Trading with Collectors

The number of people who actively collect foil, foreign, and alternate art cards is miniscule.   For people who buy or trade for these unusual cards, they normally collect with a very specific deck, or cube in mind.  When you find the few people who pure collectors, take note.  I try and make friends with these people and keep an open line of communication.  From my experience, these collectors are very friendly people, as long as you know how to deal with them.

From my experience, collectors only want one of three things; cash, cards that are easy to turn to cash, and pimped cards for their collection.  Collectors are not going to look through your binder and pull out a bunch of junk rares and give you rare valuable cards for them.  Their binders are full of cards that stores can’t keep in stock; other cards would just pollute their collection.  When they pull non-pimp cards from a collection, it is with the intention of selling it as soon as possible.  Be prepared to let go of your valuable rares or cash from your wallet.

These pimped card collectors hold cards with a sentimental value, and with good reason.  They troll craigslist, frequent multiple stores, grind trades, and buy entire collection from people just to get the rarest of cards.  These cards are their puppies; the collector can’t really give the proper attention to all the cards they own, so they are looking for a good home.  Collectors care about their cards, and what happens to their cards once they trade them away.  If you let collectors know that these cards will be going into a deck, they are more likely to trade them away.  When you have proved that you really do intend to use the cards they trade to you, these collectors are generally open to giving you favorable trades in the future.  If you play with your cards unsleeved, or just are grabbing cards to trade those cards away, collectors will avoid trading with you at all costs.

It is almost pointless to actively try and get huge deals from collectors.   For the most part, they won’t try and rip you off.  Collectors do know the values of their cards.  These cards are hard to find, and have a niche market.  Collectors have large amounts of unusual cards and have a very good grasp on the value of individual cards. The only way you can get any gain on a trade is if you have a pimp card that they are specifically looking for. 

The best way to get deals with collectors is to be their friend.  I suggest going out of your way to be nice to these guys.  Give the collectors value on some trades, pass them some free cards, or buy them a meal.  When you play games with collectors, take the time to admire the cards they have chosen to put into their deck.  For collectors, it’s not whether they win or lose, it’s how good their deck looks while playing.  If you can have a good relationship with collectors, they will be more than happy to help you out.

This last week, I bought a large number of cards for the deck off of one of my collector friends, Scott.  We agreed on a fair price + trade. Then, I promptly paid him more than we had agreed upon.  He sent the cards on a Friday and they arrived that Monday.  I opened the package and saw that he had included a few very high value cards that we had not discussed, but that I will make room for in the Arcum deck.   I feel like he outdid me in this nice guy battle, so I will have to find a way to get him something extra that he is looking for.   

This is what I got in the mail:

·         Counterspell (Mercadian Masque Foil)

·         Force of Will (Italian)

·         Stoic Rebuttal (Foil)

·         Isochron Scepter (FNM Foil)

·         Lightning Greaves (FNM Foil)

·         Prototype Portal (Foil)

·         Sensei’s Divining Top (Foil, Signed)

·         2x Sol Ring (Judge Foil)

·         Pithing Needle (Japanese, Foil) O.o  ßExtra Card

·         Academy Ruins (Foil)

·         Blinkmoth Nexus (Foil)

·         Beseiju, Who Shelters all (Foil)

·         Wasteland

·         Time Spiral (Signed) O.o  ßExtra Card

·         Misty Rainforest (Foil)

·         Scalding Tarn (Foil)

·         Seat of Synod (Foil)

·         Stalking Stones (Foil)

·         Tectonic Edge (Foil)

·         Darksteel Ingot (Foil) ßExtra Card

·         6x Full Art Foil Zendikar Land

I also found a Foil Japanese Mindslaver in a store for under $20, so I picked it up.

That is it for this week. Past the halfway point! 58 cards down 42 to go (With Pithing Needle and Time Spiral 60 down, 40 to go)

Thanks,

Sean

Buying a Workshop

When I first started trying to collect this list, I knew most of the cards would be hard to find.  In particular, I had almost no idea how I was going to find a Mishra’s Workshop for trade.  I had settled on the idea that I was going to have to drop the full price and buy this card from a retail store.  With a card that was worth hundreds of dollars, I really wanted to see physically before I decided to buy/trade.   As luck would have it, I found someone who had this card for trade.

