I was at a yard sale a couple weeks ago that advertised Magic cards for sale on Craigslist.

These are my favorite things in the world, and I usually try to get there at least half an hour before the start of the sale. For some reason, this time I just didn’t want to wake up early. I didn’t get there until 2 PM – usually far too late to find a bargain – but I decided to check it out anyway. I had a hunch that there might still be something left for me.

I was quickly glad that I didn’t wake up early.

The seller was clearly a casual player back during the original Mirrodin block, and most of his cards were from that era. There was a 5-row full of commons and uncommons, a stack of rares, and a binder with yet more rares. When I strode up and began examining the piles, I overheard the seller speaking with a kid who had found a small collection of cards that he wanted to buy.

“Hold on a minute,” the seller told his customer. “I need to go look these up online. I’ll be right back with a price.”

“Ok!” said the kid, oblivious to the fact that his father had already been waiting for half an hour while his son rifled through several thousand cards and would have been happy never seeing a Magic card again for as long as he lived.

When the seller came back, it took all of my cool not to visibly choke when he started quoting the prices. I didn’t know where he was getting them from, but it was like no price guide I had ever seen. All of them were at least two or three times the price of Star City Games singles on a bad day.

So what did I do? Pick out some money rares, and try to beat him up over the price by showing him a reasonable guide? Cut my losses and go home?

No.

I decided to eschew the rares for the time being and head for the commons and uncommons. Since I knew he was looking up cards, I developed a new plan of action: get a flat price for his non rares, and hope he had some sweet ones. After five minutes of digging, I had found an Isochron Scepter, a Skullclamp, and six(!) Aether Vials.

Now came the tricky part. If I just handed him the stack of commons and uncommons and asked for a price, he’d go look them up and I’d be paying $29.95 per Vial. I knew that if I wanted to get a good deal on the cards I really wanted, I had to pay up for some rares.

In the end, I gave the guy a stack of rares that weren’t embarrassingly bad, had him look up the prices, and ended up paying him through the nose for two of them. (Yeah, $3 for Azami, Lady of Scrolls when SCG has her for $0.89 isn’t the deal of the century.)

In return, I got him to quote me a flat price of fifty cents each for any commons and uncommons I wanted.

Anyone in the market for some Aether Vials?

The Might of the Meek

While Quiet Speculation’s own Corbin Hosler posted an article this summer about the power of trading with Commons and Uncommons, I wanted to weigh in on the subject as well.

While some older uncommons (Force of Will and Wasteland come immediately to mind) are traded as rares by everyone, a good working knowledge of all valuable commons and uncommons gives you a supreme edge of those for whom value stops at the gold or orange rarity symbol.

The Threshold

I have found that there is a pretty hard threshold at $1 in terms of how ‘money’ commons and uncommons are treated. Non-rares worth below $1 (and I’m speaking in MagicTraders/eBay prices here) simply aren’t worth your time and energy to lug around.

While you may one day find that kid who really needs that fourth Dark Ritual, chances are they’ll find the card in a bulk box before they find you. And even if they do find you first, you aren’t going to strike it rich on a sub-$1 card.

The $1 threshold has another meaning to those of us who sell cards on eBay. $1 on MagicTraders means that, on average, a playset of that card will sell for $4.

Assuming you charge between $2-$3 for shipping and handling for your lot, a $4 average is the lowest price for a playset that basically guarantees your will sell your item if you list it as an auction with a $0.99 starting bid.

If you’ve ever experienced the drag of posting a ton of auctions that closed without a bidder, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

List-O-Mania

This week, I spent a few hours creating a list that I think will be very valuable to you. I went to the MagicTraders price guide, and took note of all the commons and uncommons that regularly sell for over $1 per copy. I have excluded all cards before Revised as well as the Portal releases because these sets are special cases where short print runs and rarity trump everything else. I will do an article in the future on Portal, P3K, older cards, and other rarities.

I also excluded a couple of hilarious outliers, like a Deep Spawn that sold for $19.95 or a Jinx that sold for $45.00!

Please note that while I wanted this list to be exhaustive, I’m sure that I glossed over several cards on my perusal of the gigantic list. Please let me know what I missed in the comments – I would love to have a complete list of “non rare players” for when I’m sorting through collections.

