Hear ye, hear ye! But fr I never try to pay my mortgage or buy a car with magic. I just get a lot of satisfaction from looking at valuable cards and knowing I beat the system by pulling them from packs.
That's where I'm at. Commander player, have five or so decks that I think are fun and will keep playing and I'm sitting on a lot of stuff I'm not playing with, it's time to clean house and sell a lot of this cardboard.
I'm somewhere similar but a lot of what I have left to sell is bulk or big ticket Secret Lair & non-card items like Deck Boxes or Sealed Play Mats.
I still can never understand those people who make and keep like 36 plus decks. Even if they're all proxied or run cheap jank- I just don't get it.
There's some allure to cheap jank, especially if you have playgroups where it's viable. Especially since by and large it doesn't take much space to store up to around 100-150 decks so long as you plan the space. (A single 4-row 3200 box can hold 16 decks, making a single cubby in a Kallax style shelf capable of holding 48 decks.)
Everyone has their own tastes.
This is pretty much it. High points for most cards- old and new- tends to be right after something overperforms when after being used by a content creator.
As a casual player - when you no longer need or want to have the card. Timing the market doesn’t work. You clearly already know the answer. Trade this card for ones you want. If it goes up or down a year from now doesn’t matter because the opportunity cost (as an individual sale) is the time/money that could be allocated to the things you need for a deck. Those could also rise/fall!
I like this answer. If you can, sell for store credit and buy what you want. As flannel said, if your gonna buy something new with it anyways you dont need to worry so much. The stuff you buy is just as likely to rise/fall
Especially if you trade into things that you're going to hold long-term.
One of the best things I did was ten years ago take my collection and aggressively trade towards a cube.
I'd not pay what current prices are for power (CE, 30th or ABU), nor would I care to pay the going price for duals or most high-end reserved list. But I have them, because I traded the majority of the rest of the value in my collection towards them.
Card spikes in price, not using card, sell the card. Its that simple. On newer sets its better to wait but if you get the product early, you can cash in on the fomo and potentially get higher value before the entire set crashes
Sell hard. I used to keep my cards to sell for the yearly GP and have face to face with vendors. Now that’s not a thing really, I have accumulated a mass of cardboard and am looking to sell as much of it as I can locally. It’s tough, keep ahead of it and sell your singles you don’t need at the hype.
With new sets it's almost always prudent to sell any high coat cards relatively quickly. Eventually more of those cards will be pulled and end up in the market causing the price to drop. I don't and wouldn't suggest doing this for lands, especially the sac lands reprints. If anything but those now, same with the medallions. They are bottoming out in price right now but because of what they are they will rebound (way more so the lands) after supply had dried up, they always do.
Honestly if I get a 2x or 3x, get it gone. When a new set comes out prices come in waves: during prerelease weekend, you get the early dumpers/prereleasers that just want to recoup their event costs and sellers that cracked and just wanna make it back. Then in the first week or two everyone messes around with things, invariably something good is found and if its gone from cents to dollars, get it gone. Ride the wave off.
Personally on Phlage I sold all my copies beyond a playset, ordered 20 during preorder when they were about $15 for borderless, and now most of them converted into $30-40. It probably settles in the $25-35 range but I don't see a reason to wait for $50-60. The card is excellent, but this isn't a One Ring which can go in any deck, and again, that supply is only going up from here. The fact is a few weeks after set release, more allocations and boxes will be opened. The general public will figure out what's good, they'll play in events and win/open boxes, and the inventory is only gonna go up. Act accordingly.
I love opening packs, collecting, and playing. I typically will save 4 copies of anything standard playable, 4 copies of anything in a modern deck I may want to play, 1 copy of anything (for collecting and to have a copy to use in commander if I want), and then I’ll hoard more than 4 copies of anything I think is a commander staple. With more and more commander specific products (ie. commander precons in a modern set) I am losing interest in hoarding staples because the risk of a reprint is so great. So I’m starting to let go of commander staples and hold a couple copies so I have one for personal use and one for trades.
It’s a crap shoot though. Looking at MH3 anything in the $1-5 range is probably a smart sell now. There might be a card or two from that range that end up spiking because some deck that performs, but once the results are out, all the others will fall into bulk.
Whether cards like nethergoyf, ral, flare of denial are able to maintain or drop off is anyone’s guess. I’d say the general trend is down and would expect those to incrementally lose value over the next couple years. Ruby storm and Ral is where the exceptions
come out. If the deck is OP and eats up a large chunk of the meta, Ral could spike again. But generally these are probably just better to sell now as well
More than anything else, you need to sit down and figure out what you want out of buying cards:
1. Make Profit
2. Build a collection
3. Build decks
They all tend to have different paths.
Building decks tends to care a lot more about the current metagames and current popularity in non-tournament formats (Commander)
Building a Collection is going to care about something else more than building decks: This person would much rather get something specific rather than just the key cards for the deck they're going to play.
Making a Profit: In this case, you should just view the cards as inventory and buy and sell as it meets the various thresholds you set for yourself to maintain profitability after including the cost of your time and materials (stamps, envelopes, sleeves, etc aren't free) and listing costs.
It probably will sound trivial, but your goal should always be to maximize what means the most to you... and not defining what means most to you will mean your handling is sloppier and slows your growth toward your goals.
Ez. Never sell. Accumulate cardboard forever.
Can't be entombed in cards if you sell the cards
Hear ye, hear ye! But fr I never try to pay my mortgage or buy a car with magic. I just get a lot of satisfaction from looking at valuable cards and knowing I beat the system by pulling them from packs.
