I only speculate on Standard cards because of a few factors:
1) There is seasonality to card prices
2) The market is more liquid for cards
3) There is more opportunities to catch potential break out cards at low pre-sale prices (ie Boros Reckoner when they were selling for < $5 and Sphix's Revelation when it was being presold for < $6)
4) Evolving metagame with the introduction of new sets into Standard means changes in attitudes in card value, which adds volatility to card prices.
5) If buying sealed product you can never get a lower price for them then when in print and in Standard.
6) Supply is at its greatest (barring reprints) that may push down prices so that you can enter into a trade at a reasonable price and hold for a while.
As for rules, I don't buy cards that recently received a lot of attention. I also avoid cards that have been sitting at bulk prices for a long time.
The value here is keeping the box sealed. People will shell out a bunch of money just for the opportunity to gamble on pulling a 'Goyf or even a FOIL 'Goyf (or any other high priced FOIL for that matter).
What you do is fill up two Small Flat Rate USPS boxes to the brim with cards, and stick those two into a USPS Flat Rate Padded envelope. You get the protection from the small flat rate boxes without having to incur additional expenses on your part with buying additional packaging materials.
Has anyone recently sold/traded any cards to them and could recommend them? I am considering it but I've never traded in/buylisted cards through mail before, so I wanted to see some reviews.
How stringent are they with condition?
They are excellent. No problems with card grading, although all my cards I sent in were pack fresh.
The biggest factor here is if Dragon's Maze will be a hit product or not. If the set is generally ho-hum and box value isn't that great stores/sellers are only going to open boxes until it is no longer profitable, so prices will maintain or even go up at current levels while Dragon's Maze is the latest release.
However, if there are a lot of chase rares/mythics boxes there will be a lot more boxes opened thus more shocks introduced into the market.
But overall, I think Wizards needs a hit product here. It needs to retain people that got back or into Magic because of RTR. People will reflect to see if playing magic for the last year was worth the investment.
I'm waiting and waiting for Master Biomancer to start dropping, and it just hasn't yet. Is this purely casual demand? It doesn't seem to be getting played in any lists that I'm aware of...
I have been waiting for Master Biomancer to drop too. He is really good in creature decks. Too bad Naya dominates the metagame for creature heavy decks right now.
This could almost be done here to a certain extent if the forum was made public and we put a voting post as the first post of every thread so that people could leave a rating.
To add to that, we should have a MTG public forum where there is a section specifically made to discuss our experiences with different stores and vendors. People can start a "thread" about each store and "post" about their experiences!
Jeff,
I appreciate the kind words but Rick was indeed serious. He has a personal vendetta against me and has been coming here and trying to smear my name non-stop because I "lowballed" him on an offer. He has not provided me with his e-mail address or anything else to look up the offer we made to verify that this ever happened.
We have had many instances where people think we have sent them a bad offer only to find out that they did not correctly export their CSV file and it was missing a lot of cards. I have tried to reason with him and he ignores all of my pm's and is very irrational. Just last week he was on here complaining about being banned from MTGO so I can only assume that he has a difficult personality and is just acting immature. Hopefully he will do the right thing and at least give me a chance to go back and see if what he is accusing me of actually happened.
-Heath
I thought it was odd that he was trying to smear one of the most reputable dealers on MODO. I sell things on eBay occasionally and there are some customers that will NEVER be happy with what you do including bending over backwards for them or just trying to have a civil conversation to see what their problem is.
I'm just wondering if they have heard about the thing called internet?
I'm assuming the people playing at the LGS are high schooler's. I know when I was around that age I was more of a "gotta have it right now to beat my friend" kind of person. To some people losing a buck or two on a trade doesn't matter if they can't really play a deck without key cards.
On a side note, I don't think there is anything wrong about buying up cards for the sake of holding them. The person buying them is conducting a private transaction with another party.
I think Aurelia's Fury is a good card but I think market selling pressure is pushing down the price, and when mana budgeting I'd rather take cards like Boros Charm or if I am playing RWU and need to clear house I'd rather play Supreme Verdict, or even Mizzium Mortars . Also, all the latter cards are cheaper to buy too.
Let's not forget that GTC set redemptions through MODO has not even started yet...