When I started collecting this deck, I contacted almost everyone I know in the Magic community to see if they had any of the cards from the list.  You can imagine my surprise, when I logged onto Facebook to see that Drom’s had found someone who has a Mishra’s workshop for trade.  After driving down to the store and talking with the owner of the card on the phone, he decided to come into the shop so we could trade.

He showed up with the Workshop as well as several boxes of pimped cards.  We looked through each others collections and ended up settling on the following trade:

Mine:

·         5 Marsh Flatts

·         Frost Titan

·         Venser (Planeswalker)

·         $$$

His:

·         Mishra’s Workshop (MP)

·         6 Island (Arena Foil, Beta Art)

·         2 Gaea’s Revenge (Japanese)

·         Akroma, Angel of Wrath (Japanese)

·         Phyrexian Processor (Japanese)

·         Thousand Year Elixir (Japanese)

·         Brittle Effigy (Foil Japanese)

·         Goblin Charbelcher

The guy I traded with is an awesome guy.  He has always been more than a fair trader.  I have always been more than happy to trade with him every time he has shown up to the shop.  When I have traded with him, I have not paid a huge attention to values of cards I am receiving.  He has a bunch of pimp cards that are hard to place a definite value on.  I just put whatever cards I get from him into decks I have.  I don’t think there is a single card I have gotten in a trade from him that has not gone into a deck.

There is a card on that I got in this trade that was not in the deck, that I have added into the deck, Brittle Effigy.  After playing with Arcum for a few weeks, it has become painfully obvious that I require a minimal amount of spot removal.   Thwart has been removed from the list of cards.

Other trades made this week:

Mine:

·         2 Bulk Rares

·         Darkslick Shores

His:

·         Full Art Memnite

·         Foil Mystifying Maze

I was buying some things for extended elves and found a Solemn Simulacrum online for $11.  I had a coupon that required me to get over $50 worth of stuff to get $5 off.  The Simulacrum put me past the 50 dollar mark, so that I could cash in on my discount.

40 Down – 60 to go.

-Sean

P.S. I am thinking of adding Mana Drain to the list.  Let me know what you guys think

Updates and Randomness

Updates and Randomness

On Monday night I was on my way to my favorite Indian restaurant in the Sacramento area, Sher-E-Punjab.  I was planning on playing a little MTG later that night.  There is a small shop near the Restaurant that I was not planning on going to, but I knew would have a handful of players on a Monday night.  Thinking about the Arcum deck, I decided to swing in to do some trading. 

They have a pretty big EDH crowd.  I made a few mediocre to bad trades that I didn’t care about.  I was just trading to try and get other people over.  I was fine with breaking even or even taking a few dollars hit on each trade.  This way, when I found the gem in one of their binders, no one would think twice.  This proved to be a mistake, as I looked through binder after binder of junk.

I was all packed up and ready to go when I decided to talk to the guy behind the counter.  This store does not generally carry any foil or foreign cards.  99% of their stock is inventoried in their computer system.  Having already gone through the system I knew that the shop had none of the cards from my list in the system.  I asked if any cards had come in recently that were foil or foreign.  The worker politely explained that they did not like purchasing “those types” of cards, since they were hard to sell.  Finally, he told me they had a box of foreign cards they kept in the storage room in case anyone asked.  He brought out one of the shoe box like card storage containers, filled with mostly unsleeved cards.  I looked through and found a few interesting, slightly valuable things that were not on my list.  As I came to one of the few sleeved cards in the box, I did a double take.  Sitting in the shoebox was a near mint Mana Crypt.

I was feeling pretty fantastic when I headed over to Sher-E-Punjab.  After having some freshly made samosa’s, that were free since I am a friend of theirs on Facebook, I was feeling even better.  I had some Garlic Naan and Korma that nearly put me into a permanent, food coma.  My friend and I just chatted for a bit, before I decided to head over to another card store to try out the Arcum deck.

I broke the ice with the players at this shop by playing my budget, Reaper King, deck.  This deck was built when I was unemployed and it shows.  If the Arcum deck is the “pimp” deck, this deck is the “Bum in the gutter who can’t afford his meth habit” deck.  This is the deck I would play when I want people to know that I can play just for fun and I don’t care about winning every time. 

