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by James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)
On the surface, this is a tale about an MTGFinance deal gone right, but this story is really about the things that can happen when you just go ahead and jump. It’s about the people you meet, the places you end up and the benefits you reap when you step outside your comfort zone and take a risk while doing something you love.
Ultimately, this is my letter to you, dear reader, issued in the hopes that you will ping me back one day with the details of your own awesome Magic adventure, so that I may smile with the knowledge that I have stood where you stood and felt some of your joy.
Finding a Buyer
As you may recall, last we left this matter, I had just finished tallying the retail value of the collection after a week of hectic sorting, sleeving and labeling. You can read all about the initial deal here.
The rough retail tally of the cards over $1 at this point was about $43-44K USD. Moving into sales mode, I quickly established that at TCG NM Low, the price the cards would likely need to be priced below to move quickly, the value was closer to $39K. (Note that this is not the same as TCG Low, which doesn’t account for the cards being NM. I have long considered TCG Low a foolish statistic, since it has little in common with the price of the lowest available NM copy, but that is another article entirely.)
Now with a collection this large, there were basically three ways to get it sold:
Given my fairly intensive day jobs running a web agency and a social commerce startup, Option 1 was quickly put aside. Most weeks I’m already maxing out on MTGFinance time, putting in 5 hours or so buying, selling and writing about the hobby. The prospect of having to at least double that time commitment was just not realistic.
I did spend some time considering the smaller lots option, especially given the large chunks of value tied up in the 60+ NM dual lands, judge foils, Modern and Legacy staples, and casual cards. Had the collection been composed of a plethora of fully formed decks, parceling might have been the better route. Ultimately however, these chunks proved to still rest in the $2500-10,000 range; too large for anyone but dealers to be interested. And dealing with dealers meant accepting their margins, so I ultimately resolved to attempt to unload the collection at a 30% discount.
Now in my experience, when you really want to move some Magic cards quickly, you need to cast as wide a net as possible. As such, in early August I posted details on the collection on various message boards, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist and Kijiji. As part of my sale prep, I had created a massive spreadsheet on Google Docs, allowing for easy perusal of the collection, including TCG NM Low pricing on each card, and multiple tabs to allow interested parties to sort by set or by card value.
I also made contact with a few local vendors, but the rough offers I received back were much lower than expected. Part of this was likely because Toronto vendors already enjoy consistent access to staples at a steep discount from our large player community and carry significant inventory, but also because Canadians were still wrapping their heads around the ongoing currency exchange shift which is forcing them to rethink their dependency on SCG and TCG pricing at par. Getting a local shop to swallow my conversion math, knowing they would be fighting upstream to pass along that pricing to the local player base just left us too far apart.
Several contacts in the US came back with more reasonable offers in the $22K to $28K range, but when push came to shove, after three weeks of tire kicking, no one was actually ready to produce the funds and close the deal.
Heading into late August, I was on the verge of an extended trip to Bulgaria and Turkey, so I shelved the sales efforts and decided to regroup in the fall.
As it turned out it was nearly November by the time I managed to get active on selling the Super Collection again. This time I narrowed my focus to message boards trafficked by vendors and the high end Magic group on Facebook. With an increasingly busy work schedule, and a growing backlog of MTGFinance tasks associated with my personal collection, I talked to my financing partner and we agreed to target a pre-holiday season sale in the $22-$25K range. This price tag on the collection seemed most likely to ensure a dealer would see the value and make a move as it represented a margin closer to 40% than 30%.
Through early November, I fielded about a dozen more tire kickers, with four of the suitors coming forward with solid bids and a commitment to closing the deal. One offer was over $25K, but with the caveat that they couldn’t close/take delivery until February ’16. In my experience, folks that need time to raise funds are at the mercy of their funding sources, so we took a pass. The rest of the offers were all between $23K and $24K, with most requiring that I drive the collection across the US border and travel 10-16 hours, mostly to parts both cold and unknown to me.
And then there was Matt, a frequent poster in the High End Facebook thread, a man committed enough to the deal to send a deposit, sign a contract for $23,500 and set a meeting place in sunny California for early December.
