Just wondering what a reasonable offer would be, since I've never done a deal of this magnitude before. I posted on my local Craigslist-type page that I was selling my Ancestral Recall and some Duals for quick cash. Had just one interested person, but he wanted me to bring my entire collection to flip through. After a couple of days, he said he was interested, and I mentioned that I usually go by TCG-mids, thought it would be somewhere between 16-17K, and would be pricing them around 70-75%, but would need to add them all to a tracker to get a good idea of value.
Fast forward to 10 days later, and I finally have uploaded all worthwhile cards to TCG collection tracker.
Quick & dirty:
For a collection of this size, and this value, what's a fair price to offer him? I don't want to scare him off, I could use the money sooner than later, but I also don't want to be rash and miss out. Thoughts? Thanks for taking the time to read this
For what it's worth, here are all the cards over $25
Ancestral Recall
Mox Pearl
Time Vault
Underground Sea
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Tropical Island
Mox Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mana Crypt
Transmute Artifact
Scrubland
Taiga
Celestial Colonnade - [Foil]
Mox Opal
Plateau
Scalding Tarn
Force of Will
Chalice of the Void
Grim Monolith
Crucible of Worlds
Karakas
Noble Hierarch
Horizon Canopy
Yawgmoth's Will
Verdant Catacombs
Academy Rector
Engineered Explosives
Preordain - [Foil]
Mishra's Factory (Fall)
Sword of Light and Shadow - [Foil]
Mother of Runes - [Foil]
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - [Foil]
Flusterstorm
Season's Beatings - [Foil]
Gush - [Foil]
Misty Rainforest
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Vampiric Tutor
Bloodghast - [Foil]
Marsh Flats
Polluted Delta
Cryptic Command
Ancient Tomb
Metalworker
Tolarian Academy
Arid Mesa
Lotus Petal - [Foil]
Fulminator Mage
Wasteland
Sensei's Divining Top - [Foil]
Tezzeret the Seeker - [Foil]
Thoughtseize
Demonic Tutor
Twilight Mire
Leyline of Sanctity
Blightsteel Colossus
Creeping Tar Pit
Blood Moon
Ancestral Vision
Leyline of the Void
Trinisphere - [Foil]
Strip Mine - [Foil]
Staff of Domination
Ancestral Vision
Gaddock Teeg
If you can get $17-18K CAD, take it and don't look back. Honestly, if you can get 70-75% of TCG mid for the non-RL stuff in the second post, 80ish% of TCG mid for the RL stuff in the second post, and 50-60% of TCG mid for everything else, you're making out like a bandit. Unless your collection is drastically different from the average player you've got a fair amount of bulk stuff in there and that's realistically valueless. Resellers are going to have a tough time moving piles of draft chaff/basic lands, so those basically don't figure into the price. If you can ballpark, what's the value of everything $1+ USD? That's going to give us a better idea of what you can reasonably expect.
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I want to chime in here some of your goodies are VERY high end reserve list goodies. Condision and set MATTER for them. Saying Astral recall means little compaired to say a Graded 9.5 Beta Astral Recall. Alpha, Beta and Unlimited all have different values and condision is KING it would be worth your while to look in to this.
Yes, condition can make a huge, HUGE difference in the value of higher end older cards. We can't help the pricing.
What I can say is this: the person who is buying this from you may be looking to sell it off in turn. If so, then they will not pay you what they will get from the end user. You won't get retail or even TCG Mid for your collection unless you were to sell it individually in those venues. The buyer will essentially want to discount the price for the value of his time spent doing all that work to move the set individually.
What I would do is look up the BUYLIST prices for your cards. Not the TCG Mid. That Buylist price should be a floor. Why? Because with a buylist you're comparing apples to apples: "What price could I get if I wanted to dump my whole collection on a vendor / reseller at once?" If you're using TCG, you're comparing apples to oranges, since TCG price actually answers a different question: "What price would I get if I sold all my collection as individual cards to individual players?"
You can explain to him that if you were hard up for cash, you could buylist the collection for X dollars (let's say $10k) and so if he's gonna buy the set, there's gonna have to be a premium involved. Splitting the difference between TCG mid and buylist (about $15k in this example) seems perfectly fair.
