When someone tries to say "but it's worth X" to negotiate a trade, I like to laugh and tell them to ram it up their can.

Unless you're giving me a complete market analysis, including many price points from not only different dealers, but a cross-section of brick and mortar stores filtered by geographic location, size, dedication to MTG and weighted to give more consideration to those most similar to the store(s) I trade or buy at, and then go on to give me an aggregated average of these factors, plus ebay, MOTL, and so forth…and don't forget to build some sort of model to account for correlation between equity values (think of archetypes like sectors and formats as considerations in defining archetypes)…if you'd like to give me that, then do some sort of options pricing model to account for the fact that a Magic card is often a depreciating asset (every day it comes closer to being less relevant to all formats), then see if you can use something like the McNutt demand index to gague liquidity of the asset and then offset any loss of liquidity with a discount on its "book" value, well….

well shit, then you can tell me that Card Y is worth $X. Until then, we're all just guessing. That's my standpoint on the issue. My card is worth as much as I want it to be, period. When liquidity becomes a concern, that's when I have to start adjusting my prices to suit the market.

Great work on the article, by the way!

The thing is, you make a practical analysis of the market for cards and the value of cards, and it needs to at least mention rationality and make a basic assumption for any of your statements to have weight. The other thing is, you forget about the secondary market for a minute. While you seem to assume that people are utility-maximizing (ie, they do the things/make the trades that make them happiest- NOT necessarily the things that add to the monetary value of their collections). So if I value that Emrakul similarly or higher to your foil Vengevine, I've made the right trade (let's leave fairness aside for now and just focus on what makes people happy).

The problem with this is that there's a secondary market for cards, wherein I can obtain that Emrakul for about 6 dollars and that foil Vengevine for 60 dollars. I can sell that foil Vengevine for 60 dollars and buy six of those Emrakuls, which gives me much more utility than the aforementioned trade, even if I am not fixated on monetary vlaue and only want cards that I need. Of course, I probably don't need 6 Emrakuls, but I can buy one and then I can buy a Kozilek, or twenty Etched Champions, or whatever. Even factoring in transactions costs for buying/selling stuff online, I can get a "trade" that makes me much happier if I remember that the cards have monetary value on the secondary market (which obviously, they do).

There are exceptions of course- most people are too lazy to buy/sell stuff on eBay or an open market, little kids don't have the knowledge or the practical opportunity to do this kind of stuff, etc. Also, there's the sentimentality thing- I opened a foil Elspeth or whatever at my prerelease and it was mine all mine, and I really didn't want to trade it, even for $100 worth of cards. But when I can sell those cards for $100 (or even $80 to a dealer) and buy a mint foil Elspeth on ebay AND have money for cards left over, why would I hold on to the Elspeth? Extreme sentimentality can explain that, and not everyone's rational… But as long as your card has monetary value, what you said can mostly be thrown out the window.

Sorry if this came off as a rant, but I want people to discuss. I want to note that I REALLY like your writing and respect your insights and agree with them most of the time, just not this time.

The story about Jim and Wes reminded me to a situation I was put in this weekend. I found out that a neighbor played casually, and invited me (T2 Competitve) over for sunday magic with him and a bunch of friends. When we finally get around to trading, I see a foil molten-tail masticore. I set aside what I want, and then he flips through my binder, picking out 1 card for each one I pulled out. by the time it came to finalize I had nearly 70 in value (SCG) vs his 20. I started to protest that it was way to lopsided in my favor. His response was "If I had a use for the card, it would be in a deck and not for trade. I know it's probably worth alot to you, but to me its a shiny card I won't use."

I saw him yesterday and made sure he was still okay with it. He said was. And then followed up with.
"Hey, I need another of those Obstinate Baloths. Would you trade it for my Mox Opal?"

It really made me think about the casual side of the game and how those players value their cards.
Thank you for the insightful article.

Thanks for the kind words. I really do appreciate it.

I didn't notice that this went up until this last Saturday. Curse those out of town trips!

Again, I appreciate ego boost, but does anyone have any recommendations off hand to improve my writing? I take great pride in the things I produce, so if there's anyway to become better I'd certainly like to hear it!

We both came away very happy with the trade, which is the most important thing anyway. Important thing is just not to scam them… let them know how you value the cards up front. Nothing could be worse than making a trade like that without disclosing what you value cards at, then having them see you at a later trade valuing their card at 70+. Fine line between trading with someone who values things differently and scamming them.

Guy wants my Moltentail Masticore, I want his Grave Titan. He says they are equal and pulls up the prices, which are indeed about equal. But I KNOW that everyone in that store will be willing to over-trade for that Masticore for the next month+ because it just came out and will be very tough to find. OTOH Grave Titan is old news and much easier to find. So maybe the site says they are both $20, but I know I can get a lot more out of the Masticore from someone else, so pony up or forget about it.

A coke at a ball game or amusement park.
Cards at the prerelease where hype drives local prices as much as what it's going for on Ebay.

While value fluctuates, price is more of a definate value. Different players may value cards differently, but The average price of a card on Ebay is definative. So ethically, how much should we use price vs how much should we use value? I think it depends on what is driving the value. If you're at a PTQ or Grand Prix, and someone needs cards right then for their deck, I think it's fair to have a higher value, like selling a coke at a ball game. If you're at a prerelease, and someone wants that card you just pulled, it's fair to value it higher since you can't actually get the card form SCG or Ebay yet.

Of course, you can value your cards at whatever you want. If you value your first foil birds @ $150 even though it goes for $100 on Ebay, there is nothing unfair about that. I guess what I'm trying to discuss with myself is where to draw the line. At what point is it adjusting value vs ripping someone off. So long as you let your trading partner know that you are valueing it, not lying to him about what the price is, I'm ok with that. For example, I think it is fair to overvalue Stoneforge Mystic right now. It's online price may only be $4 – $5 but it seems fair to value it at $6 + based upon speculation. As long as someone doesn't try to tell me it's price is $6, I'm ok with that. Ppl lying to me and trying to rip me off angers me, sorry for the ramble haha 😀

A lot of people forget that trades only ever take place if both the seller and the buyer perceive an increase in value. Trading can never be zero-sum in terms of value.

@the_cardfather: I do this too to a certain extent. Although I only have one Standard deck, I've built up a binder of Standard rares that I *could* trade or *could* play with, but I just leave it all at home. I think the big reason is I'm hoping the value of the binder will go up as the new Standard season plays itself out, but it's not doing me that much good keeping it all at home.

I think it comes down to just pulling the trigger. At some point I'll just commit to going with UW control for the long haul and put everything else back into the trade binder. Speculating is fun, but all those cards I'm sitting on could be getting me cards I actually want.

On the other hand I've got a stack of legacy staples that I've been hanging onto for the one day I might decide to try the format. Most of them are commons and uncommons that would be a pain to reaquire, but I can get $20 easy right now for a playset of Cabal Therapy. If I don't need anything for my decks, then I might as well hold them, but I could likely trade them up into 3+ fetchlands that I could use right now. It would be poor collection management for me to play sub-optimal cards, or complain about the cost of fetchlands while holding these in my binder for a rainy day. Yet so many players do just that.