Can you say “sold”?
Prepping For Success
There are versions of a $25,000 Magic collection that would be nearly impossible to easily transport on a plane, but fortunately for me, a lot of the value in the Super Collection was associated with a two-row cardboard box full of hard cases containing all the cards over $20. The rest of the cards had either been single sleeved (cards over $5) or put into penny sleeves in sets (cards under $5). Sadly, I had taken the initiative on pricing every last card, only to realize that my buyer would almost certainly want to reprice them.
At first I thought I could get away with leaving the rest of the cards in the two-dozen fat pack boxes I had used to organize them by set, but a bit of experimentation quickly showed that fat packs in a suitcase would result in far too much card damage due to the overabundance of space between card and box top.
A trip to 401 Games in Toronto, revealed the solution. Packed tightly, hard acrylic 250 count Ultra Pro storage boxes were perfect travel containers for the perfect sleeved portion of the collection. I needed 40 or so of them to house the majority of the cards, but it was a reasonable investment given that the airline would never insure my bags for their true value. By stacking and taping together the 250 count boxes, I was able to easily fit most of the collection into two large suitcases, reserving the most expensive $20K worth of hard cased cards to travel with me in a large backpack. This also allowed me to resell the Fat Pack boxes, many of which were old and in demand.
With a signed contract and deposit in hand, along with a specified delivery date, time and location, I realized that my four day round-trip was going to allow me plenty of time to explore. The suburb of Los Angeles set to host our deal was about an hour out of town, but with a vibrant city at my disposal, I decided to stay in West Hollywood and accept a longer commute to the drop-off. A decent last minute flight price and a visit to AirBnB later, I had my trip booked.
The Fruits of our Labors
I had to put time aside from my work and personal life to make the trip to L.A., and I was a bit stressed from my desire to see the deal work out as intended, but one step into a stunning California afternoon in mid-December was all it took to reform my resolve to have an amazing time getting this thing done.
As a sidebar, let me just remind you that Magic is unique among nerd hobbies in its’ ability to encourage travel and new experiences. Ask the Brainstorm Brewery crew how fondly they remember their time at Grand Prix Vegas last year or ask the pros how they feel about their trips to Hawaii, Japan or the time they got to rock a Pro Tour on the Queen Mary to get a sense of the potential. Sure, pro teams gather early overseas to get in a maximum of practice before a big tournament, but they’re also putting in valuable time with some of their best friends, eating, laughing and enjoying the wider world beyond the cards.
Following in that fine tradition, I dropped off my gear and headed straight for the Tempest Freerun Academy north of LA. I’ve been a parkour practitioner for almost a decade, and Tempest is one of the best indoor training facilities on the planet, so I looked up a few contacts and enjoyed an awesome evening with some of the most friendly monkeys you could ever meet.
Next I checked out the events going on around the premier of The Force Awakens at the storied site of Mann’s Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. The Disney store was stocked with some figures I’d had trouble finding at home, so I scooped those out with a smile and headed over to Birch, one of the best value restaurants in Los Angeles. By any measure, from ingredient quality, to presentation to flavor, this is the spot you want to check out if you’re on the West Coast. My rabbit baklava was sublime and magic cards paid for that. After dinner I headed over to Ameoba Records, one of the last great American record stores.
The next morning, I rolled up on one of the longest running flea markets in L.A., enjoyed a wicked Vietnamese fusion burger at a foodtruck, tracked down some vintage lingerie for my lady and stumbled on a dude selling a huge pile of vintage Transformers, which as it so happens, are the only collectibles I love more than Magic. With the market closing shortly, I managed to swing a deal on about $500 worth of robots for $280, and set myself up to cover my meals on the trip via a little Ebay flipping.
In the afternoon I took a tour of the various nerd shops around the north and west ends of the city, and managed to track down a few solid deals on cards I am actively speculating on.
That evening I headed over to Universal Studios City Walk, picked up a few rare collectibles on the strip and then took in Creed all by myself with a huge bag of popcorn. A long sleep later, I was ready to get this deal done once and for all.
