How I accidentally became a fat cat MTG precon seller
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Over the past month or two, I've started buying and selling MTG precons and made a couple hundred pounds profit (nearly enough to fund my MTG habit). I've really been sucked into the ecosystem and have some big plans about where to go with this. You can see specific flip details at the bottom of this post.
After getting into magic, I decided to buy 10 Riders of Rohan LOTR Commander precons as an investment. As a human being, I liked the Lord of the Rings and I didn't realise they could be reprinted (wrong) and thought the value would only go up (also wrong).
In order to buy 10 decks, I messaged someone from Germany who had a large amount of the Riders of Rohan precons for sale on CardMarket and asked for a discount if I bulk bought. After negotiation (around 10% off), I managed to buy 10 at £40 each (including VAT and shipping).
These were initially supposed to be an investment, but I thought I may as well list on Ebay for a profit, and if it sells then it sells (Ebay had recently removed seller fees). Despite the fact that Riders of Rohan decks are currently being re-sold in the US for around $30, the first quickly sold for £59.
I'd stumbled into a decent opportunity and it made sense why. The bulk purchase discount, the pricing differentials between EU and UK markets exceeding the VAT implications, and the efficiency of combined shipping costs meant further discounts and could probably hit a 20%-35% margin.
I've been looking to get into a business for a while and decided to take a bit of a plunge. I've now received £1260 worth of decks and cards from different vendors on CardMarket (I've also had to pay VAT on around half of these), have generated £698 in sales of MTG cards on eBay and I have around £850 worth of stock remaining. I also took one of the Riders of Rohan decks for myself. I'm sure crack dealers would get high on their own supply too if it was as fun as MTG.
To streamline price monitoring and identify potential opportunities, I developed a script to scrape product data from CardMarket and then another to analyse daily price fluctuations, comparing current listings to the previous day's data.
Here's an example output from the price change analysis script:
=== Price Changes for Cheapest Listings ===
Commander Bloomburrow Family Matters Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €57.00 to €56.99
Change: €0.01
Commander Masters Eldrazi Unbound Commander Deck:
Price increased from €149.99 to €164.95
Change: €14.96
Commander Masters Enduring Enchantments Commander Deck:
Price increased from €56.00 to €59.00
Change: €3.00
Commander Modern Horizons 3 Graveyard Overdrive Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €42.99 to €41.18
Change: €1.81
Commander Modern Horizons 3 Tricky Terrain Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €49.82 to €46.58
Change: €3.24
Commander The Brothers War Mishras Burnished Banner Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €29.00 to €28.00
Change: €1.00
Commander The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Veloci Ramp Tor Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €103.77 to €103.75
Change: €0.02
Universes Beyond Warhammer 40000 Forces of the Imperium Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €90.00 to €89.00
Change: €1.00
Universes Beyond Warhammer 40000 Necron Dynasties Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €135.00 to €123.00
Change: €12.00
Universes Beyond Warhammer 40000 The Ruinous Powers Commander Deck:
Price decreased from €68.00 to €60.00
Change: €8.00
Universes Beyond Warhammer 40000 Tyranid Swarm Commander Deck:
Price increased from €79.48 to €79.50
Change: €0.02
Seeing the significant price increase in the Commander Masters Eldrazi Unbound Commander Deck, I subsequently purchased a set of Commander Masters decks (which contain Eldrazi Unbound amongst other decks).
I've got a lot of different experiments planned from here, and will keep this blog updated. I also ordered £2000 worth of cards subsequent to this post. This was not on CardMarket, so it will be interesting to see if I was robbed.
Flip Details:
Received from CardMarket:
| Item Name | Quantity | Price | Total |
| Slime Against Humanity | 8 | £1.70 | £13.60 |
| Slime Against Humanity | 20 | £1.28 | £25.60 |
| Relentless Rats | 26 | £0.86 | £22.36 |
| Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth: "Riders of Rohan" Commander Deck | 10 | £29.98 | £299.80 |
| Universes Beyond: Fallout: "Scrappy Survivors" Commander Deck | 4 | £37.88 | £151.52 |
| Universes Beyond: Fallout: "Mutant Menace" Commander Deck | 5 | £46.71 | £233.55 |
| Commander: Phyrexia: All Will Be One: Deck Set | 1 | £68.52 | £68.52 |
| Universes Beyond: Doctor Who: Deck Set | 1 | £141.27 | £141.27 |
| Commander Masters: "Sliver Swarm" Commander Deck | 1 | £74.00 | £74.00 |
| Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: "Most Wanted" Commander Deck | 2 | £25.00 | £50.00 |
| Commander: Modern Horizons 3: "Graveyard Overdrive" Commander Deck | 1 | £38.49 | £38.49 |
| Universes Beyond: Doctor Who: Deck Set | 1 | £140.42 | £140.42 |
| Total | £1,259.13 |
Sold on Ebay:
| Item title | Quantity | Sold for |
| Magic MTG | Universes Beyond: Fallout - Mutant Menace Commander Deck New/Sealed | 1 | £86.99 |
| Magic MTG | Lord of the Rings - Riders of Rohan Commander Deck | 1 | £67.98 |
| Magic MTG | Lord of the Rings - Riders of Rohan Commander Deck | 1 | £66.98 |
| MTG Magic - Commander Masters Commander Deck - Sliver Swarm - ENGLISH | 1 | £114.49 |
| Magic MTG | Lord of the Rings - Riders of Rohan Commander Deck | 1 | £64.30 |
| MTG Doctor Who Masters of Evil Commander Deck Magic The Gathering New Sealed | 1 | £66.00 |
| MTG Timey Wimey Commander Deck Sealed Unopened | Dr Who Precon | 1 | £114.95 |
| Magic the gathering - The Lord of the Rings - Riders of Rohan commander precon | 1 | £59.00 |
| Riders of Rohan Deck ~ Commander: The Lord of the Rings ~ Magic MTG Sealed | 1 | £58.00 |
| Total | £698.69 |
So £450 short and I have the following stock:
| Item Name | Quantity Remaining |
| Slime Against Humanity | 28 |
| Relentless Rats | 26 |
| Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth: "Riders of Rohan" | 5 |
| Universes Beyond: Fallout: "Scrappy Survivors" Commander Deck | 4 |
| Universes Beyond: Fallout: "Mutant Menace" Commander Deck | 4 |
| Commander: Phyrexia: All Will Be One: Deck Set | 1 |
| Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction: "Most Wanted" Commander Deck | 2 |
| Commander: Modern Horizons 3: "Graveyard Overdrive" Commander Deck | 1 |