Selling Cards and Managing Your Collection

[xfxf]

Lately I'm having a dilemma to keep or sell some of my collection to move towards different decks and produce more cash for Vintage. The truth is every time I sell some cards thinking I'm done with a particular deck I find myself going back to it, or wanting to go back to it, and losing out due to the increased price. How do you guys manage your collections? Do you sell out to diversify and try out new decks when your finances slow down or keep your cards and accumulate slowly?

[Arsenal]

I never sell my cards anymore. I've "quit" Magic too many times now, only to buy back in and wish I held onto my collection. I just buy the cards I need and never sell. Magic isn't some secondary Wall Street for me, so I'm okay with just sitting on my cards.

[Lemnear]

Lately I'm having a dilemma to keep or sell some of my collection to move towards different decks and produce more cash for Vintage. The truth is every time I sell some cards thinking I'm done with a particular deck I find myself going back to it, or wanting to go back to it, and losing out due to the increased price. How do you guys manage your collections? Do you sell out to diversify and try out new decks when your finances slow down or keep your cards and accumulate slowly?

I hate hoarding cards, both 4 the space and because this is THE main reason prices increase. Imo it makes no sense to have 40 Duals, 40 Fetches + all the staples in your boxes but playing once a month your pet.dec Elves (I know someone who does exactly this ;D). This behaviour makes the cards expensive because it likely takes them out of the market for the extire, active Player-Life ... you know ... in case of

Honestly, if your goal is to aquire cash for Vintage, keep your blue duals/fetches and sell off the rest of the manabase. I did the same 2 years ago and got rid of everything except my Vintage restricted stuff, Blue Duals, Legacy Control Staples and Legacy Combo Staples. Obviously I stripped myself off Decks like Maverick, Rock, etc. for lifetime, but since I play only the remaining cards in serious tournaments, so I can bare it as a player, Even if I have to admit, it hurts emotionally




I never sell my cards anymore. I've "quit" Magic too many times now, only to buy back in and wish I held onto my collection. I just buy the cards I need and never sell. Magic isn't some secondary Wall Street for me, so I'm okay with just sitting on my cards.

I hope you never posted in any of our "whining about prices" threads

[Megadeus]

I usually only have one deck at a time. I just know people with huge collections and basically swap with them. Of course I do my fair share if online trading.

[Madmaniac21]

Acquire playsets of everything, trade/sell any extras.

MTG is a CCG by definition. I get to increase the value of my assets while also allowing myself to play whatever I want - and for things I don't have I can swap/loan to friends and vice versa? GG.

[Esper3k]

Honestly, I'm just too lazy to constantly wheel and deal constantly so I have my base collection that I add to / don't touch unless I'm upgrading and just trade with anything I have extra.

[Megadeus]

Honestly, I'm just too lazy to constantly wheel and deal constantly so I have my base collection that I add to / don't touch unless I'm upgrading and just trade with anything I have extra.

That's understandable. It is pretty annoying. It usually takes about 3 weeks to completely change decks

[Richard Cheese]

I mostly try to sell off standard stuff while prices are high, and things I have more than 4 copies of. I like to switch decks all the time because our small local meta can stagnate quickly, and it keeps me from getting bored of the game.

[Arsenal]

I hope you never posted in any of our "whining about prices" threads

Sure I have. I despise speculators and those who actively try to manipulate the secondard market solely for financial gain. Me keeping my cards for competitive reasons isn't even the same thing.

[Lemnear]

I like to switch decks all the time because our small local meta can stagnate quickly, and it keeps me from getting bored of the game.

That's why I rotate between Tendrils of Agony, Empty the Warrens and Grapshot...

Joke aside, I prefered very variable cores like UW and switch between Countertop, Helm-Combo, Thopter, Miracles and Stoneblade or BG cores which (I sold and) can go towards Team America, Rock or Nic Fit without changing more than 30% of a Decks cards. FoW, Brainstorm, Wasteland, Swords to Plowshares, Cabal Therapy, Sylvan Library, Volrath's Stronghold, Deed, etc. remained in those cores for more than a decade

[Esper3k]

That's understandable. It is pretty annoying. It usually takes about 3 weeks to completely change decks

Yeah I'm lucky enough to 1) have gotten most of the staples 5-6 years ago before the big price spikes 2) being in a good enough financial position to not need to trade/sell my staples to play decks I want to play.

