Magic the Gathering: Selling Commons and Other Crappy Cards

Once upon a time, eBay had a handy tool named Turbo Lister.

Time went by and in 2017 sometime they decided to recall Turbo Lister and fuck everybody over who used it.

I used Turbo Lister. It was buggy as hell but a great way to prepare my Magic the Gathering card sales when I was working away.

eBay told everyone, ‘tough shit’ and to use third party offline listers all of which charged us a monthly fee.

So I started listing them singly using eBay’s new interface and got quite fast at doing so. When you are listing 50 items at a time, then you need to minimise your time per item unless you want to grow old listing things.

This article isn’t just about how to do that, but how to list potential crappy cards and make more than you might think.

Firstly get TWO eBay sessions going. One will do the listing, and the other will scope out the competition.

MTGStocks is very handy resource to check global prices. I use it to get ballpark figures.

You need to be the cheapest as buyers don’t give a shit about loyalty, this is the internet and cheapest wins.

Squadron Hawk is from the Eternal Masters set but the original printing was in the Core set 2011 unsurprisingly printed in the year 2011. It has also been reprinted in the Master 25 set as well as being an FNM Promo.

Source

The latter has the greatest value as the promo would have been printed around 2011 or 2012, is foil (Gold to Splinterlands players) and thus more desirable.

I can see the card is used in Competitive decks. The more of these listed the better. If people need them they will pay.

Masters sets are generally more expensive and tend to have smaller print run that regular expansions. If Squadron Hawk had no reprints that would have been better but he has some demand to to the casual market.

Source

The card has been holding it's value at around 25c but is less desirable in the EU. Is this bad for me? Not really, it's all a case of supply and demand.

Next I check mtgmintcard.com, a Hong Kong based mass seller of Magic the Gathering cards for a price check. This one shows at 49c and has an upward trend.

Lastly I use one of my eBay sessions and search on the item, and Completed Items. If I find any sold items I can figure mine may sell at similar price.

...'you need to check the 'Completed listings' checkbox and then do another search with it unchecked'...

That is if the competition are not already listing the card in a similar combination to me.

In the case of this card, I have zero competition in the UK and the US listings of between £1.75 and £2 for a playset (4 cards) give me an idea of what I may be able to get.

Squadron Hawk is a card use in fours. The description and rules present me this information. If a card is used only as a single in perhaps Commander then trying to sell FOUR at a time may prove challenging.

You need to figure out what the customers wants. Despite the 'Competitive decks' section, the majority of cards are sold to casual players who care not about being competitive, going to Grand Prix events and being the serous player.

Find your target audience, create the sale item in the desired amount, do your homework undercutting the competition, and after all that list your card or cards.

The cards have been listed as playsets (4 cards) at £1.75. Will they sell? Probably but I can guarantee anything. If you have 400-500 of these types of listings then you can generate a small secondary income.

This is why I have TWO eBay sessions. When I list something, I can just hit Create Similar and be on the correct screen. Remember time is valuable.

The above scenario can be used for Rare and Uncommon cards and in the case of the former single cards are more prevalent.

Just remember you can't sell any old common card even in bundles if there is no demand for them.