Collectible Game Cards and Investing in Them (Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon etc.)

General
21

I haven’t played Mtg (Magic: The Gathering) in years, and I only have one deck left, which, however, still seems to have some quite valuable cards, even though I’ve sold the most expensive ones from it earlier. I started playing back in the Revised era, but unfortunately a couple of months after Unlimited rotated out, so I never got to open Power 9 (the 9 most valuable cards from the first 3 sets) cards from boosters. At first, I just played and collected cards, and I eventually sold all of them. After a few years’ break, I started again because I could play drafts and pre-releases. At the same time, I got into selling and trading cards on Huuto.net, eBay, and forums. I ended up making thousands of euros in profit from this, even though I also spent quite a lot of money. I operated on a fairly small scale, for example, a friend of mine has made well over €100k in profit and at one point owned close to a million Mtg cards (amounts estimated based on the weight of card boxes) :smiley:

The best profit was made by buying collections from players who had quit, and this usually allowed you to get hold of some valuable cards, provided the quitting player was a “casual player” who hadn’t really looked into the value of their cards. Then you’d sell the valuable ones separately and the rest as bulk. Another good way was to speculate on the potential appreciation of new set cards when they were found to be good for tournament play, and their value would explode momentarily as everyone wanted to buy them. On eBay, merchants used to sell advance playsets (4 copies of the same card) of all new cards before new sets were released, which were then delivered after publication, meaning a lot of boosters were opened there. If you managed to choose the right ones from these, you made a good profit. One of my successes, for example, was correctly guessing around the Darksteel set that a card called Arcbound Ravager would be in demand. I bought several sets from eBay for $20 each, and I remember these were eventually selling for something well over €50 per card for a while when everyone wanted these cards for their tournament decks.

Collectible cards strongly remind me of crypto; in practice, they are ultimately pieces of cardboard, but they are paid a lot for because they are rare and desired. Mtg is definitely Bitcoin in this comparison, as it’s the biggest and most beautiful survivor from the early days. Both of these have been excellent long-term investments, but they could just as easily die out within the next 5 years. For example, my friend used to play and collect a game called Legend of the Five Rings, which was very popular for a while, and he accumulated significant amounts of cards. When he was moving, he asked me if I wanted the cards because they wouldn’t fit in his new apartment, and when I checked their prices, it turned out that interest in the cards had waned, and they were about the same value as just plain cardboard would have been. I didn’t want to take dozens of kilos of cardboard into my own corners after all :slight_smile: I also know a person who, back in the early 2000s, solely bought valuable Mtg cards (Power 9, dual lands, etc.) and already treated them as investments then. At the time, I found it a bit amusing to spend huge amounts of money on cards and just leave them lying in a closet. Well, I hope he hasn’t gotten rid of his cards, because that collection is incredibly valuable today :slight_smile:

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22

I’ve only collected Pokemon cards as a kid (the first set) and sold them really cheap when their value hadn’t grown, judging by the prices I’ve seen now. Can someone tell me what the basis is for the values of cards like the first set’s Charizard being 300k when opening boosters in American videos? Because when I look, they’re sold for under a hundred here in Finland. Can an untouched card even be worth 1000€ if you sell it on, say, Tori? :thinking:

23

I’m no expert on individual Pokémon cards, but the value of a Pokémon Base Set card is largely based on it meeting certain very specific criteria. In practice, even if you own the card in question, it would be highly unlikely to get it graded as PSA10. Not every Charizard is worth $300k.
https://www.psacard.com/cardfacts/non-sports-cards/1999-nintendo-pokemon-game/charizard-holo-1st-edition-4/605253

EDIT: It seems there’s a Base Set version for sale on Tori, not the 1st edition version. Its price is much more moderate, but still thousands of euros if it could be graded as PSA10. In practice, it almost requires you to pull it directly from a booster pack, and even then, with incredible luck, the card would be a perfect 10, meaning corners intact, no scratches, and perfectly centered. This is why in my own article, I don’t focus on these individual cards, as it’s populist wishful thinking.
https://www.psacard.com/cardfacts/non-sports-cards/1999-nintendo-pokemon-game/charizard-holo-4/605252

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24

Thanks for the info, it seems that the jump between grade 9 and 10 is the most significant, when you could even talk about a 6-figure sum. I don’t remember if it was the base or 1st edition, but I started buying them as soon as they came to stores. I played with them myself, so the condition certainly wasn’t A-grade :grin:

25

I also used to collect complete Pokemon Basic and Jungle sets from start to finish. I gave them to my little brother and told him to take care of them. Two weeks later, all the cards were scammed away.

I still have about 5,000-10,000 ice hockey cards neatly organized in binders. Both sets and star players of their time (90s) like Gretzky, Messier, Jagr, Lemieux, Belfour, Osgood, Hull, etc.

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26

I started MTG a long time ago and gradually sold off POWER 9 cards over the years, earning thousands of euros as their prices skyrocketed.

I then got excited about continuing to play, for example, Legacy with friends or Commander. On rare occasions, I’ve even participated in German Highlander competitions in Finland.

