Yeah I thought the Yahtzee thing might cause issues at bigger events. I haven’t had any problems at my LGS, but I’ll be leaving it at home for GP Brisbane later this year.

Large bulk trades are absolutely the best outcome for us, I frequently get heaps of non-bulk cards in these piles, and recently shipped off a box of marginally-more-than-bulk cards to CardKingdom which should net me $130. I’ve had enough experience with bulk now that I can more or less pick 80% of actual bulk just by sight, but MTG.GG makes the whole process sooo much easier 😀

It really does pay to be the “bulk rare guy”, however, I will warn you now that the “Bulk Rare Yahtzee” concept is often frowned upon at many major events as it’s considered a form of gambling. I definitely see why it’s popular, but that’s one place I won’t go as I have heard of people being kicked out of SCG Opens/GP’s/etc. for doing exactly that. But I’m 100% for trading down high-end staples for huge amounts of bulk, as it’s really just “cashing out” with the potential upside that some of the bulk is worth more than the cash value assigned to it.

Quite honestly…I don’t. I filter through every once in awhile and pull stuff I know isn’t bulk anymore. The main filter I use is when I get new stuff in, I go through it real quick and pull out the stuff I know. If you filter out everything that isn’t “true bulk”, people won’t want to bother going through your stuff because there aren’t any “hidden gems” in there. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you view them each as worth 10 cents when traded to you…any value above that is bonus, but if it takes you 4 hours to go through your bulk stuff and you pull out 30 cards worth $1 then you paid yourself about $7.50 an hour (not bad…but you just have to determine how much you value your time). It’s often difficult to overcome the “wow that guy just found 5 dollars worth of cards in my bulk box and he’s only giving me $1 worth back”, but you just have to keep thinking (but I only traded $0.50 worth of cards for that $1).

I’ve also got a very popular bulk box, and have a page at the back of my Standard folder called “Bulk Rare Yahtzee”, where people give me two bulk rares, roll a bunch of dice and then get a card corresponding to whatever number they roll. Obviously the more probable rolls are cheap stuff like bad foils, non-english bulk (never trades. ever. and sells for less), some commons. But then in the very unlikely rolls (like rolling 24 on four dice) have foil shocks, planeswalkers etc. People who don’t usually trade their bulk rares away, or don’t have enough rares to trade for anything reasonable, are often quite happy to have a laugh playing the game, and I make at least 40+ rares out of it every night, many of which aren’t actually bulk. A few of us joke; “it’s not gambling, it’s trading, with dice!”

It isn’t taboo at all…though I have heard of some who dislike the competition for cheap rares (as many sell them for 0.25-0.50 per), but honestly basic competition is a good thing. It’s a good idea to make sure it’s ok with the shop owner ahead of time. I’ve actually got a deal with mine that he can pick up some hot standard stuff he runs out of for bulk rares with me…I trade him the standard staple @ TCG mid and he gives me that many bulk rares at my rates (bulk rares aren’t a huge seller in the store anyways).

Well I drive my car to the shop…so my bulk box tends to stay in my trunk. My trade binders are broken down into the following categories;

Standard

Legacy/Modern

Casual

Legacy Commons/Uncommons

I also have a personal standard binder which I sometimes bring (if I’m playing in a standard tournament), personal legacy binders which I never bring, a personal EDH binder which I never bring, and 2 speculation binders (lands and everything else).

Do you have your box with you every time you visit the LGS?

If so, what other trading stuff do you bring with you?

I Don’t have unlimited space, so I can’t bring all the binders with me. I try to get the bulk box with me, but it’s always a choice between what binders to bring. And it’s always sad to meet someone looking for standard when you left that binder at home. (I use the bike to go to the shop, so this limits the amount I carry with me).

LOL, actually one person did try to compete with me, but I haven’t seen his posts come by for a while so I think he’s given up (he was using the normal auction format and his auctions were ending very low, I know of at least 1 person who thought it was very funny to get his cards for absurdly low amounts and was always trying to). Surprisingly recently I’ve done my best deals through private message rather than through my auction.

I don’t keep a bulk box myself, my group seems to think it’s too tedious to browse through. I don’t go to places where many people gather often enough to benefit from such a box. I do have the foil fan in my group exchange any foil he wants from me for 2 foils of the same rarity.

I get a pretty insane amount for my bulk from the shop I use, they have actually raised their buy/credit prices recently to about $0.23 cash and about $0.30 credit. I also have a deal with them that I get $0.4/$0.5 for any card over $0.75 on their site. About 30% of the bulk cards I get in tend to fall in the latter category. I’m afraid I’m not willing to share which shop this is as I fear they will be flooded, losing me the great deal I’ve got. I do however know a private party in The Netherlands willing to pay €0.15 each ($0.20) and I might be inclined to hook you up if you make it interesting for me in some way. I think you know my e-mail address.

I accept 3 foil commons as 1 bulk rare, I got a foil Nihil Spellbomb from that. Relatively speaking that’s probably the best I’ve come across. I’ve found about 10 Shadow of Doubts, always setting them aside, expecting that they should go up at some point. Those have also been pretty good :).

Well come rotation you’ll be getting a bunch :)…sadly my non-standard pile to send to you isn’t very impressive yet…but when rotation hits it gets a lot bigger.

I’m very specific when it comes to commons/uncommons. Basically I would only take ones that have some value to them and I know I can sell for more than a bulk rare (Lingering Souls is the best example). The only “order” is non-standard vs standard simply because as you mentioned as soon as one person starts in on it, another and then another start..it’s actually fun to watch it cascade…the best I’ve had was one guy trade in some bulk and another guy immediately grab something out of that pile for his own pile…The most important thing to keep in mind is that everything that goes into the box…you got for 10 cents (in value), even if it’s worth 60 cents or so, you got it at 10 and it’ll probably get pulled out and you’ll get at least 20 cents in value (if not more)…the more you filter your box, the more work you’re doing and honestly if it takes you an hour to filter it and you pull out 5 cards that are actually worth 0.75 to 1.00 in trade…then you’ve paid yourself between 3.75-5.00 an hour for work…which isn’t worth it to me…also people light up when they see the slightly above bulk cards and the beauty is that the very definition of “bulk” differs from person to person…I had someone thrilled to pull 2 cards out last week worth 0.75 cents each…but in his trade in pile was a card worth 1.30…

I have my bulk box for more than a year. People ask for it. The ever going refreshing of cards make people want to see it over and over. It’s great for those who don’t want to spend too much money on magic and who want to get rid of their bulk rares. Price for buying was 0,50€.

Recently, I divided the box in two: one box for 0,25€/card and one box for 0,50€/card.

The 0,25€ box became the new bulk trade box. I also filled both boxes with commons and uncommons that are worth something.

You made a fair point about filtering too fast. I do this now every time. Taking out some cards for the 0,50€ box or 1€ binder. But you are probably right that taking out everything that’s worth something isn’t great. I need a good reputation for that box. Maybe it’s better to join both boxes together, and cash out the really bad bulk rares.

I do some bulk trades on facebook. I put some cards for sale/trade and ask for bulk rares or money.

I don’t want to disturb Pi’s monopoly on nedermagic, so I tried to find my own platform.

Some questions:

– Do you keep some kind of order in the boxes? I try to sort them by color, but in my experience, this is too difficult for magic players ;). The moment someone more than 1 person starts looking at it, the box becomes one big chaos.

Why also commons/uncommons? I’m afraid this will make it too complex and you lose the simplicity of the box. Also you can enjoy a game of magic while let your box do the trading work.

Some questions for others:

Where can I do a decent cash out for bulk rares in Europe?