When my Reaper King was winning more battles than he was losing, I should have kept the Arcum deck in my bag.  I was so excited about all the new additions to the deck that I just had to play it.  I played 2 games with it that lasted approximately 5 minutes each.  This was a casual crowd, so I tried to avoid the usual Disk-Forge-Lattice combo that Arcum is famous for.  My first game, I was happy to see my mana crypt staring at me in my opening hand, along with 2 islands, Artificer’s Intuition, Myr Matrix, Power Artifact and Planar Portal.  I played the Crypt and Intuition turn one, Arcum turn 2, and turn Arcum brought up the Grim Monolith.  These plays gave me infinite colorless mana turn 3.  I used the Artificer’s intuition to go get a Voltaic Key. Then, I played the Key and the Portal, to use the Portal’s search ability twice.  I tutored up a Mycosynth Lattice and a Beacon of Tommorows.  My opponents scoops, since it was now obvious, I had infinite turns, mana, and could tutor for whatever I wanted.  On a side note, whenever you play someone’s EDH deck for the first time, and they have an infinite turn combo, force them to play out there actual win conditions.  If you just scoop, you only know about the turn combo.  You really want to know as much about a power deck as possible, so that you can stop all of the routes to victory.  My second game was 1 v 1.  The specifics are not exactly thrilling.  He was able to play a Veteran Armorer and Cenn’s Tactician.  While he did that, I played Karn, The Silver Golem, Mycosynth Lattice, and Emrakul.  Emrakul is filling space in the deck right now until I collect all the cards on the list.

I feel great about the deck and awful about myself.  It felt like I was scolding a group of dogs.  The casual players didn’t really understand what was happening, but they knew they were in trouble.  I don’t particularly enjoy games that go this way, so I am more than happy to show people exactly what my cards are, how they work together, and even what can be done to stop it from happening.  I really enjoy a good back and forth while playing, so I spent the rest of the time at the shop helping out with some deck tech for the players EDH decks.

That is it for this installment.  I only got one more card from the deck list, but it was a big one.  I will update again as soon as I get more.

Thanks,

Sean

Ebay

EBay

When collecting unusual Magic cards, the largest obstacle is finding those cards.  If you could grab them at any Card store you went to they would not be as valuable.  We are lucky enough to live in a time where buying and trading cards in person is not your exclusive venue for collecting cards.  EBay can become a collector’s best friend.

EBay has some huge advantages to collecting in person.  While browsing the selection of cards in the auction house, there is access to any number of price comparison tools.   EBay has the largest selection of foil, foreign, and alternate printings of cards.  EBay usually has better prices than online card shops and brick and mortar card shores.  EBay allows the use of specialized buying techniques to get greater deals. 

Collectors can use trading websites, online price guides, and online stores to help ensure they get a fire price on their EBay purchases.  I personally suggest using the price guides from www.magictraders.com , www.apathyhouse.com, and www.starcitygames.com.  No price guide is perfect, but these sites will help when looking for deals.  Magic Traders of MOTL, bases prices on the site off of actually sales and trades made through the site.  Apathy House bases the prices on the trade evaluator using EBay sales.  Star City Games uses some sort of algorithm for their prices.  Star City is not known for being the cheapest site online, but they have the one of the best selections of cards online.

Most people think of discounts when they think of EBay.  People who sell cards on EBay are looking to sell them at a higher price than they can get from a selling to a store and get rid of the cards quickly.  Buyers on EBay are looking to pay a price less than if they went directly to a card store.  When a seller wants to liquidate their collection on EBay, they make sure to price the card just below the lowest listing for the card.  Each seller will undersell the previous sellers, until the lowest priced cards have been bought.  The more in demand a card is, the quicker the cards listed at lower prices will be bought and the higher the price will stay.  If a card is high enough demand that the online stores are sold out, there can be a discrepancy between the store price and the eBay price.  This week I made a trade that is a great example of this.  I traded someone my Scalding Tar for their Foil Zendikar Foil Island and a FTV: Relics Strip Mine.  If you use Star City to evaluate the trade, I traded away a $13 card for 2 $5 cards.  Sadly, Star City is sold out of FTV Strip Mines. On EBay these Strip Mines sell for $9.  Scalding Tarns also sell for $9 on eBay.  I am not going to guarantee that there will be the exact card you are looking for up for sale, but it is a great chance.  EBay has a constantly rotating selection of cards.  When you perform your searches, it helps to be as broad as possible.  It’s common for people to misspell card names, neglect to put proper descriptions, or place a card in an incorrect category.  When you do find a card that was listed improperly, it will normally be at a huge discount.  The discount is a result of a shortage of EBay buyers being able to find and bid on the particular item.