I'm no expert of MtG deals, but I have plenty of experience in brokering deals in general. And the general rule of thumb is: ask him for a rough estimation of how much he's willing to invest before doing anything else. If the sum he blurts out is inferior to 15K send him packing, if it's more then it's time to start doing some negotiations: tell him up front that the sum you're looking at is 19K, but that you're willing to lower it in order to meet his budget. If he's serious about this and you don't mess up the deal by pressuring him prematurely, you should be able to close the deal somewhere between 17K and 18K which, depending on your initial investment, should be a nice capital gain.
If he offered 17k, I would take it and run. I told him the value, and he responded that he wouldn't be 'anywhere close to [there]', which I get. If he offered ~15k I would still count it as a good deal for both of us.
If you can get $17-18K CAD, take it and don't look back. Honestly, if you can get 70-75% of TCG mid for the non-RL stuff in the second post, 80ish% of TCG mid for the RL stuff in the second post, and 50-60% of TCG mid for everything else, you're making out like a bandit. Unless your collection is drastically different from the average player you've got a fair amount of bulk stuff in there and that's realistically valueless. Resellers are going to have a tough time moving piles of draft chaff/basic lands, so those basically don't figure into the price. If you can ballpark, what's the value of everything $1+ USD? That's going to give us a better idea of what you can reasonably expect.
The value of everything worth >$1 USD is $14,637 US (Excel makes this super easy). So there's surprisingly not that much chaff. Even with 70% of everything, that still comes to about $13.5 Canadian, which I feel is a little undervalued given the amount of RL stuff on it (the bulk of the collection value, about $12K US, comes from RL stuff).
I want to chime in here some of your goodies are VERY high end reserve list goodies. Condision and set MATTER for them. Saying Astral recall means little compaired to say a Graded 9.5 Beta Astral Recall. Alpha, Beta and Unlimited all have different values and condision is KING it would be worth your while to look in to this.
I could never afford 9.5 GEM P9 (I mean, I was just a teenager buying this stuff), but I would confidently say that most of the stuff is in the LP category, and that's after taking the time to look through the SCG condition sorter, and using my magnifying glass for confirmation. With that in mind, I matched prices to like conditions for listed items, where possible. Like I said, I'm not foolish - I'm not going after him for retail prices. That's why the advice you guys have given has been so helpful
Yes, condition can make a huge, HUGE difference in the value of higher end older cards. We can't help the pricing.
What I can say is this: the person who is buying this from you may be looking to sell it off in turn. If so, then they will not pay you what they will get from the end user. You won't get retail or even TCG Mid for your collection unless you were to sell it individually in those venues. The buyer will essentially want to discount the price for the value of his time spent doing all that work to move the set individually.
What I would do is look up the BUYLIST prices for your cards. Not the TCG Mid. That Buylist price should be a floor. Why? Because with a buylist you're comparing apples to apples: "What price could I get if I wanted to dump my whole collection on a vendor / reseller at once?" If you're using TCG, you're comparing apples to oranges, since TCG price actually answers a different question: "What price would I get if I sold all my collection as individual cards to individual players?"
You can explain to him that if you were hard up for cash, you could buylist the collection for X dollars (let's say $10k) and so if he's gonna buy the set, there's gonna have to be a premium involved. Splitting the difference between TCG mid and buylist (about $15k in this example) seems perfectly fair.
Totally true. If he offered, say 9K, I know that buylists are around 55% of listed value, and that I could get more just by selling to Strike Zone/SCG whatever. There's value to him to buy my collection and avoid retailer markup, the tricky thing is finding a place where we're both happy (and if you believe some culture's definition of a fair deal, one where both people walk away a little unhappy) :p.
Dont know what he pays, but he seems to buy big collections all the time.
Thanks for the link - I ended up watching a few of his videos for some hints. He pays SCG buylist prices, so would be good as a last resort but I think I can get more at first from individuals. Good to have as a backup plan though
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Fast forward to 10 days later, and I finally have uploaded all worthwhile cards to TCG collection tracker.
Quick & dirty:
1877 cards
$14,759 USD = $19,017 CAD
+ $90 (unopened Japanese Jace vs Chandra)
+ $220 (unopened FtV 20)
-------------------------------------
$19,327 CAD.
