Insane Deals

[Kerz]

Hey- it seems like everyone has at least one story in their head of that amazing deal they got which left them walking away with tons of profit or cards.

Keep only the most ridiculous deals on the thread, please.

My deals (nothing too extreme, but good nonetheless:

About a year ago, I got a EX+ Mox Sapphire for 4 Savannah, 2 Bayou, and $40.

About 2 months ago, I got 4 Foil Brainstorms for $3 each.

A local had an Illusionary Mask in his binder, so I offered him $10 for it, not sure if he knew what it was worth. (Masks were 70+ at the time). He respondd with "oh, that thing? you can just have it",

[Jacob Orlove]

Cursed Scroll for tempest swamps.

[Jebus]

Italian Drain for $10, Foil Wirewood channeler and 3 Dark Supplicant.  And I even tried to make him take more.

[mrieff]

I have had so many amazing deals its not funny anymore. Here are some nice ones with a story:


3 NM workshops for 45 APAC lands at PT Chicago

150 APAC lands for absolutely free (bought them from a guy. I received, and emailed him about how I should pay. Emailed him again and again, never got a reply)

FBB European Birds for a Bazaar at PT Chicago from Troll&Toad. Selling the exact same Bazaar about a year later for 100 to Troll & Toad :lol:

[dandan]

Summer Magic Armageddon for RV Armageddon

(nobody knew anything about Summer Magic at the time, I also picked up a lot of uncommons and commons in  for  trades. Summer Magic cards look like someone added too much toner, although not as ugly as 4th)

I got my Library as part payment for the 'geddon. Valuable as they are, I prefer cards I can play with.

[jpmeyer]

8 Workhorses on eBay for one cent with free shipping.

Oh sure, it might not look cool compared to when you got that Mox for like half what it was worth, but I made 160 times what I spent when I sold those crap rares to a dealer for 20 cents each  

[CF]

Insane deal: 4 Bazaars for 1 foil Vampiric Tutor.
The drawback: I got the tutor. (it was 80-100, bazaar was 15-16).

And I've gotten tons of stuff quite cheap: 5 alpha/beta masks at $20-24 each, beta lotus at $240, alpha Ancestral + 2 Mana Drains + 2 AN Sorceress Queens at $180 total.

However, the most fun, positive deal I've had was in San Francisco recently. I traded with a -dealer- for some random foils and he listed quite low prices (foil Promise of Power at $2 etc). Anyhow, I gave him some random Mirrodin rares and was -really- happy. Then a bit afterwards he gave me back an Arc Slogger cause he didn't really need it after all and it was "only $1". Then immediately afterwards some random guy wants to trade. I find a foil Scrying Glass and he says he values it at $4-5. He looks through my binder and suggests.... Arc Slogger. :oD

That was just so funny.

--
Chris

[CrazyCarl]

When Planeshift came out I was at a local Sneak Peek(they did those back then) some guy had opened a foil alternate art Ertai the Corrupted.  Those things were going at like 50+ a piece at the time.  I asked him what he wanted for it.  All he saw was a Kavu Lair and said he'd do it for that.  I offered to give him more stuff, but he didn't want anything.  Shrug.

Sold it a few days later to StarCity for 50 bucks.  Bulk rares were $0.05 at the time. 1000% profit?  Oh yes sir.

I also got my Alpha Sapphire a few years ago for a bunch of junk rares at Altered States in Syracuse.  Soon after that I was up there for a weekend and won all their tournies and accumulated about 80 bucks in store credit and got their Library.  I spent 21 bucks on entry fees and got DCI points .

[rozetta]

This isn't one trade, but I just had to mention it. One time, back when I lived in San Francisco, I bought a completely empty binder and a single pack of 4th edition. I told my friends that I would put the cards from the pack into that binder and just trade around trying to increase the value of the cards (a project). The pack had a Verduran Enchantress as it's rare and I think the only other noteable card was a Black Knight. Anyways, they thought it was a cool idea and gave me a couple of "good" trades for some of those original cards to get me started. Then I'd just make rounds, finding out what people had and needed such that I could get a little extra on each trade.

Within 2 weeks I had a (completely beat to shit) Mox Ruby, a couple of English Drains and a bunch of other random cool stuff including Jester's Caps (which were quite valuable at the time), duals and good revised stuff like Sol Ring, Wheel of Fortune, Demonic Tutor, etc. Needless to say when people found out about it, they stopped trading with me

[Bram]

Insane deal: 4 Bazaars for 1 foil Vampiric Tutor.
The drawback: I got the tutor.

LOL!

