Bartertown.com

Hey all, I've been taking a look at my collection and realized that I have way too much extra laying around. I want to go to the local flea market and sell my mtg cards off but I have no clue how to do it. I would post on BT but theres over 5k of them and making a list is just too much work. And besides, most people are only interested in the money cards anyways. So, How can I sell them without getting ripped off by selling them in bulk? I have my collections sorted out but I need a way to inventory the rest. Basically to prevent people from going "Hey, do you have this card?" And me wanting to bang my head against the wall having to look for it. I want it to be "browsable" so they can know if I have it. A spreadsheet would work but theres way too many sets and cards to put that together. I don't have the HTML knowledge to put together a webpage but would like to in the future. I would also eventually like to own a hobby shop; but I have to start somewhere

Looking for:
A way to have them organized
An online version/easily accessable (For Ebay/BT/Friends)
Portable! (Need to take them with me to the flea market/trading)

What I think would work:
5 cent JUNK box -- Everything that will never see the light of day unless you are new to magic.
25 cent Common Box sorted by colour -- Not bad cards but not premium cards. These ones are playable but still junk.
50 cent Uncommon box sorted by colour -- Same as above
Premium uncommons/commons (Hymms, Dark Rits, Dazes Etc.) Go in a seperate box so I can grab them fast.
>$5 binder
$5-10 binder
$10+ binder

The only dilemma is that that organization doesn't work online or at game shops. Too much to lug around and no one wants to sift through all the cards. So I can't go onto BT and post 1000 uncommons hoping to sell a few of them.


Anyways, long post. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I sold my wife's collection here mainly to move them quick. SHe dosent play anymore and I never played.

Id sell your commons at a dollar per weight system. $5 a pound or something like that. To people starting out this will be a huge help. BUy some in bulk at a price the is far better then stores. After that sorting is a huge key. Since I never played I have no idea how the cards are classified but knowing a little about baseball cards Id put holograms in one pile, metals in another and so on. Take some group pictures and post them in groups for a price. Those starting out again will like this since they will see a 'special' card with a few others and smile since they dont have to shell out piles of cash to get packs to HOPEFULLY get a good card.

The biggest problem will be sorting since by your own words you have over 5k.

Good luck.

If I were REALLY bent on organizing them (and I have about 18k just like that that I am just hiding in the closet) I would do them small chunks at a time. Get 5 pretty big boxes, and 1 smallish (one for each color and then artifacts). Take a chuck of cards, and start sorting by color. Once you have all the colors done, I would go back in and sort by card. Then alphabetically. I would used 'decked' and buy the in app photo option. Just take the pictures as you go. Then when you go to sell them, you can inventory on your phone/ipad what is still there or not. This will also help you to accomodate people who are looking for specific cards in trade/sell.

Another 'fun' option might be to put decks together and sell them as pre-playable. It may be more fun to organize that way, and you could sell to newbies at a good price. WotC sell their prefab decks for $20 bucks, and usually don't have great rare cards anyway. So make a 60 card deck (or 40 and don't include mana) and sell it for $8. or $10. Then they can tweak it with the cards they like (a few kalonian tuskers, Elvish mystic, a couple of enchantments and artifacts...bam. Then they can go buy a caller or hydra or whatever).

Good luck

I have 30,000+ cards on hand not including rares & value common/uncommons...I got several 5000 card sports cards storage boxes & alphabetized everything. it took a lot of work initially, but once it was done, keeping up with it hasn't been too bad. and now when friends are looking for card X, they just come over & flip thru the appropriate box to see if its in there. I considered entering the entire inventory on ww.deckbox.org so ti was browsable online, but the maintenance is a bit daunting. Keeping tabs of every common or uncommon that someone snags seems like a bit of a hassle. But I still may do it.

As for how to get rid of them, if you don't mind taking a hit on pricing, the easy way to do it would be to box them up and go to a local SCG of channel fireball event and sell them at bulk prices...it's not a ton of money, but you normally get a 30% bonus if yer taking it in credit towards other better cards. otherwise, if you are going to a flea market or having a yard sale, get some 500 & 1000 count boxes and box them up as randomly as you can & sell them cheap...our local game stores sell 1000 card boxes for $20...sometimes for $15 at special events. Or you can gather up some unused rares and sell repacks online, but that isn't quite as easy & is a lot more time consuming. Or talk to your local game store & ask if they will give you a deal on large bulk commons/uncommons in trade for packs or other cards.