Investing in MTG (Magic the gathering)

anybody tried speculating the Magic market?

I dont personally know much about the market or the game really. Im great at tcg's I just never got into magic in particular. I used to run the yugioh tournaments when I was younger lol. I havent played any of that shit in a few years but It seems like magic has a sturdies market than any other card game and I love any chance to make money so my friends sparked my interest a little bit. Hes a member of a paid speculative website for the magic market and he knows a fuckton about the game and plays it all the time. Hes only really bringing me into it because he knows nothing about shipping or amazon or ebay. so basicly he wants me to help slightly moneywise investing and then wants me to list and sell everything we get. Hes down to pay most of the investment and most of the fee's, shipping etc. I figure worst case scenario He ends up giving up and taking losses on his investments and my ebay rating goes up like crazy from selling all the cards lol.

Basicly what im trying to figure out is if anyone has opinoins or experiace with this kind of investing? if you do post up on here or hit me up with a pm I would love to talk about it and learn w.e I can. Ill be going to a few magic tournaments at my friends shop to go get a feel of the game and go through all of the cards to get an idea of the market and stratagies and shit. Im pretty beast at tcg stratagies so I figure after I go watch a few tournies ill have a pretty good understanding of a market from the players prospective.

edit- because I didnt explain what we are doing exactly so you cant really judge it without this info. We are going to speculate what cards are going to jump in value whenever the new series for the standard playset comes out. try to predict the cards that everyone is going to be buying out before the new cards are fully revieled. obviously it has its flaws since we wont know the full sets of new cards until they are released but the plan is buy months in advance and then when they release the spoilers everyone will be going crazy trying to be "ahead of the curve" buying the cards they want first. we will have already done this so say only 2 of ten cards we invest in actually hit an become in demand the prices will jump to cover the expenses anyway. also staying up all night on release day of the spoilers and actuallal full release we will buy out like the 1% of the bottom of the market for cards we think will jump. worst case scenario only some people want the cards we will have the cheapest ones. or thats how ive been seeing it.

 

I don't invest in MTG nor do I play but I do invest in another TCG that's has been out recently(couple of years) and is getting more and more popular. Just want to say TCG investments work, I've already made a huge profit so good luck with yours.

P.S there are a large number of shops which get wholesale prices from WOTC for MTG which allows them to sell cards at rather cheap.The problem is that if a card get's popular they can simply get more copies for relatively cheap which in turn steadies the demand and the fluctuation. I suggest looking for cards which rarely come out of packs and this usually at least puts out a raise. (Unlike MTG my TCG can create demand from various things and the older the series the more the cards go up in value(no matter how bad)).

 

messeged him. thanks for the info always good hearin from someone doing similar things!

 

Any body have experiance in breaking down booster boxes? I have a store connection and I can get them at price so im considering it.

 

Well, all I really know is that if ur going to buy booster boxes, make sure they're sealed. If you open up a bunch of boxes at once, you will see a pattern of where the "Valuable" cards are located.. Kinda like "mapping" out the box. It is normally in the middle of the box. So you would take out the valuable cards and sell the unopened packs..

 

Yea I would buy sealed str8 from the dealer. I wouldnt map out packs thats bullshit and a easy way to get shitty feedback for wherever you sell.

 

I would highly advise you not to invest in ANY MTG but the first 2 series. I have books full of "valuable" cards or at least they were 8 years ago. Now i could sell the whole lot for around a 100$, unless their vintage dont bother, their dropping rapidly as all the new cards their coming out with completely overpower previous ones. Just my 2 cents

 

im buying new cards for low values that I think will do good in world tournies and when and if they do the prices jump like crazy

 

TCGs/CCGs aren't a good investment. They don't retain their value well and only the big name cards are ever worth anything. I just did a pokemon valuation of the 1st and 2nd base set and all together the price was about $400 full retail, but it was mostly in common cards which no one buys. You have to have misprints, first editions, or top 10 tourney use cards for them to be worth anything and even then if they get too old then they're useless.

 

I know they dont retain value Im not planning on holding onto any of them I plan on picking out certian cards I know will jump or double in price after tournaments. or preordering cards that I know will increase in price once people see how they play in popular decks. Im not just buying cards to hold onto them. magic has a gametype called standard that only includes the newest 8 or so sets and the economy of the cards is mostly affected by that gametype since its used in the world tournaments and the friday night magic tournaments that local cardshops hold. So im only investing on newer cards to flip.

 

ive figured out the best way to profit off of this is speculating on what cards will jump in value from pre-release prices to what the market will fix the prices too. for some awfull reason I let a freind talk me out of pre ordering 10 bonfire of the damned for 5$ each and now there at 20$ a piece would have ben a 400% return in less than a month
spend 50 to make 200