I've heard tons of stories about people picking up giant collections of old and new cards for a fraction of what they're worth. I'm constantly keeping an eye on Craigslist, and my local classifieds website, but does anyone else know a good place to watch for this kind of thing? I'm talking about people selling thousands of cards from their childhood, or from their moved out children's closet for $50.
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EDH WBRKaalia of the VastRBW BChainer, Dementia MasterB Legacy 0Manaless Dredge0 RGoblinsR Standard RBWThe AristocratsWBR
Meet people, make friends with people, scour sites where people sell things, yard sales, whatever.
I've bought a number of collection through folks at work and friends and friends of friends I know, plus various websites where people sell things.
It's not like there is some huge market of people who don't know what they have listing it somewhere. There isn't a unpricedmagiccollections.com e-store.
I know many players have had luck at garage sales, though I've never bothered to check any of the many spring/summer yard sales in my area.
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Quote from "Mysticake" »
(about the English language) It's kinda like a raft that was cobbled together from parts of three different boats and since then has been kept barely afloat with crude repairs every time a leak appeared.
You have to keep pounding pavement. QS has a great article on this in thier archive, but understand that
1) some areas of the country will be better than others.
2) some areas of the country have been picked over more than others
3) there are a lot of people who want in on this game because it looks like easy money
4) most of the collections you look at and some that you buy are still crap.
5) The odds of finding a bunch of power in some guys mom's basement in the internet age is next to 0. Force of Will and Wasteland are good finds though.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Almost impossible to find a diamond in the rough nowadays...and even reasonable prices to buy collections at for resale are dwindling. The huge rise in value of legacy and modern stuff mean most people figure out their cards are worth money. Additionally, there are 10x as many people nowadays who are tying to buy and sell resell magic collections so you have to work much harder.
One quick filter I use is to find out what sets people bought. Did they buy a lot of Legends? Urza's? Chances are they are sitting on some cards.
Also, make sure you know what to look for. The other posters are right, you aren't going to flip through a shoebox and find a black lotus these days. Everyone who plays magic thinks that they could spot a deal, but off the top of your head, do you give the kid at the yard sale your "Finding Nemo" DvD for Burning of Xinye?
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I've got a friend who essentially paid for college buying and reselling collections. He told me about his methods, and how he does it.
#1. Go local, and tell people you are willing to pay cash for collections. Let people at your LGS know, and they'll spread word of mouth. After a little while, he was getting people he'd never heard of call him on the phone to sell him their old collections.
#2. Bring cash, bring a trusted friend or two to act as bodyguard. Carrying cash isn't all that safe, and going places you don't recognize is too.
Word of mouth is the best way to find and buy old untouched collections. Just bring cash and be ready to haul the whole thing away.
I'm about to leave for work, so i'll keep it brief by saying if anyone here knew, they'd be buying them.
Chances are if you have to ask where, you've lost the race and should be asking why you want to buy them in the first place.
EDIT: If you're looking to score big on collections, don't bother because it won't happen. This is the reason buying collections is so hard these days. Every kid with $100 in their pockets is jumping in. It's as bad as storage unit auctions have become with their popularity on television.
I have not found any collections in my travels through magic. I would love to find a person who has a collection roaching in a box who has some really good stuff, but i have never found it. Also try flea markets there might be some there. People are always unloading stuff there.
I'm wondering if it's possible to find collections in all areas these days. Honestly, with internet access, I'm sure it's rare these days to pick up these kind of collections for cheap. I also imagine it's a lot of work too. It's good for people who manage to do this once or twice though.
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
I had a few scores this summer, with a couple underground seas in a yard sale box being the best best ones. Heres the down side. I went to over 300 yard sales this summer, at each one I asked if I they had any magic cards they wanted to get rid of. 90% + of people looked at me like I was crazy, about 5% showed me some pokemon cards 2-3% said they had some stuff but for one reason or another it was gone, destroyed, or otherwise not accesable. I left my contact info with a few who said they'd call me back when they found their stuff (none did).