THE COMMON/UNCOMMON POWER LIST

(Sorted by price from highest to lowest)

Thirty-Nine Dollars

Force of Will

Twenty-Two Dollars

Wasteland

Ten Dollars

Aether Vial

Nine Dollars

Goblin Lackey

Sol Ring

Eight Fifty

Standstill

Seven Dollars

Enlightened Tutor

Sensei's Divining Top

Five Twenty Five

Reanimate

Five Dollars

Cabal Coffers

Price of Progress

Four Seventy Five

Ancient Tomb

Isochron Scepter

Four Dollars

Cabal Therapy

Elvish Spirit Guide

Sterling Grove

Three Seventy Five

Lightning Greaves

Mystical Tutor

Three Twenty Five

Crystalline Sliver

Eternal Witness

Lim-Dul's Vault

Propaganda

Spell Snare

Three Dollars

Path to Exile

Two Seventy Five

Ghostly Prison

Imperious Perfect

Mother of Runes

Priest of Titania

Tinker

Two Fifty

Browbeat

Buried Alive

Cephalid Coliseum

Cursecatcher

Kitchen Finks

Lotus Petal

Squirrel Nest

Undead Warchief

Two Twenty Five

Brain Freeze

Fact or Fiction

Goblin Warchief

Heedless One

Merrow Reejerey

Swords to Plowshares

Thran Dynamo

Trygon Predator

Worldly Tutor

Two Dollars

Bloodbraid Elf

Daru Warchief

Daze

Dragon Arch

Elephant Grass

Fog Bank

Horned Sliver

Mind Harness

Necromancy

One Seventy Five

Circular Logic

Elvish Promenade

Goblin Ringleader

Jotun Grunt

Knight of Meadowgrain

Krosan Grip

Perish

Regrowth

Rite of Flame

Skullclamp

Tangle

Vampire Nighthawk

Wirewood Symbiote

One Fifty

Animate Dead

Boggart Ram-Gang

Chainer's Edict

Firespout

Ghost Quarter

Lightning Helix

Magma Jet

Paradise Mantle

Remand

Soulless One

Wall of Blossoms

Wall of Denial

Wall of Omens

Ward Sliver

Wash Out

Wirewood Lodge

One Twenty Five

Ancient Ziggurat

Anger

Arcane Sanctum

Barbarian Ring

Blightning

Brainstorm

Chain of Vapor

Crumbling Necropolis

Energy Chamber

Engineered Plague

Exhume

Fecundity

Fire/Ice

Flames of the Blood Hand

Gaea's Blessing

Gatekeeper of Malakir

Ghitu Encampment

Goblin Recruiter

Harmonize

Hellspark Elemental

Hymn to Tourach

Jagged-Scar Archers

Juniper Order Ranger

Leeches

Loxodon Warhammer

Pyrokinesis

Rancor

Savage Lands

Shifting Sliver

Shrapnel Blast

Skyshroud Elite

Spectral Procession

Tendrils of Agony

Wirewood Hivemaster

Zombie Infestation

One Dollar

Aura Shards

Beseech the Queen

Blasting Station

Bramblewood Paragon

Briarhorn

Choke

Control Magic

Cruel Edict

Curiosity

Drove of Elves

Flame Javelin

Goblin Offensive

Hand of Honor

Jungle Shrine

Mogg Fanatic

Mogg Infestation

Mortify

Nimble Mongoose

Seaside Citadel

Shattering Spree

Silvergill Adept

Tainted Isle

Tectonic Edge

Thirst for Knowledge

Tolaria West

Tormod's Crypt

Treetop Village

Wellwisher

Wirewood Channeler

Zombie Trailblazer

Conclusions

Be honest – how many of those cards did you think were bulk until you read this list?

For me, the biggest revelation was the value of the uncommon Sliver cards. While I knew that Crystalline Sliver trades right around $4, I had no idea that there were several other Slivers from Tempest and Legions that are also worth something.

Also: raise your hand if you had Daru freaking Warchief on the same pricing tier as Daze. I’m sure I’ve bulked out dozens of that guy.

Of course, before you go swapping your Dazes for Darus, remember that the sword of knowledge cuts both ways. You can probably find a few people who have Daru Warchiefs that they’ll trade you for a quarter each, but there will be very few trading partners who will trade you for them at full value.

Trading in Silver and Black

While most people you trade with will value rares, uncommons, promos, and whatever else at whatever value point you both agree with, others will look upon their non-rares with disdain. While everyone pretty much knows the cards on that list from $3 and above, starting at the $2.75 mark you may be able to get some very sweet deals on cards that appear to be throw-ins.

When asking about prices in the binder of someone I’ve never traded with before, I always make it a point to ask about the value of an uncommon that I know is worth a couple of bucks. This gives me an idea if this person values their non-rare cards higher than they should or lower than they should.

This is the same reason I’ll always paw through boxes of seemingly bulk fodder that some players bring with them to each and ever event. If they tell me it’s all garbage, that just means I can get a sweet deal on what I find!

Lucrative Lessons

When buying collections, I often make more money on the commons and uncommons than the rares. Often I’ll pay a flat rate of $0.10 each for bulk rares, and I’m lucky if I can make $0.20 on some of them. Bulk commons and uncommons? If I’m buying at $8-$10 per thousand and walk away with some Standstills and Reanimates, it’s been a pretty good day.

Like my story at the start of this post, there are many reasons to be aware of the value of non-rare cards. Are there players in your area who don’t know the value of their silver? Don’t let it be you.

Join me next time when I look at psychographics from a whole new angle.

- Chas Andres