Delivering the Goods
Matt is a custom car guy, a mechanical engineer and an online Magic dealer, who’s moving a few thousand a week via the usual channels. He bought the Super Collection mostly for resale as part of his usual sales activities, but it was pretty clear a few of the more choice pieces were going to find a home in his private collection. His town is a charming hour drive north of Los Angeles, in the shadow of some of the most beautiful mountains you can imagine, and I find it hard not to envy the folks who run to work there when it’s -40 back home.
Matt and I hit it off right away, to no real surprise. We’re both guys in our mid-30’s that grew up loving Magic, super heroes and things that go vroooom. He’s 6’8″ and could eat me as a snack if he wanted, but that didn’t stop us from wasting a bunch of time reminiscing over every sweet card he pulled out of the collection as we tried to confirm the haul. The cards are well sorted and line up precisely against the list in our contract, so the tally is smoothly achieved in just a few hours. In the end, a banking snafu ends up forcing me to delay my trip home by a day, but I’ve got cash in hand and Xmas shopping to do so it’s no big thing.
All of a sudden it’s Monday afternoon and I’m standing in the parking lot of a bank in California handing a man $40K in Magic: The Gathering cards. The sun is shining, we’re both smiling as we shake hands and I leave knowing we’ll likely stay in touch, men of like minds with giant piles of cardboard in their closets.
The Final Tally
In the end, the numbers worked out for all involved.
The original seller got $14.25K up front, in cash, and never had to move a muscle to find a better deal or sell the cards individually. He could likely have found a deal for up to +5K, but would have had to rebuild contacts, research the market, sort and price 50,000 cards, and basically take on the work that took place further down the line.
My financing partner put in $14.25K in July, and received back $18K in less than 6 months, based on his guaranteed claim to the first $17.5K and 25% of the next $6K, minus $1K in expenses that he covered as agreed (flight, hotel, rental car, supplies). This resulted in a 26% return on his funds, or the rough equivalent of a 50% annualized return. During that same period, the stock market fell nearly 10%, and he got his money back just in time to reinvest in some temptingly low stocks.
My buyer took on approximately $40K in inventory, with a solid 40% margin intact as he pieces the cards out during his normal day-to-day online sales activities, and just before Modern season boosted prices on a plethora of cards.
As for me, I traded about 40 hours of work, mostly while watching Netflix in my off hours, for $4500USD or about $6300 in my local currency (CDN). All told, that’s about what I make per hour at my day job, and it certainly won’t impact my bottom line very much. I did however, hold aside a couple of sweet cards for my own collection, and there are still 35,000 bulk cards to reap some benefit from. On a pass this week, I found an Arid Mesa, and $200 more in assorted goodies I missed on earlier passes, so the mine isn’t closed.
Ultimately, one of you may have logged a better result, had you parceled out the collection a card at a time. At least on the surface, the revenues would have been higher. The time factor however should never be underestimated. Even as a student you need to value your time at minimum wage or whatever you could be making elsewhere. In my particular case, I need to balance the additional profit against the dozens or hundreds of hours I would need to spend trying to squeeze every penny out of individual sales when I could just be focusing on my mainline responsibilities as a well paid web executive.
More to the point, I met some great people, enjoyed an amazing trip to California in the middle of a cold Canadian December, and did it all for free while making a solid payday fooling around with the hobby I’ve loved since I was a teenager. And that, my friends, is the greatest prize of all.
(p.s. If there were cards in the Super Collection any of you were after, say 7th foils, dual lands or various Modern/Legacy staples, I’d be happy to put you in touch with their new owner, who I’m sure will provide value pricing to move them along.)
James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
JA: Ahem. I now call the weekly #MTGFINANCE cartel meeting to order. Let us waste no time; time is money, and we all love money. The masses are still angry over the Gaddock Teeg spike a few weeks ago, and they have rightly decided to point blame at our shadowy cabal. However, this fury and passion from the average player is trivial in our grand plan. The sheep shall have no choice but to buy our $75 Auriok Champions, drawn in by the money machine named “Modern.” While they may recognize there is puppeteering behind their pathetic children’s card game, it is impossible for them to pin down who exactly is pulling the strings. They are forced to submit to the almighty addictive power of this game, and we shall become infinitely more wealthy with each passing day. Now, will each of the cartel members present his successful market manipulations? The sooner that we finish our reports, the sooner we can begin to bathe in the money pit.
