When the number of sellers is that low the difference can be quite big. On the other hand, grading is a huge issue for old cards. Sellers on MCM can be quite loose with their grading, as in Default User's story. I know players in my country who are willing to pay the extra premium to buy cards from the big name stores in the U.S because they are almost always super strict on grading and have good custommer service if they mess up. So they pay 20 - 30% extra, to be sure that they'll get NM cards.
Default User, I'd figured you knew what's what in terms of grading guides (making money on market arbitrage on Italian legends staples isn't exactly where beginners start ), my explanation was mostly included for other readers. I'm glad to see you could expand on it.