- two Morphlings and a LE Sylvan Library for three Covetous Dragons about a year ago

- three minty Workshops plus a set of all non-Shop AQ cards about half a year ago, for 4 foil Brainstorms, 4 non-blue revised dual lands, 4 beta Sinkholes and a pile of about 100 uncommons. I proceeded to sell the incomplete (i.e. no shop) AQ set to a store at a ridiculous price, and bought a fourth (excellent) Workshop with the revenues through Matt (the price for that last one was more or less regular, but it was how I got the money that was the riot). On a related note: I had previouslt bought the foil brainstorms for 5 euros a piece and the minty beta Sinkholes for 11 dollars each...

- one time, this kid saw a so-so rare in my binder (nothing too crappy but not spectacular either. I think it was an Avatar of Woe or something). He didnt have anything but crap in his shiny new binder and he didnt have any money on him either, so just for the heck of it, I traded it for his binder. He walked out of the store a happy kid with a pile of his own cards and his brand new Avatar of Woe, and I had a good laugh and a new trade binder

[Triple_S]

At the Onslaught prerelease I traded a DCI bird token for a Mana Crypt...

At GP:DC I traded 4 Ravagers, 4 Clamps, an 8th WoG, and 8th BoP for a NM Signed LoA....clamps were banned w/in the week or so!

[Bulls on Parade]

Legions prerelease:
4 Chain Lightnings $1
1 Mishra's Workshop- $25
1 Mint UNL Berserk- 1 Kamahl, fist of Krosa ( I think 2 minutes before I won this off him in the dice game)

The best part is it was all from a dealer- I'd never do something like this to a kid. A friend of mine at the same prerelease from the same dealer got like 10 AQ Mishra's Factories for around $30, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Later I traded my friend Greg (Plainswalker) the Workshop for 2 Bazaars, which was pretty much fair at the time, and some other stuff I can't remember for his 3rd Bazaar. I then traded a Tropical Island and a Wrath of God for my 4th Bazaar. I *probably* would not be playing Type One if this hadn't happened. But it did. Boo ya.

[Matt]

One time I found a Forest. My percent profit was THROUGH THE ROOF.

[dandan]

I used to run a 2 for 1 trade box. Basically the idea is that you leave a box of commons somewhere (very few thieves will steal a box of crap commons. Anyone can take any card as long as they leave 2 cards in its place. This is a very good way for newbies to get commons as everyone very quickly builds up a stockpile of commons they don't use.

I remember fishing stuff like Savannah Lions out of the box at the end of the day. COP White appeared to be the most popular card to dump there.
For me this was a good way to trade (no time investment) and I think people were more than happy with it. (Although you NEED to leave the box, if you stand anywhere near it people will ask 'Can I change my 4 COP Greens for these 2 Benalish Hero?')

I once gave away a DBB Benalish Hero and the guy insisted on giving me something. I was quite pleased to get an Earthquake.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

A few weeks ago I saw a 4x each alpha dual with a buy it now of like 200$ on ebay for the whole 40.  Before I could do it someone else had .

Although not in the realm of power/bazaars, etc, I did trade a gaea's cradle for a couple of foils (not shiny cards, the shitty 3 for 1 pitch counters once .

[Jacob Orlove]

A few weeks ago I saw a 4x each alpha dual with a buy it now of like 200$ on ebay for the whole 40.  Before I could do it someone else had :(.

Good job. You avoided getting ripped for $200.

[Diaonic]

I got my first lotus for $125 about a year ago.

I traded a playset of savannah lions for 2 DCI foil city of brass.

[Ric_Flair]

This is a great deal only a fan of arbitrage could like.  

I was hunting around for cheap singles right when Onslaught came out and I was looking to put together a set of fetchlands.  I found a Canadian site selling them for a low price.  So I loaded up my cart and started to check out when I noticed that the prices were in Canadian dollars!  Through the beneficial conversation rate I was able to pick them up for $3.62 a piece.  I bought them out of fetches.  I then completed my playsets and had 21 to spare.  I sold them for between $8 and $10 a piece.  I used the money to buy boxes of product for draft since Onslaught and I still had some cash to buy a Time Walk for $180 (BIN on ebay) on December 11, 2003.  Not a bad price on that either.

[Gabethebabe]

Best: I got a playset of Serra Angel/Time Elemental misprints for an IT Abyss and €40.

Worst: I sold an English Zodiac Dragon for $2

[Toad]

Two years and a half ago I bought Mishra's Workshops for 70 euros. And by 70 euros I mean 70 euros for the complete set of 4 N/M Workshops.

I got one Mint english Mana Drain for 15 euros too.

[wuaffiliate]

My:

1x rev beat up savannah
1x beat up beta psiblast
some other random stuff and junky foils

His:

1x Beta Illusionary Mask
1x Asian Foil Deed (hehehe)
and some other stuff i needed

It was at a store i has just returned to from years of ignoring it, one of the older players was still there, he didnt know what anything was worth. Plus i didnt like him so it was easy for me to do this.