And I'm laughing pretty hard at the digs on starcity. In what bizarro world are people living in when the most successful MtG retailer is being accused of "bias". Bias against what? Not making a profit? The bottom line is that you keep throwing out nebulous and vague definitions of what constitutes an ideal price guide. I'll save you the effort of coming up with more non-statements and simply say this -

There are no ideal price guides. None. Every single price guide listed so far has faults on some scale, if your goal is to find the cheapest available purchase price for any given card. I've seen SCG have the cheapest deal on the internet, on multiple occasions. I've seen idiots quote me apathyhouse pricing on cards that had just exploded in price, hoping to sneak a deal before any lots are sold on ebay.

Fixed pricing is a matter of convenience. ebay based price listings are not perfect and can take a lot of bids to get those prices. I could bid on 100 playsets of underground seas at 90% of "market" price and win maybe 5. That's a lot of wasted searching and time.

While many may argue that store prices in general are a ripoff, many others argue that there are many fairly priced, and others that argue there is no exact method for each card.

in the example above of bulk rares, .10-.15 is for bulk (which means large quantities). Single crap rares are not bulk rares unless they are traded in those quantities.

To make it easy, here's some general math that used to be fairly standard for market/store pricing using store pricing as 100%

Retail (store) price = 100%
retail buy price = 40-60% (cards over $5), 30-50% (cards $2.50-$5), 10-30% (less than $2.50)
Retail collection buy prices = 15-30%
market (motl) price = 70-85% of retail price
market buy price = 70-90% of market (motl) for $2+ cards, 25-75% on cards $2 and under.
Market collection buy price = 70-80% of market

The magic card market is a truly competitive market and many say it even functions similar to the commodities market. Using retail prices as a benchmark for market pricing:
1. Market sell prices should fall in a range directly in between retail buy and sell prices.
2. Market buy prices should fall in a range directly in between retail buy prices and market sell prices.
3. If this does not hold true, then something has gone wrong. Either the pricing of the cards, or the pricing of the guide.

Prices are simply whatever an individual is willing to pay for them. Wanting to pay as little as possible is completely fine, but using the above reasoning to justify paying prices much lower than normal (or reputable store buy prices) honestly kind of just makes you a douche.

I still maintain that unless you are predicting the value of a card to drop, which is outside the realm of any website that can be used as a guide, that TCGPlayer prices are the best indication. You can go by the cheapest you can buy the card, the mid price among all vendors, or even just reference ChannelFireball which is on there if you are lazy.

quote:

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Originally posted by zer0faults:

I still maintain that unless you are predicting the value of a card to drop, which is outside the realm of any website that can be used as a guide, that TCGPlayer prices are the best indication. You can go by the cheapest you can buy the card, the mid price among all vendors, or even just reference ChannelFireball which is on there if you are lazy.

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I was about to purchase a SP foil Static Orb from TCGplayers for $15, then I decided to check SCG, and saw that they have it for $10. Awkward.

__________________
MOTL Fantasy NBA 2010 Champion

quote:

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Originally posted by zer0faults:
I however as an adult with a credit card, will not value a card higher then I can purchase it with shipping, unless I am trading junk for it. The only people I can see that would give someone 50$ in cards for 40$ in cards is people who enjoy spending a week working out a single trade. Not a dig at you, but at people overly concerned with trading.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rats60:
Then why would you ever use TCGPlayer when you can buy cards cheaper off of MOTL or Ebay?

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Because they aren't? Do you read the other posts in the thread? Just this last weekend, I was picking up a playset of Countryside Crushers for Aggro Loam, and I discovered that tcgplayer has NM ones at roughly 1.15 each, while the cheapest available playset on ebay was going for 10. There's only 1 guy with a current sale list on MOTL that's selling countryside crushers, and he only has 2 of them.

quote:

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Originally posted by Zeckk:
Because they aren't? Do you read the other posts in the thread? Just this last weekend, I was picking up a playset of Countryside Crushers for Aggro Loam, and I discovered that tcgplayer has NM ones at roughly 1.15 each, while the cheapest available playset on ebay was going for 10. There's only 1 guy with a current sale list on MOTL that's selling countryside crushers, and he only has 2 of them.

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http://www.ebay.com/itm/4x-Countryside-Cr usher-Morningtide-Rare-Magic-MTG-Red-/300711543112?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4603ce0148

4 for 3.25

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M agic-the-Gathering-MTG-4x-Countryside-Crusher-x4-Morningtide-playset-/320888466956?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab6716e0c

4 for 3.35

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MOR-Countryside-Crusher-x4-/190665882177?pt= LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c64927a41

quote:

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Originally posted by rats60:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4x-Countryside -Cr usher-Morningtide-Rare-Magic-MTG-Red-/300711543112?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4603ce0148

4 for 3.25

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M agic-the-Gathering-MTG-4x-Countryside-Crusher-x4-Morningtide-playset-/320888466956?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab6716e0c

4 for 3.35

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MOR-Countryside-Crusher-x4-/190665882177?pt= LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c64927a41

4 for 2.27

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Linking auctions over a month old? Cool story bro.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=countryside+crusher&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

quote:

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Originally posted by Zeckk:
Linking auctions over a month old? Cool story bro.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=countryside+crusher&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

That's a bit more indicative of what crushers have sold for in the last month, and that's not even considering which cards are AVAILABLE right now on ebay. Seriously, how would you feel if people gave you values on a card that were over a month old, especially when disregarding the much more recent completed listings which had them at a higher price? Secondly, is it really impossible for you to admit that ebay/MOTL doesn't always have the best deal?

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Thanks for proving my point. First one sold for .99 with free shipping. Less than the 1.15 plus shipping from TCG Player. You are wrong again.

quote:

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Originally posted by rats60:
Thanks for proving my point. First one sold for .99 with free shipping. Less than the 1.15 plus shipping from TCG Player. You are wrong again.

Look, I know your scam. You want people to believe that whatever guide you want to use today is best for the trade. That way you can rip people off. You have been exposed.

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.... and the next 10 sales were between 2-3 per. Look, I'm not here to hold your hand and teach you how to read and/or do math. Good luck convincing another trader that the only completed ebay listings are the one you choose to point out, all while ignoring a mass of data that point otherwise.