Now I’d like to sell Revised duals and other cards because I want money for a flat… and they cost an insane amount these days.
I just haven’t figured out the most sensible way to sell them yet?
If you want to sell cards with a minimum purchase of, say, 5000-10000 euros, there aren’t that many
potential buyers. Any ideas on how to sell? Suggestions, heh :smiley:

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27

I guess it’s either trying to sell through marketplaces like Tori (Finnish classifieds site), eBay, etc. (which takes effort and hassle) or selling a large batch to a bulk buyer (dealer), knowing they will definitely pay below “market price” because it’s a bulk purchase. At least, that’s how it worked years ago when I last dealt with cards.

“Bulk deals require a discount” also applies to collectible cards :smiley:

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28

As @Jarnis said, there are the basic online auctions and, of course, the often-mentioned Cardmarket.
Then there’s Alpha Investments (AlphainvestmentsLLC@gmail.com) and Vintage Magic (http://www.vintagemagic.com/contacts).

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As a rather stingy guy back in the day, I sold my entire collection card by card via MtgSuomi.fi and https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic. I must have sent about 200 letters all over Europe over 1.5 - 2 years, but I got the best price and became quite good at listing cards and packing envelopes.

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31

Thanks to everyone who responded. I managed to sort things out and the buyer is from Finland. However, payment doesn’t have to be made immediately if it’s a large sum. I can even pay a portion in 2022, for example, half – sometimes you have to be flexible. And a reasonable discount, like 15%, not those annoying “I want a 30-50% discount” requests. Now I only have some cheap cards left, which I don’t care much about anymore, even if I don’t sell them. I didn’t use Cardmarket at all. It was incredibly stressful to find the cards, check their condition, and verify their price. The buyer was a bit too meticulous about card condition for my taste, but I can’t complain, even though I sort of got an additional discount because what was clearly an Ex card to me was Good to him, a Good card was Played, a Played card was Poor, and a Poor card was unusable, and NM (Near Mint) barely exists unless the card is still inside some store packaging, haha. Well, he did grade one card as NM, but it was hard to tell.
It didn’t really affect the price much. I’ll still give the buyer a rating of 9/10, even though we didn’t fully agree on the card grading. Although this username was created, my main field is IT, not card sales.

The buyer said that he often has to complain about card condition when buying cards and that sellers don’t know how to grade cards. Well, what can you say about that? There are people who buy a new apartment and God help us if it’s not a perfect luxury apartment with sparkling surfaces, etc.

What will I do with the money? Well, I have a mortgage. If interest rates rise, I can make a loan principal payment.
I don’t know if I can talk about any profit. Some cards have gone down in price, and some have gone up. More price increases than decreases, but then when you factor in the discount, it’s pretty much + - 0. This also applies if we assume I don’t sell the remaining cheap cards; I’ve at least gotten my money back now and okay, a little profit.

Haha, I guess it’s like an index fund now, I got a 2-5% profit, yippee, heh.

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A bulk discount of 30-50%? I’m really glad I didn’t do business with you, and a 15% discount is reasonable. That’s an interesting idea, though, what if I make a housing offer at 50% of the price, let’s see what the seller says?

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It’s a completely different thing to sell an apartment or collector cards, etc. Or it depends, of course, on whether the apartment is in Helsinki or somewhere like Pihtipudas. However, if you’re going to invest in MTG cards, hockey cards, comics, etc., then you really need to be prepared for such large, if not even larger, discounts if you want to get your money quickly.

I’d say that very few people own only Alpha Lotuses, the first issues of Superman, etc. If collections also contain other so-called bulk and if you want to quickly turn everything into cash, then the discounts are indeed quite significant. I myself have seen really large collections being sold at about a 60-70% discount. If the collection is, of course, just Power 9, etc., you’ll probably get a good price, but the selling time can be long.

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34

Well, maybe if you have junk cards and common fodder. I’m talking about dual lands and Jace, the Mind Sculptor cards, but I also sold cheaper cards in the same trade, like Steel Leaf Champion, Scavenging Ooze. I also sold many cheaper cards, but the buyer wasn’t interested in cards under 1 euro.
The buyer didn’t buy all cards over 1 euro (they bought over 90% of cards over 1 euro), but at that point, it came down to the buyer’s own budget and patience. I understand the buyer here. They bought so many cards that I thought it was enough.
For example, the buyer bought 6 Knight of Autumn, but accidentally counted them as a purchase of 4 cards, so I told them they could have the other 2 as a bonus.

I sold the Power 9 cards I owned years ago, and I didn’t own all P9 cards. I don’t remember what the discount was on Power 9 cards, but it definitely wasn’t anything like 30-70%.

I don’t have experience with Pokémon cards, and I haven’t tried selling comic books. I’m only talking about Magic The Gathering cards, and it’s difficult for me to compare them to products I don’t know.

Yes, I do realize it took me a long time to find a good buyer. And then, regarding the remaining junk cards, common fodder, and cards valued under 1 euro, well, if you buy a pile like that, you might get a bigger discount.