DJ: My Heartless Summoning plot worked brilliantly. The weak-minded fools still believe that I only bought 100 copies one year ago, instead of my actual purchase: 100,000 copies in the past week. I have personally manipulated the price up to a stable $6 TCGplayer mid from the minuscule 50 cents that it was mere weeks ago, and I will slowly trickle my cards back onto the market as planned. $60,000 was a small price to pay those couple of mindless drones to play the Heartless Eldrazi deck and generate hype for my scheme. No one actually wants to play that pathetic pile of 75 cards. My estimated profit from this buyout is… a lot of money.
TA: On a similar note, the Inquisition of Kozilek buyout marks another success in our plot to force the price of that Eldrazi deck into the four-digit range. While the piles of cash that I acquired from this single-person buyout is a cute way for me to pay for my newest fleet of Ferraris, the true reward is the unmatched arousal I feel when reading the complaints of the poors. We can continue to blame the players for this spike, even though there is only one recorded instance of another human being wanting to build this black Eldrazi deck. Everything is coming to fruition, and I plan to spike Inquisition of Kozilek once again in approximately four days.
JC: Day 1456: The players still believe that I am one of them, and I have gleaned much information about their laughable cognitive processes and dissociation from basic economics. My test post on the Hype-Generation Subreddit was successful, and confirms a new weapon in our arsenal for manipulating the price of Magic: The Gathering cards that have zero competitive applicability in any format. Spellskite is now a $40 card for no reason whatsoever, and despite there being no actual demand for the card, some smoke and mirrors have led to this new price being set in stone. But hey, I’m not sure such a small spike is worth my time, so instead of releasing my 600 copies onto the market, I will distribute them throughout the office as coffee coasters. On another note, Johnson, you owe me half of your 400 Spellskites as a result of our wager. I have bested you in fair and honest #MTGFINANCE combat, and you will uphold your end of the bargain.
CH: My attempt at shadowy market manipulation did not succeed as well as the rest of yours. While I also made a written submission to the Hype-Generation Subreddit, the price on Urabrask the Hidden didn’t even move enough for me to buy one Ferrari with my winnings. The low-level speculators outside of the cartel were able to point out my plot successfully, so we will have to wait until next month to attempt another buyout on the New Phyrexia Praet-
JA: Shut up, CH. We will now adjourn to the money pits. Meeting adjourned until January 12, 2016, at exactly 1:30 a.m. EST.
‘Sup nerds? You may remember me from my masterpiece article like five months ago, and now I’m back again to shed some light on the Magic financial world when it needs me most.
You already know why my expertise is needed, right? Prices have been absolutely crazy over these past few weeks, and I’m here to save the freaking day and expose the evil Cartel Aristocrats for the market manipulators that they truly are. The above documentation with the fancy slanted lettering is a perfectly accurate transcribing from their most recent secret meeting. I managed to sneak in by disguising myself as one of them, which wasn’t hard considering how insanely rich I am.
What’s that? One of the guys in there has “DJ” as his initials? Yeah, don’t worry about that. No relation. Dude was freaking handsome, though. Seriously, drop-dead gorgeous. But me? I was just a fly on the wall, writing down some serious #MTGFINANCE truths to drop on you, the precious reader.
As you can tell by my daring journalism efforts that would put Corbin Hosler to shame, these buyouts are real. I mean, sure, I tend to buy and sell a bunch of Magic cards on a level that would make most of you weep, but buyouts…? I would never partake in such an evil, organized effort to isolate a certain card on the market and purchase all of the copies available for hopes of selling it for more later on. While buyouts are an effective way of making easy money, today I fight for the people, and the player.
These buyouts are obviously a concerted effort by an organized group of fat cats at an attempt to ruin #MTGFINANCE for the rest of us, while simultaneously making themselves very rich. (Maybe even richer than me, and that’s something that I just can’t stand for.) I will help you all stand up against this shadowy cabal of evil speculators, and I’m not even going to charge you for it. What a benevolent writer I am (although I’ll probably definitely put it down as a tax-write off)!
