Best times to buy or sell

[dahcmai]

Most people use Ebay for buying odd cards or especially selling. At least I don't see a point in selling on any other site. Buying yes, occationally you can find a good deal.

What do you think the best times to buy certain cards are and to sell them?


Like say a Mox. Do you think around Christmas would be a good time to sell because people are looking for gifts or would it be a bad time since people are broke buying other stuff?

I got to thinking about it since I was selling a ton of stuff and noticed larger items going cheaper than normal lately. Drains and such are always in demand, but their prices seem cheaper lately. Maybe it's just me or the timing, but I wonder. Do you sell a lot or buy a lot and notice these things?

[freakish777]

As far as selling Drains go, I wouldn't sell them at the moment (they're viability in T1 is at a low point, with respect to the rest of the format, wait til they start seeing heavy play again to sell them when their price will be up).

As far as selling anything else, having something high profile like a mox I don't think you could possibly be in bad shape (you'll get probably over 600 views on it, meaning you're extremely likely to get your money's worth and maybe even some people breaking into a bidding war to get an above average price). Just make sure to send Ben Bleweiss a message, worst case scenario (and the probability of this happening is slim), you'll get what SCG would be willing to pay you for it.

[dahcmai]

Well, I have tons of stuff to get rid of eventually. I was more or less asking for what the trends are. You know like is Christmas a good time or bad? I was thinking July for the most part is a good area. Lots of birthdays during that month for some reason. If moxes sell well no matter what I might just have to trade for a few to eliminate the amount of scanning I will end up doing.

Following the currect popular decks is always a good idea and I am already cashing in on the type 2 scene, but the rest of the formats change very little, so it's harder to get an idea.

[DeathwingZERO]

I would tell you this first: If you're ever going to deal with something to the terms of Power 9, Power 4, or the "Power Wannabes", you MUST have a near flawless to perfect rating if you want to be taken anywhere seriously, and it's a good idea to have at least 100+ feedback on your reputation. If not, contact one of the dealers online, they'll at least give you a trend of the minimum you should ask for.

As for just overall "playables", basically anything under the $100 tag, I typically use the following guidelines some vendor buddies I know have:

1- Is the card in demand in Pro Tour calibur decks (IE Standard, Extended)
This is money maker #1, and rotates along with the seasons. Just before Standard or Extended, is your time to sell, and just after, is your time to buy. Hot before, cold after, that's how tournament cards always go.

2- If it's not legal in Extended (IE old card or banned), is it in viable decks anywhere else?
Legacy and Vintage are damn hard to track on a yearly basis, since decks evolve on their own, due to newer cards not having nearly as much of an impact as on the PT formats. Do your best to keep an eye out on the trends, up-and-coming decks, and top tier decks from older formats. If numbers start increasing, then look to sell.

3-How hard is the card to find, generally?
Stuff from the 93-94 timeline are typically much harder to find than things from the last couple years. Legends, Antiquities, Arabian Nights rares are highly sought after in NM/M condition, because plenty of collectors are trying to piece together sets of stuff they used to play. If you want money, sell the stuff in great condition. If you want deals, find stuff that's beat, or even better, foreigns. For some reason, the foreign cards from the older sets always sell for less, up until you hit around 95, where Ice Age and other sets started to see more than just Italian, French, and German typically.

After we go over that, it's pretty much a matter of setting the "trend" value. Find Magic Cards, SCG, Magic Traders Online, and Ebay are all great averages. See what the medium is, and decide whether or not you think the card is hot enough to charge more than that, or something you'll have to take a bit of a cut on to ditch.

Hope that helps.

[dahcmai]

Well, I'll give you an idea of what I was thinking of.

This is me on there.

http://stores.ebay.com/Yawgmoth-Bargains

You can tell I haven't even began to touch on how much stuff I plan to put on there. It's taking forever just to scan it all. I got through red commons and part of the uncommons so far and I have been trading off sets of commons that aren't playsets to make it easier. Luckily the commons sell faster than I can list them at that price. I only make 50 cents off them but that's ok. I threw up 3 complete sets since those are easy. I am working my way backwards to beta after selling out the commons/ uncommons box. So the last thing to list will be my sets of power.
I am trying to figure out the best time of year to list the big stuff. I just saw a perfect looking beta lotus going for around $1000 when it ended. That was just painful to see go for that low. I noticed Christmas seems to be a terrible time to list things. Though I did make a killing off those PS3's and Wii's. I guess people don't buy magic cards for Christmas presents much.

I'll list some larger stuff after Christmas as a tester for the market to see who all got cash for Christmas, but not much. I am starting to think July is the time to sell, I always do good around that time of year for some reason.

By the way, does anyone know where I can find out when certain seasons such as Extended and Standard list their qualifiers and such? I am trying to figure out what to sell to hit the trends in those formats.