Also I'm pretty sure the 12 Unhinged Mountains should be 2 and that is just a typo on my part. Ebay may have been the better option but I generally try to stay away from selling on there unless it is a high value item and even though only when I have exhausted all my other selling options because of the fees involved.
On the other hand the second trade I don't see how I lost anything at all. Looking at the most current recent listings on eBay all of them have gone unsold and no one was even willing to put a minimum bid of $50 on them. As for current auctions there are a bunch that have bids on them ranging from $10-$35 so it will be interesting to see what happens with those but it still looks as though these don't sell very well (or at least for very high). Even using today's prices on the cards (which in most cases is lower than what they were when I made the trade) I still got over $50 which is double what I paid for it.
@the_cardfather: $3-4 for non-foil unhinged is nuts! If I thought I could ever get anything like that locally I definitely would have held on to them but there isn't much interest plus my LGS has a bunch of them in their case at $1. I've always liked the Unglued lands more than the Unhinged and I feel like if you really wanted to set the deck apart from the ones with Zen basics they would be a better way to go but most people still seem to prefer the Unhinged. I guess I just really like the tap symbol! Lol
]]>Props on the rec for Dale Carnegie. I would add to it a tiny little book by Les Giblin, "Skill with People". I swear those two books should be required reading in all schools.
]]>Otherwise, the article was a fun read 🙂
]]>One recent trade I made really highlights the benefits of trading online. The trade went like this:
My: World Queller foil
Thought Gorger foil
Doomsday
Volcanic Hammer promo
Marshal's Anthem foil
Plains: 4 Unglued, 7 Unhinged
Island: 7 Unglued
Swamp: 3 Unglued, 6 Unhinged
Mountain: 6 Unglued, 12 Unhinged
Forest: 4 Unglued, 5 Unhinged
His:
Decree of Pain
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Swords to Plowshares
Kjeldoran Outpost
Strip Mine
Sol Ring
The value on these cards is definitely in his favor however I was trading up for some great EDH cards that I will be able to move fairly quick. Non-foil Un-lands usually go as throw-ins for a dollar tops and the foils were just sitting in the back of my binder. I could have sold the lands on eBay but to get the most value from them I likely would have had to break them into smaller lots and I really didn't want to go through that much work. Plus EDH is starting to pick up in my area, which means people need staples, and I should be able to trade these away for a decent profit. The only questionable card is Sol Ring due to the coming release of FTV: Relics. This will probably lower the local demand for a few weeks so I will try to either move it quick or hold onto it for my own use. Trading up basic lands for EDH staples is not something you can find often, especially if your trading is limited to local stores and the occasional regional event.
Another great thing about online trading is that it gives you a place to get rid of other Magic-related items that you would have a hard time getting rid of normally. A short while ago Evan Erwin retweeted a drawing that was giving away an MtG 15th Anniversary life counter. The site pointed out that a popular eBay dealer was selling them for $160. I instantly remembered seeing them at a store about thirty minutes away for $25. I drove over there and picked up the two they had for $50. They had been in the case for some time so normally I would have tried to get a discount but I didn't want to risk them looking it up and raising the price.
After I purchased them the first thing I did was contact the dealer selling them for $160 and see how much they would buy them off me for. While the price they gave me for each would have been a profit I felt like the trouble of trying to get rid of these on my own was worth the extra I would get. I knew from looking them up before driving to the store that most people listed them on eBay for around $100. Most of the time they don't sell. I just checked eBay again and one recently sold for as low as $50.
In addition to trading you can also buy or sell cards on the popular trading sites. I decided to make a sale thread for these as well as list them in my trade thread. I also tried to see if any local players were interested in them but no one was willing to give me the price I wanted. In the end I was able to sell one and trade the other. All told it took me about a week after listing them to get rid of them both which is a pretty decent turnaround time for something like this. The one I sold was for $75 shipped so I recovered all my cash costs, which was important to me, and made an extra $20. The other one traded for the following:
Celestine Reef plane
Tazeem plane
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Flame Javelin (textless)
Incinerate (textless)
Consuming Vapors
Coralhelm Commander
Pyromancer Ascension
Goblin Guide
Stoneforge Mystic x2
Empyrial Archangel
Uril the Mistalker
Slave of Bolas promo
Deep Analysis promo
Obelisk of Alara promo
Tidehollow Sculler promo
Infest (textless)
Siege-Gang Commander
Wren's Run Vanquisher promo
I should probably explain to you guys that I am a promo whore. I love promos and feel the need to have four of everything (well at least everything that was mass-released…no 1996 World Champion for me) so this ended up being more about a trade for my own collection. I also ended up giving SCG prices on the promos which I usually hate to do but I already had the cash from the other life counter and I was still getting some decent trade stuff to throw in my binder. Normally I would have passed on the promos and went for staples but I was completing a bunch of playsets with this trade so I was happy.