– The cards that spike even higher tend to be even more rare. Obviously they help to an extend, but others don’t quite reach your target of $5 either. Your profit at buylist may be too little to make it worth your time.

– You could buy cards that pay off better in the same time. A $20 card that you expect to jump to $25 may give you les of a percentage, but many of your costs remain the same for a better total profit. A more expensive card with the same percentage margin is better still.

– I wasn’t saying it takes long, I was saying it takes 10-20 seconds to unpack and grade. I regularly spend longer just unpacking if people had some fun with their tape. (If I am grading high value cards I probably spend 30 seconds to a minute each, I spend at least 5 seconds per bulk rare, more if it’s borderline acceptable).

– Your readers may not already be engaging with Twitter and QS in that way so it would be time they need to spend. I understand it doesn’t feel like spending extra time to you, that’s your benefit, but that doesn’t mean it’s a cost you can ignore when trying to convince others that this is a wortwhile endavour.

– We don’t have such service here, so I have to go to a mailbox to send mail, closest is 5 minutes from my desk to there and back. I have no idea how common your situation or mine is among your readers.

– Even 5 cent per card is significant on the low profits you’re making per sale.

I wouldn’t scoff at it, I am simply challenging some assumptions I feel you’ve made that make the hourly rate look better than it is.

Lots of information here, and I don’t think I can do justice to all of it right now. But here are some quick points to counter:

– When speculating, risk of cards not selling always exists. But buy lists ensure there’s always an exit strategy even if less profitable. Thus the “losses” are reduced. Also, I could flip the argument around and say that I am not taking into account situations when cards spike higher. I bought 11 foil dusk urchins for $2 each the other day and copies have sold for $8-$10. This cancels a small loss on Sphinx of the Final Word or what have you.

– There’s little I can do while waiting for my coffee in the morning, so browsing eBay and Twitter costs virtually no time for me. It’s probably value positive compared to what I’d do otherwise, such as check Facebook :-P.

– It doesn’t take so long to grade cards, and when you’re buying newer cards they’re often pack fresh. I could see this being more an issue when dealing with really old cards, but we are talking $2 cards here and not high value cards that merit extreme grading attention.

– I usually identify the cards through social media like Twitter and QS, which I engage with for fun anyway. No incremental time required on top of what I’m already doing out of enjoyment.

– I mail cards directly from my mailbox. Trips to the PO are only to buy stamps, which I do in larger quantities.

– I timed myself. It was literally 5 minutes once I got into the swing of things.

= Sleeves and the like are “free” because they come with cards I’m buying. The only expenses are plain white envelopes, scotch tape, and a pen. Probably less than five cents per sale.

While I won’t argue that flipping collections is far more profitable, it’s not an avenue for everyone. We also don’t all have amazing bulk rare outlets as you have identified in Europe. My point wasn’t that this was the BEST way to make profit…just that it isn’t something to be scoffed at. It’s a viable, valid approach to MTG finance. And while I wouldn’t want to flip $2 to $5 cards exclusively, I am never above buying $2 cards that I hope to flip for $5.

– You assume all cards bought sell. For every Sphinx you get right, how many cards do you get wrong? I’m happy to grant you it worked this time, but at your $1.36 profit you’d have to be successful about 3 times for every 2 failed purchases of $2 just to break even.

– Your “free time” isn’t actually free when you consider that you could’ve also spent it doing something else, such as buying cards that give you more profit. I’m not against using your time efficiently just saying it’s not “free”. There’s also the cost of spending your money on this rather than something more profitable.

– Your time spent on the card does not include unpacking and validating its grade and potentially getting in touch with a seller to discuss a misgraded card. While the latter won’t usually happen the times it does it takes a relatively large chunk of time. There could also be time spent on interacting with the buyer when something goes wrong with shipping cards to them. I have no way to estimate time spent on issues, but it seems fair to assume 10-20 seconds on unpacking and grading.

– Are you counting time spent on identifying these cards? I’m sure you didn’t wake up one day thinking “Sphinx of the Final Word!!!1”. If you spent half an hour researching cards with potential before settling on the Sphinx that’s another half hour to figure in on your time spent on average.

– While combining reduces time on the post office trip you need a lot of cards to be shipped to make it insignificant (unless the post office is next door, but most people won’t be in that luxurious position). I could probably post cards in 5 minutes, that means I need to post 30 cards at a time to get to 10 seconds per card, selling 3 playsets means an additional 25 seconds per card.

– 5 minutes seems a low estimate of the average because of the previous points, if you adjust your average up to 6 minutes you lose $2.72 on your hourly rate and the estimate still seems rather low to me.

– Even when buying in bulk supplies are not free, I would be surprised if they cost you less than $0.06, which is another $0.72 lost on your hourly wage assuming your 5 minute number for time or another $0.60 assuming my 6 minute estimate.

– Are you paying tax on these profits?

What I am mostly trying to show is that things get worse quickly as real costs in time and money get worse than estimated. If you do this in volume there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this, but for a few copies it’s difficult. The problem with doing it in volume is that the misses hurt more too and you may simply not be able to get enough copies of the card you have most faith in, so you have to look for others that are more risky.

You end the article saying you hope to sell your copies for $5. By now there are 32 NM copies on TCGPlayer that are $3.50 or less.

I’m afraid that I am not convinced your profits are really worthwhile in comparison to other options I have available to me. On the other hand it does beat a lot of other things I could do that pay out even less. Basically, if someone is wasting their time anyway this is a pretty good approach. Personally I mostly do collections and bulk rares, on which my percentage margins tend to be better on bulk rares (worse on collection cards), volume tends to be higher and time spent per card tends to be considerably less as I just send everything to a store. Altogether I figure it balances out to a better hourly rate at less risk, but I must admit that I also haven’t done the detailed math on it.

Indeed! People who deem the $2 to $5 move as not worth their time aren’t engaging in traditional MTG finance. Here’s a question to ponder: I wonder if the average shop is happy every time they buy a card for $2 and sell it for $5 on TCG Player?

KaiAn,

You hit the nail on the head! Making money in MTG Finance isn’t about the flashy 400% gains (that never materialize in practice). It’s about the slow, steady grind and making 20% at a time.

I get such a sinking feeling when I’m trying to race others to a lower and lower price post-spike. The cards just don’t move unless you undercut drastically. I much prefer selling in a rising price environment, always.

A great example lately is Conqueror’s Flail. I bought a handful of copies in the $3 range, and have been selling 1 at a time between $6 and $7.50 on eBay. This is far from exciting, but these cards have moved easily and every sale is another profit.

Any small business that operates on net 20% after costs is doing pretty well, in my book. Regardless of whether that’s on $5 or $500.

I’m baffled that so many still carry the misconception that only double-ups are meaningful…

Yup, it sure has! I didn’t mention this, but if you look at the price chart you see the sudden spike and then ensuing sell-off. The card is very powerful, it just needs the right deck/metagame to get there.