Anatomy of an Online Trade

I have done a handful of trades over the past year or two and I figure that I have some information to share about how it is done. The value of cards is so relative that it can be hard to get a bead on what to trade for what. After some discussions online, someone made a suggestion about what crypt cards are worth that I think is spot on.

In this thread Malloy said:

decent support vampire with no distribution issues: $0.25 - $0.50
star-quality vampire or excellent support vampire with no distribution issues: $1.00 - $2.00
superstar vampire with no distribution issues: $3.00 - $4.00

distribution multipliers:
starter only: 1@ 3x; 2@ 2x
booster rare only: FN 4x; BL 2x
promo only: 3x

Think about Ebay for a minute. Ebay has a minimum price. It has a convenience tax in the form of "buy it now." People put some cards at artificially high prices because they think they can find some impatient sucker to pay twice what people might normally pay. All of these factors (and more) influence the price of cards.

It is really unfortunate that Lasombra isn't selling singles anymore. While VTES was in production he had what I felt was the gold standard for prices. Not cheap,  not overpriced, just right. Not really sure how he did it. That said, it is good to check Ebay's current prices by looking at "for sale" and "completed" sales to see:

1) What people are offering cards for price-wise
2) What people actually buy these cards for

Anyway, I just did a deal with a guy from France. I've never traded with him before, but he has a lot of posts and I think I've seen him trading before. There is a big risk in crossing people in the VTES forum because there are lots of potential friends or enemies and they all talk. Rip some dude off and it may become impossible for you to trade with people through the forum.

The person I was trading with wanted all library cards. For these, you really only have Ebay for a price guide. When you see a much lower price in the completed sales section see if it was "buy it now" or an auction. If all you have to go from is buy it now, then it is up to you to convince your trading partner that the price should be lower. For Enkil Cog, go for it. That card is stupid expensive right now. Entire collections sell for less than one gimmicky card. If it is a more common card, it will be not worth your time and possibly insulting to give a low-ball estimate of the value.

In the case of this trade, I was trading:

Fortschritt Library
Resilient Mind
 2x Shattering Crescendo
 3x Domain of Evernight
Brujah Debate

Ebay Fortschritt Library as an example. The buy it now price is $10, even $15 from one place. In completed listing you see two that sold after multiple bids; one for $8.50, the other for $10. Why would one sell for $10 when you can buy it now for $10? That is the most that bidder would consider paying. The other person? They found a price that didn't include the convenience tax. That's the price I would go with.

After Ebaying the remaining items, I came up with this for the value of my cards:

Forschritt Library $8.50
Resilient Mind $2
2x Shattering Crescendo $3.25
3x Domain of Evernight $3.75
Brujah Debate $6
$23.50 total

The vampires I was looking at trading for were from an older set and mostly not reprinted. Based on that I assumed the price was $0.75 per card. Some might be stars, some weren't that great. Some people seem to pay very high priced for (Lucita Adv was more for no apparent reason). So here's what I proposed:

Jeremiah Noble
Nedal, The Careless
Hanna Redmonds
Dr. Allan Woodstock
5x Horrock
Sophia Watson
Brunhilde
Torvus Bloodbeard
Zayyat, The Sandstorm
Lucita adv (worth a little more)
Jeremy Talbot (worth a little less)
Feo Ramos
Alfred Benezri adv
Michael Luther (worth about $1.25)
Cristos Mantigo ( Also worth about $1.25)
4x John Paleologus*
4x Sascha Vykos, Adv* (worth about $1 each)

Library Cards:

Master:
1x Erciyes Fragments, The ($4)

Events: (1x each)
Blood Trade ($1.25)
Veil of Darkness ($1.25)

I was counter-offered 2 Horrock instead of 5, but he basically agreed to the deal. Considering the cost of shipping all of the cards I wanted and that I had the benefit of making the trade proposal, I accepted. I got 90+% of what I wanted and he got a concession. That's a successful trade.

If you insist on 100% of what you want the way you set up, you are pushing too hard. Go for maybe slightly more than you want and accept slightly less. If your trading partner accepts without major disagreement it is win-win. The shipping for my cards was $1.05, so it is worth a try. Its easier than you think.

Let me know what you think.

Brandon