In a set there are definitely a few cards that begin selling at a moderate to low price because people are unsure of the value of the card in the meta. During this time, let's say you buy 10, 20, or even more copies of the card. Suddenly a couple months later the cards that you bought shot up in price. A good example of this would be Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. When it came out you could get it for $25-30 and then 3 months later it shot up to $80. You could then mass sell at that point and make more than double your money back. Does anyone here actually do this?
Another example would be Nightveil Specter. Was worth literally nothing at $1.00 and then shot up to $10 in 3-4 months. If you bought 50 copies you would've spent $50 and be able to sell for $500. Of course I like to play magic, but why not play magic but also make some money on the side by buying out cards when they're low, and mass selling when they're at a peak price?
Its easy to talk about good fortune to be made when you already know the end result. One may have though to do the same with Day's Undoing...but the price went the other way
So its a gamble, basically... of course, if you come accross a good deal on cards that you can purchase well bellow its value, nothings wrong there....but gambling on what the price will be can go both ways especially since you dont have any insight on the cards making new sets
Yes it's possible to make money selling Magic cards on the secondary market, but not by trying to speculate on which cards will suddenly jump in price.
Unless you're really good at evaluating new cards and their ability to see play in Standard and Modern, that kind of speculation is difficult. No one saw that Nightveil Specter would shoot up almost overnight. Like with Day's Undoing, I did a trade with my local store for four of them when he acquired them. When I did the trade their
value was @ $24.00. By the time he'd gotten them to me they'd dropped to $7.00. I pulled a foil Jace, Architect of Thought went from @ $80.00 to the mid 20's.
It's easier to make money buying cases and cracking them to sell online. Hoping that the value from your money cards combined with bulk nets you a profit. But that's like having a second job. The thing with speculating is that sure, when you hit it right the potential for a pay out is great, but the time you loose you're left holding the bag. The other half of getting the right guess is having the capacity to actually move the cards when the price is at it's peak. Not trying to discourage you, but you've got to be willing to monitor prices daily. You have to have the gift of knowing what cards will dominate Standard and Modern before those cards make a tournament showing.
I'd do a little experiment before getting started. When the next set is spoiled write down which cards you think will be overlooked and jump in value. Then watch prices for say four months. Also take note of the cards that you missed that actually do this. If your guesses would have net 2x plus over you're(theoretical) investment then try it in real life.
Look at Grim Flayer, $12 a week ago and now $23. It looks like it'll be increasing more too in the next couple of days, maybe capping at $30. Is anyone here making good money from speculating card price increases?
Profesional vendors are playing a much wider pool of cards, so when one card lose its value, other cards may cover that lost. Additionaly to that, most vendor are buying not more than half the value of the card to whomever wishes to sell to them
Furthermore, they don't act on speculation, they will buyhalf price what they know they can sell. They can act on hunches or insight for being in that mtg circle before the general public is being aware that one card may go up in value...of course they are also those who decides how much worth selling a card...
Technically, it is possible for someone to make a profit by speculating, but he has to be very good at picking cards. How do you train this skill of picking cards then? There's no strict answer to that. Some people can simply look at a card and immediately determine "yep, this is going to break <insert format here>". Some people just watch PT coverage and hit the buy button on breakout cards faster than everyone else. Also remember that some cards are high in value solely because of casual play, like Primeval Bounty or Lurking Predators. If you want to spec on those, you have to do the complete opposite of the above 2 cases and think like a scrub (no offense meant to EDH players, I'm only using the word "scrub" jokingly).
In all likelihood, successful speculators will hit it big on some cards, but lose enough on their failed specs to keep their profits in a much less exciting range. And if you're not a successful speculator? You just lose everything. Hindsight is 20/20 - everyone only remembers the winners.
Another example would be Nightveil Specter. Was worth literally nothing at $1.00 and then shot up to $10 in 3-4 months. If you bought 50 copies you would've spent $50 and be able to sell for $500.
After reading this statement of yours I'd advise you NOT to try speculating. You seem to be dreaming of $$$$$, unaware of all the hidden costs that will eat into your profits even if you do manage to make a good spec.
Let's say you own 50 Nightveil Specters. You open magiccards.info or go onto TCGplayer, and see that Nightveil Specter is at $10 mid. Sounds great, you have $500 now, right? Wrong. What this number of $10 means is that you can buy 50 Specters for $500. You're not going be able to reverse this process, i.e. sell all your Specters for $500 immediately.
You're going to get maybe $250 for them immediately if you buylist them to a card store. If you cut out the middleman and try to sell them yourself, you have to find people who are willing to buy them from you at that price, which costs time. More likely than not you'd also have to offer a sell price of slightly less than $10 to get them to bite.