I also watched kijiji (craigs list is dead around here) and saw alot of crap. People either over priced to insane levels or had a box of dog eared commons. Over the summer I went to see about 20 collections I found online that I thought were worth the drive. I found 1 where the guy was asking a fair (buylist-ish) price and had a bunch of stuff I wanted so I picked that one up (but no big score) and one with a pair of seas & maze of ith for $30 but I had to leave work for the afternoon and drive to the next town over mid day (made up the hours when I got back) to beat the other guy who was trying to get it there.
The point of my story is this. If you can buy cards through alternative channels you can score big but its not easy money by any means (and theres no shortcut to finding those channels). Its a lot of leg work and a lot of disappointment but on the plus side if you like finding deals its great fun. Just don't expect to find a box of duals within an hour of starting.
I was at Goodwill once this summer and saw a bag of cards in the display case (The one with the jewelry that you can't just sift through). It looked to be Masques/Invasion era so I was hopeful for some 7th edition foils and maybe a good rare or two for $4.99. There was a lot of bad Masques stuff in there, but I did come out ahead with 7 Daze, Foil, Couterspell, and a handful of bulk rares.
Here's the scour from my local craigslist just FYI:
$6 for 5 cards (mirrodin block common/uncommons) in top loaders. (yes 5 singles).
$200 for 2000 cards, list included which is 90% revised crap rares. It's "negotiable" but he won't be taking the bulk rates this set is worth.
$40 for a box of 500 standard cards. (about 1.5 hour drive round trip too).
$70 for a lot that claims "I already sold my rares/mythics"
"Huge Collection" - No prices, claims to have quality, but knows what its worth.
5 offers to BUY collections.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Have patience. It takes like another poster said alot of legwork, its not easy.
Magic pick ups this year:
2 months ago (craiglist): I found a collector who parents had a store ten years ago. Had about 60 5,000 count boxes of magic from unlimited to Exodus. Great for the picking?? It was mostly commons and uncommons, the rares were gone. But I still bought the unlimited, revised, and legends and portal singles about 30,000 cards for $250 bucks. Nothing incredible but that many older cards is hard to pass up.
10 months ago (flea market): Had a person selling their sons magic collection in about 30 fat pack boxes (ones you get in the fat pack holds 500 cards). That cost only $20 bucks. Had over 600 rares. Have made very good money on that.
5 months ago (craiglist): Person selling binder of Beta singles and older antiquities about 250 cards for $30. Bought this and made close to $400 on beta, nothing big, but the quality was good.
5 months ago (storage auction vendor): Sold me about 50 theme decks from 1996-1999 world champions to older urza decks, complete runs. picked them up for $100 for all.
15 months ago offer from old magic player who had about 20,000 cards. Wanted 3,000 for all of it. Had duals etc. worth the money but passed.
This is actively searching about 200 flea market days, every day on craiglist, and talking to storage auction dealers. Collections are hard to come by especially with magic players. To get them cheap takes a lot of patience, So keep looking. The fun part is finding them.
The best way to do it honestly is to also look for anything card collectible.
Pokemon, Yugi-oh , even sports cards or non sports collections and old role playing game collections can help offset all the time looking for magic.
I think the theme is it takes leg work, time, patience, and "right place, right time." I am seeing this in enough posts with enough slipping, "LOOK AT ALL THESE MONIES I MADE OFF COLLECTION" posts to say the OP's question should be sufficiently answered and enough brags to say this thread can be closed.
EDH
WBRKaalia of the VastRBW
BChainer, Dementia MasterB
Legacy
0Manaless Dredge0
RGoblinsR
Standard
RBWThe AristocratsWBR
Meet people, make friends with people, scour sites where people sell things, yard sales, whatever.
I've bought a number of collection through folks at work and friends and friends of friends I know, plus various websites where people sell things.
It's not like there is some huge market of people who don't know what they have listing it somewhere. There isn't a unpricedmagiccollections.com e-store.
I run into a lot of people who just have 5000 crappy commons and wants $1.00 each for them..you can't talk sense to those people.
TESTING DECKS
WG A Toast to Life GW ~~ WU Favorable Virtue UW
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) some areas of the country will be better than others.
2) some areas of the country have been picked over more than others
3) there are a lot of people who want in on this game because it looks like easy money
4) most of the collections you look at and some that you buy are still crap.