I just looked at cardkingdoms buylist and I was not impressed with their prices and some of the cards they weren't even buying. what store is the gives the best price if you are trying to buy legacy cards from their store? cfb has a horrible selection of cards but gives good prices. scg has a good selection but their prices are high. cardkingdom is not good imo. abu games has a really good selection but they are even higher than scg.
AdventuresOn gives pretty good prices, I've read people have had positive experiences with them. I just sent them a buylist order so I'm waiting how it will turn out.
Thanks for the heads up. I saw a sudden spike in my sales on ebay, between that and your post I prompted myself to check ebay and sure enough $30 shipped was the next lowest, so I adjusted mine accordingly :). Its not all that surprising to me to see it go up a little. Its a fantastic card and its been slowly rising back up after hitting its low a little while back. Hard to say where it will end up at, but I wouldnt be surprised if the steady and slow rise continued on.
Hey Jeff, I saw your auctions on eBay and actually bought a playset of Sphinx's Revelation off of you. Thanks for putting up cards at fair and reasonable prices.
I've placed a couple of orders with MTGMINTCARD. Overall I'd have to say their prices/shipping/condition is somewhere between excellent and stellar.
If you sell current in-print products such as RTR or GTC I can see them as a real pain because they flood the market with singles/playsets. But if you're a player it's great for you because their auctions always resolve below the cheapest BIN and cards for a few set start to bottom out faster. We're here to play, right?
I wish I knew how they manage to get so much inventory and churn it through eBay and still remain profitable.
1) There is seasonality to card prices
2) The market is more liquid for cards
3) There is more opportunities to catch potential break out cards at low pre-sale prices (ie Boros Reckoner when they were selling for < $5 and Sphix's Revelation when it was being presold for < $6)
4) Evolving metagame with the introduction of new sets into Standard means changes in attitudes in card value, which adds volatility to card prices.
5) If buying sealed product you can never get a lower price for them then when in print and in Standard.
6) Supply is at its greatest (barring reprints) that may push down prices so that you can enter into a trade at a reasonable price and hold for a while.
As for rules, I don't buy cards that recently received a lot of attention. I also avoid cards that have been sitting at bulk prices for a long time.
They are excellent. No problems with card grading, although all my cards I sent in were pack fresh.
Cardkingdom
ABUGames
AdventuresOn/Blackborder
StarCityGames
However, if there are a lot of chase rares/mythics boxes there will be a lot more boxes opened thus more shocks introduced into the market.
But overall, I think Wizards needs a hit product here. It needs to retain people that got back or into Magic because of RTR. People will reflect to see if playing magic for the last year was worth the investment.
I have been waiting for Master Biomancer to drop too. He is really good in creature decks. Too bad Naya dominates the metagame for creature heavy decks right now.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=54092
To add to that, we should have a MTG public forum where there is a section specifically made to discuss our experiences with different stores and vendors. People can start a "thread" about each store and "post" about their experiences!
I thought it was odd that he was trying to smear one of the most reputable dealers on MODO. I sell things on eBay occasionally and there are some customers that will NEVER be happy with what you do including bending over backwards for them or just trying to have a civil conversation to see what their problem is.
Thanks for clearing things up.
I'm assuming the people playing at the LGS are high schooler's. I know when I was around that age I was more of a "gotta have it right now to beat my friend" kind of person. To some people losing a buck or two on a trade doesn't matter if they can't really play a deck without key cards.
On a side note, I don't think there is anything wrong about buying up cards for the sake of holding them. The person buying them is conducting a private transaction with another party.
Let's not forget that GTC set redemptions through MODO has not even started yet...
AdventuresOn gives pretty good prices, I've read people have had positive experiences with them. I just sent them a buylist order so I'm waiting how it will turn out.
http://www.adventureson.com/cgi-bin/shopping/buylist.cgi?sid=TfsFeLiv1m
Hey Jeff, I saw your auctions on eBay and actually bought a playset of Sphinx's Revelation off of you. Thanks for putting up cards at fair and reasonable prices.
This is clearly spam. -Galspanic
If you sell current in-print products such as RTR or GTC I can see them as a real pain because they flood the market with singles/playsets. But if you're a player it's great for you because their auctions always resolve below the cheapest BIN and cards for a few set start to bottom out faster. We're here to play, right?
I wish I knew how they manage to get so much inventory and churn it through eBay and still remain profitable.