Trading 54 dollars of cards for 60 dollars of cards seems well and good, you made six bucks in 15 minutes right? Nothing to quit your day job over, but not bad.

On bloated figures it may seem so, but you may instead be trading 27 for 30 for example. PROPORTIONALLY the same, but three bucks is considerably less impressive for your time. It's not like every single trade is completed, it's not like you're "grinding" em out trade after trade with a line waiting behind you, and it's not like you've even turned anything into cold hard cash in the process which also takes time. Of course, you can always keep in mind that your figures are roughly double what they're represented as.

Note: Obviously I'm not saying everything is perfectly doubled that'd be pretty amazing, it's just an example of how the prices can be relative to each other yet misleading.

Another related example: trading commons for commons at 1:2 ratio is great foolproof profit across the board, impossible to lose money, yet after trading 37 commons and an hour of your life for 74 commons in return you'd feel robbed.

The point is, it doesn't matter which site we use, since the prices are relative to each other. And most people using smartphones usually check SCG, so using those prices seems fair to me.

I could begin using TCGplayer, but that is functionally the same as using any other site, because their prices are going to be just as relative as SCG or CoolStuffinc. In the end, the price differential from using any major site should be roughly the same percentage.

I'm fine with you saying that you have to add $2 on ebay for shipping. Except that a store will also charge you $2.

Try putting your trades @ tcgplayer low prices. That will give you a more realistic example of what your real gains are. Some trades might even not look so good anymore.

I'd try that for a change if I were you 🙂

I'm glad you enjoy my articles for whatever reason, you are one of my most loyal readers!

and complaining about making $15 on a trade as well as getting excited for only a $50 trade? Man, these articles do give me a good laugh in the morning, won't lie about that.

Using SCG and CS for prices for you is fine, but the problem lies in that you are neither SCG or CS, so if you wanted to cash out, you would no where get close to the values you are listing for your cards. I think you should reevaluate what you use for your prices.

One big card doesn´t take up so much inventory space, and you can always trade them down with profit.

@Nick – I use a combination of coolstuffinc.com and starcitygames for card prices. When I list prices on this column, I look at both and usually work out an average. If you don't know card prices intimately, I suggest looking at a few sites before you begin trading to somewhat familiarize yourself, especially on big cards. In the end, all that really matters is that you use the same system for all the cards. You can't price his cards at Ebay price and yours at Coolstuffinc's and expect your partner to accept that.

@Aaron I generally look for the higher-priced cards or cards that I know I'm interested in picking up for speculative purchases (Eye of Ugin used to fill this role, right now it's Seer Overseer). I also look for cards I know are highly tradable, such as anything that might fit into RDW. Players are always looking for RDW cards, and I doubt any card I have moves faster than a Ball Lightning.

The answer to your second question is something I plan on expanding upon in a future article. In short, it is very nearly always better to have a few high-dollar cards rather than many lower ones. There are a few exceptions, notably when you are trying to start a binder or when you are engaging in abundance trading as talked about by QS's own Dave Heilker. Other than those (and maybe a few other) situations it is always better to have the one big card.

Really great article though. I also really try to stay true to a certain, I guess, code of ethics when I trade and would have done exactly what you did when you found out about the monolith price.