5) The odds of finding a bunch of power in some guys mom's basement in the internet age is next to 0. Force of Will and Wasteland are good finds though.
Also, make sure you know what to look for. The other posters are right, you aren't going to flip through a shoebox and find a black lotus these days. Everyone who plays magic thinks that they could spot a deal, but off the top of your head, do you give the kid at the yard sale your "Finding Nemo" DvD for Burning of Xinye?
#1. Go local, and tell people you are willing to pay cash for collections. Let people at your LGS know, and they'll spread word of mouth. After a little while, he was getting people he'd never heard of call him on the phone to sell him their old collections.
#2. Bring cash, bring a trusted friend or two to act as bodyguard. Carrying cash isn't all that safe, and going places you don't recognize is too.
Word of mouth is the best way to find and buy old untouched collections. Just bring cash and be ready to haul the whole thing away.
--S
Chances are if you have to ask where, you've lost the race and should be asking why you want to buy them in the first place.
EDIT: If you're looking to score big on collections, don't bother because it won't happen. This is the reason buying collections is so hard these days. Every kid with $100 in their pockets is jumping in. It's as bad as storage unit auctions have become with their popularity on television.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=4832736
Trading 10 full art zen basics for 8 of yours!
I want
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
I also watched kijiji (craigs list is dead around here) and saw alot of crap. People either over priced to insane levels or had a box of dog eared commons. Over the summer I went to see about 20 collections I found online that I thought were worth the drive. I found 1 where the guy was asking a fair (buylist-ish) price and had a bunch of stuff I wanted so I picked that one up (but no big score) and one with a pair of seas & maze of ith for $30 but I had to leave work for the afternoon and drive to the next town over mid day (made up the hours when I got back) to beat the other guy who was trying to get it there.
The point of my story is this. If you can buy cards through alternative channels you can score big but its not easy money by any means (and theres no shortcut to finding those channels). Its a lot of leg work and a lot of disappointment but on the plus side if you like finding deals its great fun. Just don't expect to find a box of duals within an hour of starting.
Currently looking to buy miscut Homelands, (my wife thinks I'm crazy too).
Semper Gumby (Always Flexible)
$6 for 5 cards (mirrodin block common/uncommons) in top loaders. (yes 5 singles).
$200 for 2000 cards, list included which is 90% revised crap rares. It's "negotiable" but he won't be taking the bulk rates this set is worth.
$40 for a box of 500 standard cards. (about 1.5 hour drive round trip too).
$70 for a lot that claims "I already sold my rares/mythics"
"Huge Collection" - No prices, claims to have quality, but knows what its worth.
5 offers to BUY collections.
Magic pick ups this year:
2 months ago (craiglist): I found a collector who parents had a store ten years ago. Had about 60 5,000 count boxes of magic from unlimited to Exodus. Great for the picking?? It was mostly commons and uncommons, the rares were gone. But I still bought the unlimited, revised, and legends and portal singles about 30,000 cards for $250 bucks. Nothing incredible but that many older cards is hard to pass up.
10 months ago (flea market): Had a person selling their sons magic collection in about 30 fat pack boxes (ones you get in the fat pack holds 500 cards). That cost only $20 bucks. Had over 600 rares. Have made very good money on that.
5 months ago (craiglist): Person selling binder of Beta singles and older antiquities about 250 cards for $30. Bought this and made close to $400 on beta, nothing big, but the quality was good.
5 months ago (storage auction vendor): Sold me about 50 theme decks from 1996-1999 world champions to older urza decks, complete runs. picked them up for $100 for all.
15 months ago offer from old magic player who had about 20,000 cards. Wanted 3,000 for all of it. Had duals etc. worth the money but passed.
This is actively searching about 200 flea market days, every day on craiglist, and talking to storage auction dealers. Collections are hard to come by especially with magic players. To get them cheap takes a lot of patience, So keep looking. The fun part is finding them.
The best way to do it honestly is to also look for anything card collectible.
Pokemon, Yugi-oh , even sports cards or non sports collections and old role playing game collections can help offset all the time looking for magic.
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