Making Money with Trading Card Games

munkeymanmunkeyman Semo-Regulars
edited May 2011 in Man Cave
A quick little how-to on how to use a technique called "scaling" to quickly make money from trading card games such as Magic, Yugioh, and Pokemon. This is a very old strategy that has been used since the 90's, so most older folks will know it. However, I'm putting it out there for the youngin's.

You will need an electronic precision scale. You can find one cheap off of ebay.

1) Go into a wal mart or target or other store of choice that has lax security.

2) Find the card games. They are usually near the front to discourage boosting, but sometimes they are back in toys.

3) You are going to shoplift as many booster packs as you can. If they are just sitting in a booster box, nab the whole booster box. One might prefer to buy a medium-sized opaque tupperware container (a few dollars) which is then stuffed with booster packs and bought through the self-checkout.

4) At home, weigh each individual booster pack on your scale. Put the heaviest ones in one pile and the lightest ones in another pile. The heavier booster packs contain holo-foil cards, and these are going to be your moneymakers.

5) Open up the heavier packs. Keep the foil cards to sell as individuals on ebay. Sell the unopened lighter packs on ebay as well. Toss the piss cards.

Optional) Buy sealed booster cases. They always contain good expensive cards in a predetermined distribution among the individual packs. Scale out the heaviest packs to get the good cards and ebay the lighter packs. You'll come out with quite a bit of profit.

Comments

  • edited May 2011
    That's pretty cool. Shame that I don't know any little kiddies around here who'd buy some cards as that fad seems to have died out, but I'll keep it in mind if something new comes to the shelves.
  • majeurevismajeurevis Acolyte
    edited May 2011
    Sell them online. People are still obsessed with MTG and the game's like 20 years old.
  • edited May 2011
    When I was in junior school I used to think of doing stuff like this. I'm pretty sure there are much better ways of making money if you're willing to go through all that effort.
  • Willy WonkaWilly Wonka Acolyte
    edited May 2011
    I noticed back when I played yugioh that their foil card were often bowed slightly, so I would give my booster packs a little squeeze to feel if it contained one of these foil cards.

    Now I play Magic, and since I've always been more interested in playing these card games more than collecting, I've found that the "better" cards aren't always the foil cards.

    A legitimate business approach to this might be to just buy whole boxes of cards, and sell each card individually.
  • fuckfuck New Arrival
    edited May 2011
    Really good idea. And like Wonka said, would also work well as a legit method.
  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited May 2011
    i used to and still collect MTG. i also found the more expensive cards to not be holofoils. i used to go to contests and 'pink" theier cards from them, or flat out steal them.
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