There are a few techniques that can be used while shopping on EBay to increase the chance of success.  They can be used to get deals, or block people from getting items.  A common style of bidding on auctions is sniping.  Sniping is my preferred style of bidding.  You use sniping to either grab an item at an incredibly low price, or to give yourself a higher chance of winning the auction.  They both work in the same basic way.   I make no bids on the auction until seconds before the auction is over.  Then, I make a large bid that no one else has time to respond to.  Personally, I keep 2-5 windows of the auction open preset with different bid amounts.  I arrange my screen so I can see all the windows at once.  When I bid with one (5 seconds before an auction ends), the others automatically refresh.  If I see a rival sniper is trying to outbid me, I shoot off a second bid in one of the other window.  I keep more than one extra window, because you never know how high the rival sniper will bid.  Another function on ebay to remember is the “Best Offer” button.  If a seller is “Buy it Now” or “Best Offer”, they are willing to settle for less than the listed price.  If the price is already fair or more than fair, I will offer the seller the price listed minus the shipping cost.  I would suggest using all the tools available for use on EBay.

This week I have purchased 6 cards on EBay:

·         Scarecrone (Foil Chinese)

·         Ancient Tomb (Korean)

·         Forbid (Korean)

·         Mishra’s Factory (BB German)

·         Artificer’s Intuition (Foil)

·         Fabricate (Japanese Foil)

The best buys here were the Scarecrone (4x .99$) and the Ancient Tomb ($15).  The Scarecrone looks like the guy forgot a decimal place and I sniped the Ancient Tomb.  Korean Ancient Tombs normally sell for 25-35 on eBay.

I have collected 24 of the 100 cards I need.  I still have 76 cards on the list remaining.  EBay will be a tool I will be using constantly over the course of this hunt.  That’s all for this installment, I will update again as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading,

Sean

Starting off

Collecting cards is a little like picking fruit, you go after those that are easiest to grab. According to Star City Games, there are 36 cards on the list that are $5 or less. These cards should both be the easiest cards to buy and the easiest cards to trade for. 
Local card stores usually sell bulk cards, separated by commons, uncommons, rares, and foils. Stores won’t organize or price out these cards, due to the time involved vs. the potential gain. You can normally find a decent number of cards selling below their resale value. I looked through several local stores’ collections and found the following cards priced at fifty cents to a dollar:
• Gargoyle Castle (Foil)
• Worn Powerstone (Japanese)
• Urza’s Factory (Foil)
• Myr Retriever (Foil)
• Island (Full Art Foil)
I visited four stores this weekend. My hope was that I would pick up 2-5 cards per store. It was a disappointment to only pick up five cards from the bulk section. Fortunately, there were 20% off sales at the shops I visited. The stores I went to were matching online prices. The online stores were all having Black Friday sales. The card I was most fortunate to grab was the Dream Halls. It was the only Korean card in the store. Dream Halls was priced at the same value as the English version + the 20% off! I was able to pick up the following cards at amazing discounts:
• Trinket Mage (Foil)
• Cryptic Command (DCI Promo Foil)
• Transmute Artifact
• Power Artifact
• Dream Halls (Korean)
• Mox Opal (Foil)
The stores were surprisingly empty, but there were a few people there to trade with. The only notable card I lost trading for these was a Wurmcoil Engine. In the future, I will do a better job at tracking exactly what I traded away to get the cards I traded for. I was able to get the following cards in trades: 
• Island (Full Art, Foil)
• Island (Full Art, Foil, Russian)
• Eye of Ugin (Foil)
• Mind Stone (Gateway Foil)
• Silver Myr (Mirrodin Chinese Foil)
With all the low hanging fruit off the tree, it’s time to start the real work of collecting this deck.
16 cards down – 84 to go.