So let’s work together and get Heartless Summoning back down to 50 cents. Don’t worry though, we won’t stop there. We’ll get Inquisition of Kozilek to drop back down to its’ original price of $13, because there’s no true demand. After all, Modern season doesn’t even start for a couple of months! How could anyone possibly need copies before that?
Don’t worry, ladies and gents. I possess a secret strategy honed by a combination of practice, training, and natural-born talent. Every single plan has a fatal flaw, and I know exactly how to make their empire crumble. We can take down these speculators, together, with the power of teamwork!!!
Fortunately for us, these multi-billionaire speculators have one fatal weakness that will be their ultimate downfall: “Don’t buy cards.” That’s it. As long as you don’t purchase their cards at their inflated prices, then they don’t get the satisfaction of swindling you out of your hard-earned cash dollars (I mean, you should still buy my cards, but don’t buy theirs. Trust me). Now here’s where the real magic happens.
If Spooky Speculator A can’t sell Spellskites at $40 and wants to make her money back, she has to drop the price, maybe to $38 or so. If we all work together and hold up our metaphorical picket signs and say, “We won’t pay your outrageous price on Spellskites! This card should be $1.30,” then the price drops even more, because the cartel has to move copies in order to make money. While this will be difficult, it’s theoretically possible. Here’s an accurate scientific model of all of us working together to beat the cartel financiers.
Now, I said before that every single strategy and plan has a weakness. Unfortunately, that includes my brilliant anti-marketing scheme. If somehow I got my intel wrong (not likely), and somehow these price spikes were caused by actual player demand… then there would be an issue with our heroic plot. True player demand would suggest that our unified boycotting efforts were meaningless, because some psychopaths actually bought the cards to play with in their decks. Our powers of friendship and teamwork will be useless to stop these people from buying copies to play with at the new prices.
However, I’m sure we have nothing to worry about. None of these buyouts generated from low supply, player demand, or people wanting to prepare for a format. It was all #MTGFINANCE speculators. Trust me: I saw the cartel speak and share stories with my own eyes.
174
It’s that time again, and it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since Battle for Zendikar, does it? Just yesterday, we were gushing about the new Eldrazi cards and going wild over Expeditions lands that were going to make us all rich.
Or maybe that was yesterday, and we were recording the Brainstorm Brewery set review (which you can find here) and getting excited about Oath of the Gatewatch. Either way.
The point is, this set looks poised to deliver in a way that Battle for Zendikar did not. While the BFZ draft format was fun (certainly better than Magic Origins), the set itself didn’t blow everyone away, thanks to a lack of objectively powerful cards and any new ground tread. Whatever the reasons for that—not wanting to upset Modern, creating a good Standard environment, late changes made to the set—there’s no doubt that Battle for Zendikar left plenty of people wanting.
And Oath of the Gatewatch delivered. The introduction of the “sixth color,” or in reality colorless mana, is a touchstone moment in Magic’s history, and we’re going to see the repercussions of it for years to come. Whether it’s with a return of Eldrazi or something else, or maybe just making colorless evergreen, Oath looks like it will forever change the future of Magic thanks to that step.
Oh, one more thing. The cards aren’t half bad, either. Let’s talk about a few of the most impactful.
This guy is actually nuts. It’s a mix of Brain Maggot meets Vendilion Clique, and this guy’s ability may just be better than them both. The reason Vendilion Clique is good is obviously tied to the 3/1 flying body, but there’s also the fact that unlike something like Brain Maggot—where what you take is something good and you’re guaranteeing them a good card back when it dies—Clique provides them with a random card from their deck, which the odds are is worse than the card you bottomed.
Thought-Knot Seer mixes both abilities to an even stronger configuration. Now you get to exile the card of your choice (relevant at times), but they actually have to do work to get a random card back! With V-Clique, when you take their removal spell, they have to find an answer to the faerie, but at least you’re “helping” them dig to it. With Thought-Knot Seer, they get no such help.
