I've posted the looking, but once again, the responses are usually not what you want from craigslist. Pretty much here's the things i would get:

"I have 20,000 bulk commons. I'll sell them to you for $200 firm. I play magic competitively and trying to get rid of my bulk."

-okay…so this person knows star city only wants $120 for this lot, and given they're a competitive player will likely have taken out any commons/uncommons of value.

"I'm selling my revised duals since I'm getting out of legacy and back into standard, does (SCG or CFB prices) sound good for them?"

"I have some magic cards, do you want them?"

I have the hardest time with this simply because there's not much i can say without offering to look, which may not be worth it many times. Some of these people had a family member or significant other, or son/daughter etc who played and don't know the first thing about them, and the others have been so out of touch the answers something like "well i played during 4th edition and have stuff like shivan dragon and birds of paradise. I did get some rare cards from older sets likerevised like Sol Ring and Royal Assassin and Regrowth too! I also have a jester's cap from Ice Age which must be worth a fortune now." – and these people are a tough egg to crack because there's either a slight chance they're sitting on a playset of force of wills they'll sell you at 2 bucks a piece, or a greater chance they have junk and will be insulted if you try to buy it in bulk.

I also get the ones like: "I played five

years ago and got some cards. There's about 150, want to buy them for $10?" which is impossible to get into as there's next to no chance of being anything of value.

I'd try to go through collections and comb out the good stuff, but given time restraints and arranging a time to meet and take the time to do so has been difficult and it's easier for me to enjoy the treasure hunt by buying it cheap.

My most recent story is interesting. Vindictive ex-girlfriend finds the collection. Her boyfriend was apparently cheating on him and her idea of revenge is selling his magic collection. 3 boxes of cards. She wanted $100 each for them. I misread it and thought she wanted $100 for all 3 and offered her $30 (she claimed 1500 per box "probably" and they were plastic bins rather than real card boxes, she also said he's been playing for under 10 years, which drove up the red flags.) figuring worst case scenario i flip it to bulk out to SCG assuming i can make $40 from it to cover shipping. Given the storage and time period though, very good chance there's nothing of value as he might have been Elf Guy Mike rather than Card Slinging Steve.

One of the biggest untapped venues I believe for finding magic cards is the military. I have bought a lot of cards from military guys or their spouses. Sometimes they are just cleaning up, or they played while deployed, whatever. I tell all of my military friends that I play and to ask around for me. Plus I make it a point to chat up the military guys in my LCS to see if they know anyone else with cards they want to turn into cash.

This doesn't work for everyone, but you're surrounded by bases Chas; might be worth looking in to.

If you figure out how to make collections come to you, please tell me. I would love to know as well.

The best thing to do is to make everyone around you aware that you are looking for collections, and sometimes you might get friends and friends-of-friends telling you about a box of cards in their closet.

I've tried posting "looking for/buying collections on Craigslist", but I've never gotten a response.

My only story so far is when i bought a collection, description was something like:

blah blah i have a collection of 5000 mtg cards, don't want them anymore, will take them for $30.

I do the deal figuring i break even if it's all bulk commons/uncommons, and i assumed from the description it was including rares.

I get the cards but misjudge the size of the bag. It was 3 1,000 or less boxes in all. One was all basic land (about 1,000, so $10 ifi sell in bulk to SCG), one had a mix of standard stuff in an order that looks like it was drafted recently (mostly limited commons/uncommons that would see play)

Then a box mislabeled: ARtifacts, multicolor, keepers is at the bottom and i pull

12 Priest of Titania
10 Brainstorms
8 Daze
4 Lotus Petal
and a ton of $1-3 commons/uncommons in playsets
a couple arena lands (which i didn't notice until someone pulled them out of my bulk holos i was offering to trade out of)

Not a single rare in sight other than a forgotten rite of replication (lol) but i can grind the lot, sell the rest as bulk, and probably double if not triple the profit on it, worst case scenario i trade to people starting up legacy and trade up.

The story gets funny tonight at FNM when i see the guy drafting there. He asks me how i like the collection and i said it was pretty nice. I come to find out he sold his collection to support drafts as he wanted to invest in drafting and try to go infinite. I joke how it felt like i was looking at a bunch of draft sets in the late 90's then suddenly a bunch of draft sets 10 years later. I fin out i was the second guy to see it. The first guy was a dealer who bought all his rares for $900, which include multiple duals, playset of force of wills, and essentially a legacy player's wet dream.

