Thanks a lot for typing that up and welcome to the forum. (Or making an alt to type that up.)

I brought several of my cards to a brick and mortar shop and they told me that they were definitely beta based on the rounded edges. They said that several of the cards were too expensive for them to consider purchasing, but gave me some quotes on some cheaper cards that was about 60% of tcg market value. I'll likely do that for everything that is under $100 and sell the rest individually.

I'm very much in the same position as coordi. My brother and I had collected some cards before Ice Age, but the vast majority came after that was released. It's hard to believe that a sealed box goes for over 1k, yet the most expensive card in the deck is $60 and everything else is under $20.

I'd guess the collectors item is the sealed case at this point. They are probably buying it for 1k in the hopes that its 10k in 20 years

Glad to look at an imgur album or something of a topdown photo of the alpha/beta/unlimited/arabian/ATQ stuff and likely offer you more than a store for the stuff I want. For someone that plays old school/buys collections it's pretty easy going.

Funnily enough everyone thought ice age and fallen proved it wasn't profitable to open boosters but the Weatherlight and Urza's cycles that came right after a ton of people quit has some of the most expensive/collectible cards of all time.

Sealed has the advantage of being a known thing - it's always going to be close to near mint forever. This makes it easier for finance bros to buy and sell because they don't need to worry about details in the post or specifying condition, etc. It's just a widget to the finance bros. They've targeted sealed. It'd be hard for sealed to continue to rise at the rate they have this year.

I've only sold relatively high end cards recently($50+ stuff from invasion and before), but I think you'd be better off buylisting to someone than selling for 60% TCG.

By my estimate I was getting basically the same from MTGseattle as if I'd sold things myself on ebay after accounting for fees, shipping materials, losses, etc.

You can shop the buylist and get good prices for cards different stores need.

On the higher end its a lot harder to move less liquid things for near what they are worth without much hassle. No problem buylisting a dual and getting good value, but getting near full value for random midrange alpha/beta, valuable foils, etc is harder.

A store is going to flip your revised Volcanic Island no problem, but its not the same with a 7th edition foil or random beta card worth hundreds of dollars.

Awfulalter: I'll send you a pm and see if I can enable your pm ability. I think it requires 20 posts in order to prevent spamming.

TheJacob: I think you're right, I'm just way too lazy to put a card up for $30, package and ship it, and potentially deal with any scams. I have held on to all of my card that are worth $50+ and will likely do just that for them though.

As far as commons, I have no idea. The local store here offered to buy them in bulk, which I think comes out to like $20 per 1k cards? I'm not exactly sure how much those boxes hold. They're obviously worth significantly more as there are cards worth up to $5 among them, but what am I actually going to do with those?

Yeah bulk rates have gone down from the nickel cards cost when I was a kid. You can regularly get 1k cards for $5-7. $20 for unsorted stuff with a few gems sounds about right from a local game store.

Feel free to email me at my username at gee male dawt com to take it private (offer applies to you.. not like.. just anyone reading this). I'm basically the ideal kind of customer that's willing to buy a bunch of cheaper old school stuff to package and ship at once. If you're not doing it through a storefront the time investment and grading/returns/complaints issues are more significant (and worth actual $$$$) than most casual former players understand.

Everybody read clickbait that Pokemon/Magic exploded over the past year, then googled the most expensive price people are selling near mint versions of their beat up cards for. Nobody accounts for the work / annoying customer service it takes to move anything more than a handful of cards.

Just a bunch of people getting free money to spend on paper. Compare it to inflation. Probably on par.

I don’t see investing in magic the gathering if you don’t love magic the gathering as a viable option. I haven’t played or invested in mtg since like 2006. But me and my friend felt pretty baller making a couple hundred here , a couple hundred there when we were twelve. If you are a skilled player you’ll have a better understanding of why certain cards will go up or down in value. You’ll be able to win cards from tournaments and ante. If you’re a serious player it’s possible to anticipate meta changes and buy cards when they are cheap and sell them at peak value, and it is actually fun. Making a couple grand over a period of three months as a twelve year old is cool. Making a couple grand over a period of three months as a 30 year old adult is….. huh? Wtf are you doing.

I know a guy who still makes serious cash in this but he and his wife travel pro tours he hustles vintage tournies for 4 figure cards, plays high end drafts with his pt friends etc.

... winning cards from tournaments and ante? What year do you think this is?

The finance bros made a killing off magic this year, rising tides etc. I agree that it is a terrible way to make money unless you really enjoy the game or could make money selling widgets anyway. With the stimulus money dried up I imagine there'll be a slow retrace until next year so I wouldn't hold my breath.

On the other hand if you've got old pre-99 cards lying around to get rid of cheap send me a pm

I have a realtively small amount of cards, like probably 2-3k. 90+% from <99. I'd sell them. I don't think any of them are worth more than 5$

I did not mean all his money comes from playing for ante but that the groups of people he hangs out with give him a huge edge in knowledge and awareness.( There are ways of making drafts fairly high stakes tho. )

The other half of my post (12 yr old vs 30 yr old) was to illustrate that most people who make money in magic the gathering aren’t going to Make a lot of money

I have about 20 grand worth of cards hidden in a couple binders in the back of my closet but I have no intention to sell or trade them, there there for sentimental value.

I feel like Bryce is 100% on the money. You can make money in Magic, but it isn't going to be huge money. If you are 15 years old, hold $1000 worth of sealed product for three years, and sell it all for a $1500 profit at 18, you feel like a king! Now that I am in my mid-30s, it seems like a waste of time. It is too much effort for something that is high-risk, but that is just my opinion. SPY has gone up like 40% in the last three years and there is no risk of being scammed by children on the Internet when it is time to sell.

That is not to say that you can't make money with Magic. There are some major players in the card game space making serious bank, but they spend all their time on it and are basically market-makers.

And some of us just play old school and doodle on the cards, which is okay too

I have a set of foil 7th counterspells with sharpie drawings on them.

Not the brightest decision ever made.

And this is mostly because they are in very small quantities and very few people at the time considered them investments.

This doesn't work once everyone realizes they are investments and they are mass produced.

This is exactly what I did when I was kid. I played during Revised/Ice Age, then in the late 90s (Urza's Legacy had just come out) it became possible to trade on online forums, so I took the cards I had (probably had spent a total of 200 bucks on them, duals were my most valuable cards) and kept making profitable trades until I sold everything on ebay for over a thousand bucks at the end of the summer.

It was huge money for me at the time, but obviously I wish I still had them today.

pokemon card > magic imo

Sealed soccer product is probably a vastly superior option. People just started getting interested last year, most of Europe is still thinking of stickers > cards but that is currently changing. LDO.

Soccer product? Is that a new MTG tie-in? What's Ronaldo's power/toughness?

It took a couple weeks to figure out the right way to package and mail things but Bluegrassplayer and I have successfully traded his old shoebox of cards for a bunch of money. Plenty of communication on both sides made it easy.

If you've got old cards (pre 1996) and reasonable expectations don't hesitate to reach out.

Oh and ... sleeve your cards people Double sleeve if you're putting them in hard plastic toploaders.