Perhaps there are those who don’t have the patience to find a good buyer or those who don’t have any positive refs. I have 100% positive feedback in card trades, and there are many of them.

35

Jippii! Today I even sold the cheap cards! Phew, what a task. I’ll keep one cheap deck for fun, but since its value is under 30 euros, it doesn’t matter much.
For cheap cards under 1 euro, I gave a 50% discount.
And I’m throwing some cards away at the landfill. Cards that are worse than a Basic Land.
Is this my last sale? Definitely not, a friend might ask me to sell their cards at some point.
EDIT:
Well, I found more cards again… but there’s not much more money to be made from them now.

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36

It’s a pity that this thread has gone quiet. I have slowly started getting into this “form of investment” and have begun buying mainly football cards for a long-term hold. This is primarily a hobby, but I mostly buy high-value cards and/or current young prospects. I’ve also acquired a few hobby boxes.

So-called mid-tier cards can take a very long time to sell due to poor liquidity. Top-tier cards are snapped up instantly if the price is right, but that is often difficult to determine. I own a card of a certain Spanish legend, numbered #1 out of a series of five, and it is the only graded/ever-sold copy. In this case, selling the card via auction is probably the most sensible move, but there is no reference value for a suitable price; the market decides it. In principle, these retain their value well because copies leave the market and nothing equivalent will replace them.

The trading card market in Europe is still quite fresh and is predicted to grow at least until 2030. At the same time, a “soccer” boom is landing in the US, the largest market for cards, and I believe it will drive football card prices upward in the future.

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37

I happened to visit the Card Expo event at Tampere’s Ratina with my kid a few weeks ago. I used to play MTG back in the day, but I quit entirely in 2008. Just in case, I brought along an old binder and my deck from that time to see if anyone would be interested. I have to say, the vast majority of buyers and sellers there were there for Pokemon. There seems to be a real buzz on that front right now, and cards were changing hands at a rapid pace. Fortunately, I also found a few MTG card sellers to whom I flashed my cards, and they were very interested in these old cards. I immediately sold a few old cards for €100. The prices I got were fair market value. Another customer who was looking to buy also got interested, and we exchanged numbers. This later resulted in an additional €200 sale.

Together with that buyer, we also checked the price of my old Legacy deck, and according to a quick estimate, the deck built on a student budget for €250 is now worth €2,500–€3,200. The value has increased quite a bit over 20 years. The value of my other cards had also risen, and a conservative estimate for all the cards was €4,000–€4,500—so it looks like part of my student loan went to the right place.

The rise of Dual lands was no surprise, but the value of a few “bulk” cards from back then certainly was. Their value has been driven up by new formats that have emerged over time. Also, old shiny “foil” cards were surprisingly expensive, even though they used to be sold in piles for a few euros on Huutonet back in the day. A few odd top-tier cards from that era had experienced a slight drop in value due to reprints, but the decrease was only a couple of euros. Nowadays, it also feels like the condition of the cards is scrutinized very closely. Before, it felt like the price of a card was X euros, and if the card had something obvious like a frayed edge, then that affected the price, but a tiny hairline scratch visible only against the light didn’t matter. Today, even the smallest mark affects the price immediately.

I feel a bit of regret that I sold off a huge pile of cards when my playing career ended. Fortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to part with everything back then, as I thought I might still go and play sometime. That day never came, and the cards stayed at the bottom of moving boxes. For now, most of the cards remain tucked away, but I believe the time to sell these will come soon too. You get used to the regrets, as the same thing happens repeatedly with stocks. You never manage to sell them off exactly when the price is at its peak :laughing:

At the Expo, I also asked why there were so many Pokemon sellers (it must have been 90% of all sellers) and so few MTG sellers. The answer was that Pokemon cards are collected more, whereas MTG enthusiasts like to play. There are fewer pure MTG card collectors; those who collect also play. In Pokemon, it sounds like the opposite is true. There seem to be many types of these collectors. Some collect a specific Pokemon character, some go by the illustration, some by “cuteness,” and so on. This is probably why even unplayable cards in Pokemon cost money. In MTG, it seems that a basic unplayable card launched in the 1990s is still worthless.

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38

I played back in the 90s and 2000s, following in my brother’s wake. Even then, the crowd was largely divided into two camps: MTG or Pokemon players.

For me, the most important thing has always been that the object of “passion” or collecting is primarily something that also has utility value. I’m not claiming that I would play with any “Power Nine” cards myself today (if I owned one), but back then, I saw them being played.

MTG players have a lot in common with watch enthusiasts. There, too, people go through their workdays with a €20,000 Rolex Pepsi on their wrist, which takes “desk diving” scratches on a weekly basis.

Back to the topic itself. I’ve done the same as so many others—sold or given away all my old cards over the years. I never owned the most expensive specimens, but I did own some foils worth a couple of hundred euros, and I think I pulled a Gaea’s Cradle from a booster (which my brother then probably traded from me, knowing its value :sweat_smile:). Or maybe it was my brother’s from the start; who remembers these things exactly anymore.

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