I sold a yugioh collection recently for the same price, so it's sad to hear i could have flipped it for an MTG legacy collection, but such is life.

Now with the story out of the way, wondering where else to find collections, or get people to come to you? I'm looking to fill my collection and flip anything else useful so i often offer to pay close to premium for collections anyway. Don't mind the treasure hunts either, but i have no idea who to even ask that might "know someone" who had a bunch of old cards. Also old cards encompasses both beta-revised and the sad Fallen Empires, Homelands, Ice Age, Alliances, 4th Ed, 5th ed collections. Some people might also refer to Mirage all the way to Urza block as an old collection, but at least those collections have more potential in the common/uncommon department than dead zone collections that even most dealers won't buy (my local dealer said he refuses collections from these sets simply because 99% of these sets are absolute bulk)

I bought two collections on Craigslist today. Here is one posting:
"Misc Magic the Gathering cards I have collected thru the years
Hundreds of cards…Take the lot for $40"
We meet at a gas station, say hi, and I start flipping. I see NO rares. Hardly any uncommons even and I'm thinking what a waste (this was my second buy in the same area so not really, but.) Talking with him, he says he had a friend come by two months ago and ask if he could borrow some stuff. haha! He cleaned this guy out (I do believe he was telling the truth). I said he should just give the rest to his friends 'cause all I could offer was $10. He said sure. Fortunately I found a dozen rares and 26 careful studies! which BIN on ebay for $4.99/playset. So with the bulk going to the local shop I should do ok.

The first buy of the day was from a college kid with mostly standard cards. He wanted $65, I offered $40 and we settled at $50. His came with three fatpack boxes of c,un, and r with foils. Money cards are 2 Eld Mon, Figure, foil spell pierces, and some others. I'll be lucky to break even but I have a hard time saying no which is easily my biggest Collection buying weakness.

You really have to judge the mood of the seller. Some people are perfectly willing to sit there and shoot the breeze with you while you flip through piles of cards. Others want to get out of there as quickly as possible. Like most things, it's about reading the situation.

Remember – you're the one with the cash, so you're the one in the drivers' seat!

Some collections it is clear you will make money. Say, if they want $60 and there are two duals in their 'rares' pile and you're getting 5,000 other cards that might include any number of goodies. Then, it's fine to either pay the $60 or start haggling without wasting time.

I have also gone through every single card – up to 10-20k in one case – because I knew I was going to make them a smaller offer for only the cards I wanted.

I'm sure there are other good ways to look for collections, but I didn't explore them too much. In the old days you could find them on eBay, but now they're more likely to be cleverly disguised repacks.

You could try putting fliers up around town, putting a sign up on your car, or making an "I buy Magic Card Collections – Ask me!" T shirt if you really wanted to get nuts with it.

I've been thinking about collection buying for a long time, but that would mean I was competing with my friend who runs an eBay store. He was fantastic at flipping collections. A couple months ago, he got two insane deals in one weekend. Both were through more indirect contact, not online. (He just told me it was "a friend of a friend". Damn trade secrets.)

In the first one, the guy had his big 5000 count box and a few smaller boxes around it. On top of that box was a stack of Vanguards. In fact, it was nearly the whole collection of Vanguard cards. So, my friend took note of that and took a peek into the 5k box. The first card he saw is an Alpha Contract from Below. He asked the seller how much per card. The seller said .10 sounded about right. Then my friend asked for the whole collection.

"For the whole thing? $10."

"Deal."

I have no idea why the guy jumped from somewhere around $600 to TEN DOLLARS. Anyway, it turned out there was no Power or duals in that sale. The seller was actually holding those back in his "personal collection", but the collection was still worth a few hundred. Obviously the Vanguards were more than worth it.

The next day, my friend bought a small collection that had duals and Sol Rings in it that was priced from an old Scrye magazine or something. Turns out he got the blue duals for $10-30 a piece and the Sol Rings and Maze of Iths were basically throw-ins.

Anyway, this friend of mine recently moved away, so perhaps I can step in and take his place. There are no other collection flippers in this region that I'm aware of.

One question: are there any other ways to contact sellers other than Craigslist and yard sales?

Great first article, and I'm definitely interested in seeing more from you — especially your thoughts on the 2nd half of the process — how to resell. There've already been a couple of great articles here in QS about the process, but I'm looking forward to hearing your take on the process.

One question I have is this: How much time are you willing to spend looking through a collection? Once you've sized up that the bulk may be RV combined with Dead Zone era cards, do you look through the first couple hundred, and then make a gamble and offer them a flat rate? Staking there leaning on the hood of your car flipping through a couple of shoeboxes may be trying the patience of the seller.