The MTG Pimp Chronicles

There are many reasons to become involved in Magic the Gathering. Many players enjoy playing casually with friends, preferring to think of magic as just something to do while hanging out. Others get involved in various levels of competitive magic, where they enjoy the abundance of tournaments that Wizards of the Coast has made available. A smaller number of people are involved in magic for the trading aspect of the game. In an average hobby store you will see at least one guy trying to go Infinite and be the next Jonathan Medina. This series will be about the always-present yet often overlooked aspect of Magic, collecting.

To demonstrate the art of collecting rare and unusual Magic cards, I am going to build an EDH deck from the ground up. At the end of this article, I have posted my deck list. Presently, I do not own any of the cards on the list, in the version listed. Over this series, I will illustrate the methods I use to collect these rare and unusual cards.

The List. (Final Versions May Very)

General
Arcum Dagsson (Foil)

Creatures
Kar, Silver Golemn (Arena Foil)
Memnarch (Foil)
Memnite (Foil or Extended Art Promo)
Myr Retriever (Foil)
Ornithopter (Japanese Foil)
Scarecrone (Foil)
Silver Myr (Foil)
Solem Simulacrum (Foil)
Trinket Mage (Foil)
Voltaic Construct (Foil)

Sorceries
Beacon of Tommorows (Foil)
Braingeyser (Alpha/Beta)
Fabricate (Japanese Foil)
Stroke of Genius (Judge Foil)
Transmute Artifact

Instants
Capsize (FNM Foil)
Counterspell (Masques Japanese Foil)
Foil (Foil)
Forbid (FNM Promo)
Force of Will
Intuition (Judge Foil)
Mindbreak Trap (Japanese Foil)
Mystical Tutor (From the Vault Exiled)
Personal Tutor (Chinese)
Cryptic Command (DCI Foil Promo Textless)
Stoic Rebuttal (Foil)
Thwart (Foil)

Planeswalkers
Jace Beleran (Book Promo)
Tezzeret (Japanese Alara Foil)

Enchantments
Artificers Intuition (Foil)
Power Artifact
Dream Halls (Japanese)

Artifacts
Scroll Rack (foreign)
Basalt Monolith (Beta)
Candelabra of Tawnos
Core Tapper (Foil)
Crucible of Worlds (Chinese Foil)
Darksteel Forge (Foil)
Darksteel Ingot (Arena Foil)
Expedition Map (Foil)
Grim Monolith (Japanese Foil)
Gilded Lotus (Foil Japanese)
Isochron Scepter (Japanese Foil)
Lightning Greeves (Foil)
Magistrate's Scepter (Foil)
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault (Alpha/Beta)
Mind Stone (Gateway Foil)
Mindslaver (Japanese Foil)
Mox Diamond (Japanese)
Mox Opal (Foil)
Mycosynth Latice (Foil)
Myr Matrix (Foil)
Nevinyrral's Disk (Alpha/Beta)
Planar Portal (Foil)
Prototype Portal (Foil)
Rings of Brighthearth (Foil)
Sensei's Divining Top (Foil)
Sol Ring (Judge Foil)
Thousand Year Elixir (Foil)
Thran Dynamo (Foil)
Voltaic Key (Urza's Saga, Chinese)
Worn Powerstone (Japanese)

Lands
Academy Ruins (Foil)
Ancient Tomb (Foreign)
Blinkmoth Nexus (Foil)
Boseiju, Who Shelters All (Foil)
Dust Bowl (Foil)
Eye of Ugin (Foil)
Flooded Strand (Foil Promo)
Gargoyl Castle (Foil)
Ghost Quarter (Foil)
Hall of the Bandit Lord (Foil)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Island (Foil Zendikar Full Art)
Maze of Ith (Judge Foil)
Minamo, School at Water's Edge (Foil)
Mishra's Factory (Italian)
Mishra's Workshop
Misty Rainforest (Foil)
Mystifying Maze (Foil)
Polluted Delta (Judge Foil)
Scalding Tarn (Foil)
Seat of the Synod (Foil)
Stalking Stones (Foil)
Stripmine (From the Vault: Exiled)
Tectonic Edge (Foil)
Thawing Glaciers (Judge Foil)
Tolaria West (Foil)
Urza's Factory (Foil)
Vesuva (Foil)
Wasteland (Judge Promo)


Thank you for reading, I will update as often as I can.