As I noted in the inaugural post, I misplaced the notebook that had the first set of trades in it. But I’ve been asked how I could start this process with the ultimate crap common, a Carrier Pigeons.
For me it only took three trades to get into rares.
The very first trade was:
For:
- Llanowar Elves (M10) (with a major nick in it)
Truthfully, the person I traded it to wanted, I think, to be the first trade in a project like this — so part of it is a social element. The other is that the nick in the card, even a playable card, rendered it valueless to a player who insists on perfect cards in decks.
That led to the second trade:
- Llanowar Elves (M10) (with a major nick in it)
For:
- Counterspell (MMQ) (slight play)
This was a bit surprising. Counterspell is a better, rarer, and more-valuable card than Llanowar Elves. But the person needed Elves for a deck, didn’t care about the nick, wanted to help, and had Counterspells he wasn’t using. It was also all happening under $1 at this point, so I think there was a “Meh” aspect to this trade.
I considered keeping the c-spell and trying to trade up, one card for one card, but decided that would be a far more difficult trading process. I thought, better to get into rares at this point.
So that led to:
- Counterspell (MMQ) (slight play)
For
On this, monetarily, the other guy probably did better — but I was trying to move into rares at this point, so it seemed strategic to trade this uncommon away for them.
Since then — up to Trade #001, and to present (as of this writing) — the trades have been one rare for two or three. I discussed this in Trade #002, but I now have enough bulk rares (26, plus a couple decent ones) to bid on a better card in a mail Trade Auction. Perhaps I will sell or trade the two better rares for some stamps to power this, as I stipulated that I had to pay for costs internally. If I could get, say, a Sol Ring for a bunch of bulk, that would give me a decent card to keep moving from, even if the project temporarily drops in dealer-value.