A recent craigslist collection I bought, via my pre-purchase phone call/emails, I had told them that from their description I might be willing to pay $20-$40. When I got there, I spotted a few RV Tutors, Regrowths, and other 2nd-3rd tier uncommons, but I stopped about 5 minutes into looking, and said "I can give you $30" And then we were done, and I took the boxes and left. I didn't finish looking through the cards until I got home, at which point I figure I probably broke about even — no dual lands or other noteables, but enough mid-grade stuff that I can grind my initial investment out of it.

But as I left she said "I probably would have taken $10, I was going to throw these out if you didn't buy them. My daughter hasn't touched these in years" At first, I felt, "Man, I could have gone lower. She had no clue about any prices." But I could also tell though, from the condition of her vehicle, the difficulty of scheduling a meeting with me while shuttling her 3 kids around, etc., that that $30 probably helped her more at that moment than it was helping me. So while I didn't make any money, I still feel okay about the deal. Perhaps I'm a sucker, perhaps I don't know how to play hardball.

Buying collections via ebay sometimes is easier – no potential emotional attachments, because there's no physical meeting.

Lackey
(Twitter @lackey)

Old art trike is my fav! Looks like a dalek.

The phone interview is very tough, and sometimes you just won't win. Here are my tips and tricks:

Gauge the seller's knowledge of their cards by asking some easy questions. When they bought them, if they know about any rares, if they played in tournaments, etc. If they know a lot, get all the information you can about the money rares. If they don't, ask about what era the cards are from. You often have to make a leap of faith if you decide to check them out.

It's important to present yourself as the seller that they would most want to sell their cards to. To wit:

– If the seller is someone who played cards back in the day and still has some nostalgia for them, it's best not to mention that you trade or sell cards for profit. You don't need to lie, but it's best to get excited in the same way he does – as a player who enjoys awesome old cards. This assures the seller that his cards are going to a good home.

– If the seller is a more recent player looking to get quick cash out of their collection, it is best to play up the angle that you know exactly what these cards are worth, and will give them a fair cash value for them as an expert. If they sell to someone else, they might get ripped off.

If the seller tells you that the first person who gets there gets the cards and you don't think it's going to be you because they live far away and others have said they'd be right over, I might let slip that their cards are more valuable than their asking price. After all, getting 10 duals for $200 is better than someone else getting 10 duals for $75, right? This might lead them to go online and check eBay, in which case you've driven an hour for the chance to…buy dual lands for eBay prices. But it also might let you snag a collection on the slightly-less-cheap by being the honest buyer who told them their cards were worth a bit more.

Everyone has different reasons for selling their cards. By presenting yourself as their ideal buyer, you stand a better chance of getting what you want.

Re: the yard sale commission thing, that's a great idea. If anyone else does this, though, make sure the person buying the cards calls you when they find a score so you can OK it. Otherwise, you might inadvertently buy a 9th edition starter deck for $25.

You're right – buying bulk does add up. Of course, finding a profitable way to sell bulk is another story. Mailing it to dealers is a no-win game, usually.

I will do an article sometime soon on how I sell cards, which will help. But yeah, you can spend on bulk as long as you're getting a really good deal on it. Of course, $6/thousand is not a very attractive number to most people who spent $3-$4 on each 15 card booster pack…

@the_cardfather: The "finder's fee" tip is pretty cool – I'll need to try that.

Coming back to the game with M10, there isn't much I can still use from back there. At least I have stacks of fireballs and lightning bolts to give away to friends, and I have a funky looking Triskellion that really turns some heads at FNM 🙂

On a side note: My wife has a couple friends that "yard sale" every saturday. I gave them a couple of MTG cards so they could see the back and said "If you every find a box of these call me asap. If they're good I'll pay you a finders fee". She's a sweet one for a deal. Bought 2k cards for $5 that they flipped to me for $20. It was mostly commons but I got a bunch of those aformentioned Counterspells, Brainstorms, Gush's and Daze. The only real $$ card was a signed Mox Diamond.

I was surprised that Scourge is so worthless, too. There are some power uncommons, like foil Tendrils of Agony, that can step in at least.

Sorry about that! You can reach me at candres@mac.com, and that will be fixed in the future.

Also, if you've read this, please check back again soon! I wrote a much longer version of this article with more info, only they didn't post it. Hopefully version 2.0 will go up tomorrow.

Thanks!

– Chas