Another example would be Nightveil Specter. Was worth literally nothing at $1.00 and then shot up to $10 in 3-4 months.
This is incorrect. "Literally nothing" is $0.00, not $1.00. So it wasn't worth literally nothng.
If you're good at evaluating cards as soon as they're previewed, and can find those hidden gems, you can make money buying and selling cards. It's a lot like playing the stock market, being able to figure out in advance what cards/stocks are likely to increase in the future, and knowing when to sell to maximise profit. However, there is a level of risk in both, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can lose big.
I ride the reserved list. Buy a dozen copies of a rare each paycheck, stow them away in a box. I buy for the long term, not looking to make a quick buck.
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You should buy 50 copies of each rare at preorder prices. Then, if people (or your own self-doubt) ever question how much money you've sunk on the hobby, just cite the 1/35 cards you'd ordered that actually spiked in price.
That way you can fend off the cognitive dissonance and crippling shame of money poorly spent and maintain the illusion that MtG costs are a sustainable investment in a non-faddish hobby that definitely 100% will not ever drop in value when the game's popularity wanes.
Another example would be Nightveil Specter. Was worth literally nothing at $1.00 and then shot up to $10 in 3-4 months. If you bought 50 copies you would've spent $50 and be able to sell for $500. Of course I like to play magic, but why not play magic but also make some money on the side by buying out cards when they're low, and mass selling when they're at a peak price?
So its a gamble, basically... of course, if you come accross a good deal on cards that you can purchase well bellow its value, nothings wrong there....but gambling on what the price will be can go both ways especially since you dont have any insight on the cards making new sets
Unless you're really good at evaluating new cards and their ability to see play in Standard and Modern, that kind of speculation is difficult. No one saw that Nightveil Specter would shoot up almost overnight. Like with Day's Undoing, I did a trade with my local store for four of them when he acquired them. When I did the trade their
value was @ $24.00. By the time he'd gotten them to me they'd dropped to $7.00. I pulled a foil Jace, Architect of Thought went from @ $80.00 to the mid 20's.
It's easier to make money buying cases and cracking them to sell online. Hoping that the value from your money cards combined with bulk nets you a profit. But that's like having a second job. The thing with speculating is that sure, when you hit it right the potential for a pay out is great, but the time you loose you're left holding the bag. The other half of getting the right guess is having the capacity to actually move the cards when the price is at it's peak. Not trying to discourage you, but you've got to be willing to monitor prices daily. You have to have the gift of knowing what cards will dominate Standard and Modern before those cards make a tournament showing.
I'd do a little experiment before getting started. When the next set is spoiled write down which cards you think will be overlooked and jump in value. Then watch prices for say four months. Also take note of the cards that you missed that actually do this. If your guesses would have net 2x plus over you're(theoretical) investment then try it in real life.
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Furthermore, they don't act on speculation, they will buyhalf price what they know they can sell. They can act on hunches or insight for being in that mtg circle before the general public is being aware that one card may go up in value...of course they are also those who decides how much worth selling a card...
In all likelihood, successful speculators will hit it big on some cards, but lose enough on their failed specs to keep their profits in a much less exciting range. And if you're not a successful speculator? You just lose everything. Hindsight is 20/20 - everyone only remembers the winners.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/262os2/what_card_did_you_think_would_be_huge_in/
^Sobering example of failed specs. Pro player Brian Kibler makes an appearance.
After reading this statement of yours I'd advise you NOT to try speculating. You seem to be dreaming of $$$$$, unaware of all the hidden costs that will eat into your profits even if you do manage to make a good spec.
Let's say you own 50 Nightveil Specters. You open magiccards.info or go onto TCGplayer, and see that Nightveil Specter is at $10 mid. Sounds great, you have $500 now, right? Wrong. What this number of $10 means is that you can buy 50 Specters for $500. You're not going be able to reverse this process, i.e. sell all your Specters for $500 immediately.
You're going to get maybe $250 for them immediately if you buylist them to a card store. If you cut out the middleman and try to sell them yourself, you have to find people who are willing to buy them from you at that price, which costs time. More likely than not you'd also have to offer a sell price of slightly less than $10 to get them to bite.
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Big Johnny.
This is incorrect. "Literally nothing" is $0.00, not $1.00. So it wasn't worth literally nothng.
If you're good at evaluating cards as soon as they're previewed, and can find those hidden gems, you can make money buying and selling cards. It's a lot like playing the stock market, being able to figure out in advance what cards/stocks are likely to increase in the future, and knowing when to sell to maximise profit. However, there is a level of risk in both, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can lose big.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
That way you can fend off the cognitive dissonance and crippling shame of money poorly spent and maintain the illusion that MtG costs are a sustainable investment in a non-faddish hobby that definitely 100% will not ever drop in value when the game's popularity wanes.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)