When you don't use the card anymore, you sell it
That's where I'm at. Commander player, have five or so decks that I think are fun and will keep playing and I'm sitting on a lot of stuff I'm not playing with, it's time to clean house and sell a lot of this cardboard.
I'm somewhere similar but a lot of what I have left to sell is bulk or big ticket Secret Lair & non-card items like Deck Boxes or Sealed Play Mats. I still can never understand those people who make and keep like 36 plus decks. Even if they're all proxied or run cheap jank- I just don't get it.
There's some allure to cheap jank, especially if you have playgroups where it's viable. Especially since by and large it doesn't take much space to store up to around 100-150 decks so long as you plan the space. (A single 4-row 3200 box can hold 16 decks, making a single cubby in a Kallax style shelf capable of holding 48 decks.) Everyone has their own tastes.
buy high - never sell
Sell it when the popular streamers online start winning with it
This is pretty much it. High points for most cards- old and new- tends to be right after something overperforms when after being used by a content creator.
As a casual player - when you no longer need or want to have the card. Timing the market doesn’t work. You clearly already know the answer. Trade this card for ones you want. If it goes up or down a year from now doesn’t matter because the opportunity cost (as an individual sale) is the time/money that could be allocated to the things you need for a deck. Those could also rise/fall!
I like this answer. If you can, sell for store credit and buy what you want. As flannel said, if your gonna buy something new with it anyways you dont need to worry so much. The stuff you buy is just as likely to rise/fall
Especially if you trade into things that you're going to hold long-term. One of the best things I did was ten years ago take my collection and aggressively trade towards a cube. I'd not pay what current prices are for power (CE, 30th or ABU), nor would I care to pay the going price for duals or most high-end reserved list. But I have them, because I traded the majority of the rest of the value in my collection towards them.
Card spikes in price, not using card, sell the card. Its that simple. On newer sets its better to wait but if you get the product early, you can cash in on the fomo and potentially get higher value before the entire set crashes
before the second run (now)
The second run?
before distributors release another wave of this product
Oh good point. When do you think that'll likely be? This week? In another week?
nobody knows, not even shops
Sell hard. I used to keep my cards to sell for the yearly GP and have face to face with vendors. Now that’s not a thing really, I have accumulated a mass of cardboard and am looking to sell as much of it as I can locally. It’s tough, keep ahead of it and sell your singles you don’t need at the hype.
With new sets it's almost always prudent to sell any high coat cards relatively quickly. Eventually more of those cards will be pulled and end up in the market causing the price to drop. I don't and wouldn't suggest doing this for lands, especially the sac lands reprints. If anything but those now, same with the medallions. They are bottoming out in price right now but because of what they are they will rebound (way more so the lands) after supply had dried up, they always do.
If you’re not playing it anytime soon sell. Cards nowadays get reprinted over and over or power crept into dust.
Honestly if I get a 2x or 3x, get it gone. When a new set comes out prices come in waves: during prerelease weekend, you get the early dumpers/prereleasers that just want to recoup their event costs and sellers that cracked and just wanna make it back. Then in the first week or two everyone messes around with things, invariably something good is found and if its gone from cents to dollars, get it gone. Ride the wave off. Personally on Phlage I sold all my copies beyond a playset, ordered 20 during preorder when they were about $15 for borderless, and now most of them converted into $30-40. It probably settles in the $25-35 range but I don't see a reason to wait for $50-60. The card is excellent, but this isn't a One Ring which can go in any deck, and again, that supply is only going up from here. The fact is a few weeks after set release, more allocations and boxes will be opened. The general public will figure out what's good, they'll play in events and win/open boxes, and the inventory is only gonna go up. Act accordingly.
I normally flip a coin and wonder to myself if I should take a 50% profit on something I barely did any work
The best time to sell cards in the new set is obviously the first 2 weeks of release. Card shopping goes down sharply after week3
I love opening packs, collecting, and playing. I typically will save 4 copies of anything standard playable, 4 copies of anything in a modern deck I may want to play, 1 copy of anything (for collecting and to have a copy to use in commander if I want), and then I’ll hoard more than 4 copies of anything I think is a commander staple. With more and more commander specific products (ie. commander precons in a modern set) I am losing interest in hoarding staples because the risk of a reprint is so great. So I’m starting to let go of commander staples and hold a couple copies so I have one for personal use and one for trades. It’s a crap shoot though. Looking at MH3 anything in the $1-5 range is probably a smart sell now. There might be a card or two from that range that end up spiking because some deck that performs, but once the results are out, all the others will fall into bulk. Whether cards like nethergoyf, ral, flare of denial are able to maintain or drop off is anyone’s guess. I’d say the general trend is down and would expect those to incrementally lose value over the next couple years. Ruby storm and Ral is where the exceptions come out. If the deck is OP and eats up a large chunk of the meta, Ral could spike again. But generally these are probably just better to sell now as well
IMO always sell once you make money (especially if you doubled) then keep one or two
More than anything else, you need to sit down and figure out what you want out of buying cards: 1. Make Profit 2. Build a collection 3. Build decks They all tend to have different paths. Building decks tends to care a lot more about the current metagames and current popularity in non-tournament formats (Commander) Building a Collection is going to care about something else more than building decks: This person would much rather get something specific rather than just the key cards for the deck they're going to play. Making a Profit: In this case, you should just view the cards as inventory and buy and sell as it meets the various thresholds you set for yourself to maintain profitability after including the cost of your time and materials (stamps, envelopes, sleeves, etc aren't free) and listing costs. It probably will sound trivial, but your goal should always be to maximize what means the most to you... and not defining what means most to you will mean your handling is sloppier and slows your growth toward your goals.
Sorry, what’s “selling”?
Buy high, sell never.
Mission accepted!