Pro players are excited about this card, and for good reason. I expect this to be a huge player in Standard, and while it’s certainly powerful enough to make it in Modern, the colorless requirement may hold it back some. At the very least, look for Tron to find a way to fit these into the sideboard for combo matchups.
Is $7 the right price? It’s hard to say. If the Pro Tour were Standard, I’d be happy to trade for them at that price. But it’s not, so its upside is limited in the short term. Let this get a little cheaper, then move in hard before rotation.
My castmates on Brainstorm Brewery and I disagreed heavily about this card. Frankly, I think they’re crazy to not see this as a bomb.
Linvala does something very few cards in Magic—and especially Standard—do well: help when you’re behind. Ugin is the shining example of this right now: no matter how far behind you are, he will always catch you up.
Linvala obviously isn’t as powerful as an eight-mana planeswalker, but she makes a huge impact. Imagine the following scenario, one I’m sure will occur before Linvala finishes her run in Standard: your red opponent has a few guys out and has wittled your life total down against your midrange or control deck. You’re starting to battle back, but you’re still in burn or burst range.
What answers everything possible? Linvala does. The life gain puts you out of burn range, the two bodies block, and the fact that you do get two bodies helps to guard against removal. It may not be the second coming of Thragtusk, but let’s remember that Thragtusk was pretty oppressive in Standard, so anything even approaching that is pretty darn good. And the great thing about Linvala is that if you’re ahead and she’s at her worst, then you’re already ahead! I see control decks making heavy use of Linvala before she’s done in Standard.
Financially, I think this will go lower before it goes higher. Standard right now is actually not a bad place for Linvala, but she still has a lot of competition. Again, I can’t stress how important the Modern Pro Tour is here, because it’s going to draw attention away from Standard. Let this angel hit $3 or $4, then move in hard.
I know everyone is psyched about this card, and for good reason. Not only is it just plain dumb with Siege Rhino, Jason Alt says it will reshape Commander as we know it. Obviously that’s a strong statement, but holy Heliod, this card does it all.
Still, it’s a rare in a set with Expeditions lands looming overhead, so I think this guy will be coming down from the $5 preorder tag, if only by a few dollars. If you want yours immediately, don’t feel bad paying this, but also don’t expect it to shoot up immediately. I love this as a long-term spec if it can avoid a reprint during its Standard run, but in that sense, you’ll have a few months before you want to pick them up.
You won’t find a better Commander long-term foil bet than this, assuming the foils land in a reasonable place. Sure, it’s no Mana Reflection, but Mana Reflection is a completely absurd card, and very expensive at that. Resurgent slots perfectly into Maelstrom Wanderer decks (a card that is on the precipice of exploding in price itself), and there are a ton of other decks besides that will want this thing.
I don’t see this thing making any waves in Standard, but that doesn’t matter with such a surefire Commander hit as this. I’ll have more guidance where we see where foils land, but for now I’d be interested in picking those up this weekend.
Bonus casual card callout: Call the Gatewatch. People love planeswalkers, and a few years from now you’re going to be happy you grabbed them for bulk.
I know the Eldrazi decks can only run so many ramp targets—and I haven’t even mentioned Kozilek—but World Breaker has that baby-Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger thing going for him, and the random reach ability is actually super relevant in the current Standard format.
Just like Oblivion Sower is a key card in the ramp mirrors I expect will become more and more of a thing now and after rotation, so too is World Breaker. Hitting their lands can be very key, and there’s actually a ton of relevant enchantments running around Standard right now thanks to Silkwrap and the new Oaths that are being printed. World Breaker isn’t going to set Standard on fire, but he is going to see play, and at $3 on a mythic from a set that will only be here a few short months—and not even get a Pro Tour to show it off—I like picking this guy up this weekend.
I know I’ve only touched on a few cards here, and there are plenty more I’m excited about (Matter Reshaper, get in my Karador deck already), but I wanted to touch on the ones I find most intriguing, and in some cases worthy of picking up, heading into the prerelease.
Until next week, may your teammates always support you!
Thanks for reading,
Corbin Hosler
@Chosler88 on Twitter/Twitch/YouTube
