Welcome back readers/speculators! Today's article will focus on all the aspects of collection buying.

While some of the information may be obvious to many of our long term subscribers, it's important for us writers to remember that QS's members are of all various nationalities, races, ages, genders and all manner of other differentiating factors--including experience with MTG Finance.

So every once in awhile I like to do an "overview" style article particularly aimed at our newer speculators, although I'll certainly try to include pertinent information that our experienced traders and speculators will find useful.

Finding

This can be one of the hardest aspects of the whole collection buying experience. There are a number of ways to "advertise" that you buy collections. Some of them include:

1. Posting on Facebook--either on your own page or in MTG related groups, though it's important to remember proper protocol when posting on pages you don't actually own/admin
2. Posting on Twitter (tweeting)
3. Putting up flyers at your local college/university--MTG has a lot of college age players and many have bulletin boards you can post freely on, although you should verify that it's okay first
4. Posting on Craigslist--this one is pretty obvious, but you often face a lot of competition on this front
5. Having a note in your trade binder advertising it--this is one you may need to clear with your LGS beforehand, as you don't want to impede on his or her territory
6. Including a note in any online sales you have--brand recognition is often a major driving force behind repeat sales
7. Advertising on other local MTG or MTG related forums
8. Simply letting people know via word of mouth

Pricing

So you've had someone come to you with a desire to sell you their collection. As I've already covered the "morel dilemmas" that can occur in previous articles, let's assume that you're not trying to take the seller to the cleaners.

Pricing is often the most stressful and nerve-racking parts of collection buying--you want to offer a price that isn't insulting to the seller and closely represents fair market value, but also leaves room for profit for your efforts.

The next important thing to keep in mind is that it takes time to review the cards and verify condition. Depending on the size of the collection, you will likely want to limit the "value" of cards you review.

For large collections, I usually focus on the $10 or greater stuff. For medium and small, I'll drop it to $5. This means that I request a list of all the cards currently valued at or above said amount.

This will be what I pay for with the understanding that everything else is kind of a "throw in" by removing the effort of the seller having to find buyers for everything else. Sometimes they are fine with that, other times (especially if they have a lot of cards that aren't bulk but are below the number I requested), they aren't.

If not, it's important to be flexible and work with them for a number that is acceptable for both parties.

Luckily for you--since you're reading this, you're a QS Insider--QS provides us with an amazing tool to help with pricing collections properly: Trader Tools.

This tool allows you to import cards (or, even better, an entire collection) into a list. It will then spit out the best buylist price per card as well as the "total buylist price" at the bottom. TT3 allows you to quickly and easily figure out what most of the well known and reputable MTG stores will pay you right now for every card in that collection.

It's important to keep in mind that, more often than not, the highest buy price for each card in the collection will be spread out over several stores--Store A may pay the most for cards X and Y, but Store B is paying the most for card Z.

TT3 is also assuming the cards are NM, which is sadly not always the case with larger collection buys. At the very least, however, it gives us a good baseline.

If you can get the seller to give conditions for the listed cards, we can use that to help establish what we should be offering. Afterall, if 80% of their collection is MP, you don't want to be paying the TT3 buylist value at NM.

Given that some buylists will accept played cards while some won't, it's important to keep in mind which shops show up the most on the TT3 list. If you have a lot of cards whose highest buylist is for a store that only accepts NM cards, you'll want to make a note of those cards specifically.

However, most stores do accept LP/SP, and some even MP and HP, though it may depend on the "value" of the cards (i.e. some stores will not accept $5 cards that are HP, but might accept $150 cards that are HP).

The typical price of the full NM value is usually something like:

• LP/EX- 80-85%
• MP/VG-60-75%
• HP/G- 35-65%

With the price range of cards often being heavily dependent on condition, it's very important to be a strict grader. This, however, can offend your seller, so it's very important to be fair and up front. It's a great idea to actually have a major website's grading guide, or at least a card of each condition with you so you can compare grades with the seller.

It is also absolutely critical to verify "authenticity" of the more valuable stuff. Given I don't know how you value your time, I won't put an exact dollar value to check, but I don't pick up dual lands and whatnot without thoroughly reviewing them because they can and have been faked.

So now you've reached the point in where you've got the majority of the collection priced out based on condition. You now need to determine what kind of profit you want to make off of this buy.

This is where it gets tricky and one's moral compass gets oriented. It's important to consider the "other" costs to you of purchasing the collection--the cost of everything that isn't the actual money you give the seller.

Some of these costs include:

• The time it takes to sort everything. Very large collections can take hours (or even days) to go through. This is time you could be spending doing other things, so it does have value, although it's more amorphous and harder to define. At the very least, it seems fair to value your time at least at minimum wage, since you could be working if you weren't sorting their collection .
• Shipping to various buylists. Shipping costs for small packages typically range from $2-$5.95 for small USPS flat rate boxes/envelopes. While that may or may not be a lot, it can really add up when you ship to three or more buylists. Sometimes, depending on the difference between Store A's buylist price and Store B's, it might be worth it to ship the card to the lower buylist price if you already have a lot going to one store and not much to the other.
• Other packaging costs. This might include bubble wrap, the boxes/envelopes themselves, or top loaders/sleeves you may want to ship the cards in. It's VERY important to verify first what kinds of shipping materials the stores will accept, as there are some who will charge you if everything is sleeved up.
• Travel cost. This one can be relevant if you're driving quite a distance to review/buy the collection. If I'm driving two hours to someone to look over their collection, I'm not simply going to ignore the cost of gas and my travel time.

You may or may not want to share these costs with your seller. Sometimes they will scoff at the fact that you feel your sorting time deserves to be compensated, while other times they'll completely understand and are happy to simply sell without having to do any additional work.

Understanding your Seller

This is another critical aspect that is important to keep in mind. Many players (myself included) can get attached to their collections and will often over-value cards. They attach sentimental value to a card and they may want you to "pay" for that sentimental value.

Many players have cards that are simply "Not for Trade" and these are often the ones that will have sentimental value attached to them. But when truly selling out of the game, they will be included in the collection.

If/when these cards end up on the selling block, it's important to remind the seller that, while the card is awesome and that time they blew out their friend with it sounds epic, if you sell the card to any of the online stores, they will pay what is listed and only what is listed.

If you can emphasize this without sounding condescending or brushing off their sentimental value, you can avoid insulting them and ruining what could be a lucrative chance to buy a collection for yourself.

Defining the Terms

Well done. You've given the seller a price you're willing to pay after thoroughly reviewing their collection and they seem to agree with it.

While this step is often taken for granted, it can be crucial to verify exactly what you're getting before handing over your money. Nothing is more awkward than when you factor in cards that the seller isn't, like their favorite EDH deck or that small binder of foils they've been collecting.

And this can potentially throw off your offer greatly, or at the very least waste unnecessary time. Simply stating, so "I'm getting __" and making sure they agree before you hand them the money eliminates this potential.

Paying

This is another step that seems obvious but is important.

You could be handing over a large sum of money, so it's important to count it out in front of them more than once to prevent miscounting. This is why bank tellers count and then recount a pile of money before they hand it to you.

Also, given the value of MTG cards nowadays and the money that could be involved, and the fact that you could very well be dealing with a complete stranger, it's wise to make sure your purchase is done in a public place. Don't bring $2,000 to some guy's house way out in the woods.

Again, this might seem obvious, but there's a lot of weirdos out there and nobody wants to be another sad news story.

~

Congratulations! You've purchased a collection and it's up to you to decide what you want to do with it now!

Sound off in the comments and share what your next steps usually are.