For a collection of this size, and this value, what's a fair price to offer him? I don't want to scare him off, I could use the money sooner than later, but I also don't want to be rash and miss out. Thoughts? Thanks for taking the time to read this
Ancestral Recall
Mox Pearl
Time Vault
Underground Sea
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Tropical Island
Mox Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mana Crypt
Transmute Artifact
Scrubland
Taiga
Celestial Colonnade - [Foil]
Mox Opal
Plateau
Scalding Tarn
Force of Will
Chalice of the Void
Grim Monolith
Crucible of Worlds
Karakas
Noble Hierarch
Horizon Canopy
Yawgmoth's Will
Verdant Catacombs
Academy Rector
Engineered Explosives
Preordain - [Foil]
Mishra's Factory (Fall)
Sword of Light and Shadow - [Foil]
Mother of Runes - [Foil]
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - [Foil]
Flusterstorm
Season's Beatings - [Foil]
Gush - [Foil]
Misty Rainforest
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Vampiric Tutor
Bloodghast - [Foil]
Marsh Flats
Polluted Delta
Cryptic Command
Ancient Tomb
Metalworker
Tolarian Academy
Arid Mesa
Lotus Petal - [Foil]
Fulminator Mage
Wasteland
Sensei's Divining Top - [Foil]
Tezzeret the Seeker - [Foil]
Thoughtseize
Demonic Tutor
Twilight Mire
Leyline of Sanctity
Blightsteel Colossus
Creeping Tar Pit
Blood Moon
Ancestral Vision
Leyline of the Void
Trinisphere - [Foil]
Strip Mine - [Foil]
Staff of Domination
Ancestral Vision
Gaddock Teeg
What I can say is this: the person who is buying this from you may be looking to sell it off in turn. If so, then they will not pay you what they will get from the end user. You won't get retail or even TCG Mid for your collection unless you were to sell it individually in those venues. The buyer will essentially want to discount the price for the value of his time spent doing all that work to move the set individually.
What I would do is look up the BUYLIST prices for your cards. Not the TCG Mid. That Buylist price should be a floor. Why? Because with a buylist you're comparing apples to apples: "What price could I get if I wanted to dump my whole collection on a vendor / reseller at once?" If you're using TCG, you're comparing apples to oranges, since TCG price actually answers a different question: "What price would I get if I sold all my collection as individual cards to individual players?"
You can explain to him that if you were hard up for cash, you could buylist the collection for X dollars (let's say $10k) and so if he's gonna buy the set, there's gonna have to be a premium involved. Splitting the difference between TCG mid and buylist (about $15k in this example) seems perfectly fair.
If he offered 17k, I would take it and run. I told him the value, and he responded that he wouldn't be 'anywhere close to [there]', which I get. If he offered ~15k I would still count it as a good deal for both of us.
The value of everything worth >$1 USD is $14,637 US (Excel makes this super easy). So there's surprisingly not that much chaff. Even with 70% of everything, that still comes to about $13.5 Canadian, which I feel is a little undervalued given the amount of RL stuff on it (the bulk of the collection value, about $12K US, comes from RL stuff).
I could never afford 9.5 GEM P9 (I mean, I was just a teenager buying this stuff), but I would confidently say that most of the stuff is in the LP category, and that's after taking the time to look through the SCG condition sorter, and using my magnifying glass for confirmation. With that in mind, I matched prices to like conditions for listed items, where possible. Like I said, I'm not foolish - I'm not going after him for retail prices. That's why the advice you guys have given has been so helpful
Totally true. If he offered, say 9K, I know that buylists are around 55% of listed value, and that I could get more just by selling to Strike Zone/SCG whatever. There's value to him to buy my collection and avoid retailer markup, the tricky thing is finding a place where we're both happy (and if you believe some culture's definition of a fair deal, one where both people walk away a little unhappy) :p.
Dont know what he pays, but he seems to buy big collections all the time.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Thanks for the link - I ended up watching a few of his videos for some hints. He pays SCG buylist prices, so would be good as a last resort but I think I can get more at first from individuals. Good to have as a backup plan though