Trading is also a lot less stressful to me these days especially with the advent of the smart phone. Now I don't even have to actively keep up with prices on cards since I can just look up prices online on the fly.

[nedleeds]

Don't play standard and things get much easier. Also never sell your 40 beta/alpha duals to the euros 6 years ago for no real reason other than wanting to clear some shelf space ... especially your crimped beta Savannah ... don't ever sell that. on eBay. ever. :eyebrow:

[xfxf]

I don't play Standard but I moved to another country (again) and despite all my expenses, I'm having a shameless desire to build more decks and continue collecting Vintage, whilst keeping my unused money staples. Needless to say, I'm finding my resources stretched thin :D

[bruizar]

I was looking into several applications to better manage my collection. I came across both home inventory and delicious library 2, but both of them are not exactly great for the purpose of managing collectables.

I find excel atrocious, since its hard to keep everything up to date (including locations). Anyone has any good ideas ?

[Arsenal]

I use deckbox.org, but I know others detest it.

[Esper3k]

TCGPlayer has a new section they're testing to allow you to manage your collection. I put in some of my more expensive cards on there just because I was curious about how much it was all worth.

One nice thing about it is that it automatically adds your entire order history with them into the collection so you don't have to manually enter that part in.

[Malchar]

My philosophy is "buy low, sell never".

[lilevo]

I never sell/trade my legacy staples, but I probably wouldn't mind if I had "extras", it's just not worth it in my opinion.

[Picc]

My philosophy is "buy low, sell never".

Buy low, take what you need, sell the bulk to cover costs/keep the wife happy. I've been growing my collection effectively for free with this method for a number of years.

[xfxf]

See that's tricky because you need a certain capital tied to mtg and can't really grow it unless you buy-in more. I've bought a set of Tarmogoyfs low played with them enough and now selling them brings me profit but if I want to move into another deck with that money, since the prices increased across the market I can only get what I could get instead of Tarmos back when. So essentially it becomes a switch. Unless of course you played on the right horse and can really profit from selling out while still finding low prices for the cards you want to get next.

[Asthereal]

When I am low on cash I just don't invest in MtG.
When I'm rich I look for a deck I like and get all the cards I need for it. :smile:

Selling doesn't get you anywhere for the exact reason you mentioned.
If you want a large card pool, growing it slowly and never selling is the only way.

[Lemnear]

Selling doesn't get you anywhere for the exact reason you mentioned.
If you want a large card pool, growing it slowly and never selling is the only way the format gets more expensive by time because aquired cards won't return into the market for years. It still bugs me that building and switching decks costs a fortune! Damn WotC! I demand reprints for staples so I can afford them!

Fixed.

(obviously nothing personal. The last sentence was like a rocket launcher ... couldn't resist ^^)

[Arsenal]

I consider myself a competitive player. I own a playset of all the Legacy staples for many, many decks. I don't own 40+ FoW like collectors, etc. Are people confusing the two groups (competitive players and non-playing collectors)? Because when we're talking about market availability, there is a distinct difference between the two groups.

[Picc]

See that's tricky because you need a certain capital tied to mtg and can't really grow it unless you buy-in more. I've bought a set of Tarmogoyfs low played with them enough and now selling them brings me profit but if I want to move into another deck with that money, since the prices increased across the market I can only get what I could get instead of Tarmos back when. So essentially it becomes a switch. Unless of course you played on the right horse and can really profit from selling out while still finding low prices for the cards you want to get next.

Its not so bad when you buy collections from muggles/folks on their way out (which is what I do pretty much exclusively now). I can usually make good on the margins because I'm willing to put more time in then the types of sellers I look for then turn the profit from those margins into the staples I want for whatever deck I'm building at the time. Short version come at it like a dealer.

[bruizar]

Fixed.

(obviously nothing personal. The last sentence was like a rocket launcher ... couldn't resist ^^)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1019&type=card

Couldn't resist ^^

[Lemnear]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1019&type=card

Couldn't resist ^^

Well played, sir ;)

[r3dd09]

I'll talk to some buddies who are programmers as well as mtg players and see if they can make a program for one of their classes that keeps an inventory of a collection.

I've been thinking of throwing my collection into excel just in case of insurance reasons as some proof of what I had. Along with pictures, etc.

Would be nice to have a decent program that tracks your collection.