This guide will help you turn your Magic: The Gathering® collection into cash

Note: This blog is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

It's every Magic: the Gathering® seller's dream: finding a mint Alpha Black Lotus and turning it into $540,000. Learning to sell Magic cards can help you turn a reliable profit — even if you don’t have the rarest cards in the game. With the right tools and a little internet savvy, you can expand your pool of buyers to the entire world.

Whether you're a local game store with extra stock, an avid MTG player, or a collector with decades of Mythic Rares under your belt, this guide will teach you how to sell Magic: The Gathering® Cards.

Looking to sell other kinds of trading cards? Learn how with our article, A Practical Guide to Selling Trading Cards Online.

Where to sell Magic cards

Selling locally

Once you’ve decided to sell Magic: The Gathering® cards, the first thing you’ll need to choose is where to list them. If you’re open to local deals you can often find a local MTG buy/sell/trade group on Facebook. Card shops (often found operating as part of a comic book / gaming store) are another option to consider, as they are generally more willing to buy MTG cards in bulk or even assist in determining value for rare cards.

Going local means saving on shipping, a definite plus. The downside is that your pool of buyers is much smaller and shop offers tend to be on the low side, so your chances of selling everything at your desired prices are lower.

If you opt to sell to online buyers, here are two strong options.

eBay

If you ask a long-time collector how to sell MTG cards, there’s a good chance they’ll point you toward eBay. The more than 132 million active buyers on the platform make a compelling case on their own. But there are lots of other good reasons to choose eBay. For one, it provides robust protections for sellers. Making an account is free and eBay authenticates any collectibles sold on its site. Sellers ship the item to eBay for authentication, and then eBay ships it to the buyer. That helps prevent fraud.

Fees:

• A final value fee charges 13.25% of sales up to $7,500, then 2.35% on proceeds above that figure.
• A per-order fee charges $0.30 for orders under $10 or $0.40 for those over $10.
• Your first 250 listings each month are free, but you will be charged an insertion fee of $0.35 for each additional listing.

Be sure to take the time to learn all about eBay seller fees as you prepare for your sale.

TCGPlayer

As a jack of all trades, eBay loses out on some trading card game-specific features. That’s part of why it acquired TCGPlayer in 2024. The site, which still operates independently, boasts a vibrant community of sellers and buyers from around the world. It has a vast database of MTG cards at the ready, which makes it easy to create accurate and attractive listings.

TCGPlayer provides seller protections similar to eBay’s. Creating an account is free, but if you’re an individual seller, TCGPlayer places limits on the number and price of your listings. Once you’ve made a certain number of sales and received enough positive feedback, you can get those limits removed.

TCGPlayer also offers top sellers a service called TCGPlayer Direct. In this setup, you'll only need to worry about handling inventory, listing your cards, and shipping them directly to TCGPlayer. Site staff will then handle shipping to buyers and any customer service issues.

Fees:

• TCGPlayer charges a 10.25% commission on each sale, though with Direct, commissions can drop as low as 8.95%.
• A credit card processing fee adds another 2.5% and a flat $0.30.

How to set prices when you sell MTG cards

Before you can sell your MTG cards, you need an idea of what they’re worth. While rarity is important, condition is king. After all, no serious collector wants creases and tears on their Guardian Beast. When determining the price for your MTG card, remember that condition is the primary determining factor for a card’s value; whether it’s mint, near mint, lightly played, moderately played, heavily played, all the way down to damaged.

TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom, and Star City Games’ prices can give you a benchmark for your listing. But those listings don’t tell the whole story. For the most realistic prices, you’ll also want to look at recently sold listings on your chosen marketplace. They will provide insight about what people are actually willing to pay, rather than what sellers are asking.

Different sites provide different levels of sales data. TCGPlayer lets sellers view the last sold listing price, the average price of recent sales, and the lowest active listing price. eBay has its own price guide tool.

Remember that many buyers will sort their searches by price plus shipping. If you adjust your shipping charges, it can help your listing land higher in search results without lowering the price of the card itself.

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What to include in listings

When you sell Magic cards, the more information you provide your buyer, the better. At a minimum, consider including the following:

• The name of the card.
• The name of the set it’s from.
• Grading details (including both the grading company and the grade earned).
• If your card hasn’t been graded, include extensive information about its condition. Refer to your chosen platform’s condition standards, and provide specific, honest details about any defects.
• Special features such as foil, foreign language, misprints, or extended art.
• Clear images of the card, front and back.

On a TCG-specific site, you’ll likely be able to find your card and edition in the database, making it easy to fill in the rest of the details. On other sites, be sure to carefully proofread your listing, especially its title. Typos in the listing can prevent it from appearing at the top of the relevant search results.

Images of the card may not be required by your site, but they go a long way toward reassuring buyers. To get the best images, use a high-quality desktop scanner such as a Ricoh fi Series or ScanSnap scanner. These can safely scan the card, getting a crystal clear image of both sides without bending or creasing it in any way. The larger your inventory, the more dividends a good scanner can pay.

Did You Know?: The ScanSnap SV600 works with CollX Card Dealer Pro Software to make trading, selling, and buying quick and simple. See it in action here.

Our recommendation: ScanSnap SV600, fi-8250, and fi-8170

When selling Magic: The Gathering cards, high-quality scans can help your listings stand out. But not every scanner handles cards with the same care and speed. We take great pride in having spent the last 50+ years researching, designing, and developing some of the most advanced and powerful electronics in the world, including our professional grade fi and SP series of scanners.

Built to purpose for the most demanding document handling jobs, fi and SP scanners are capable of processing tens of thousands of pages per day at the highest levels of accuracy. Their intuitive integration capabilities with all existing work suites minimize time-to-value for businesses looking to invest in tools that will pay dividends for years to come.

Many of the scanners from the fi and SP line can quickly and gently scan Magic cards. The fi-8170 is a favorite for its speed and contact size. The fi-8250 offers the additional flexibility of a flatbed scan. Both can scan through sleeves and top loaders — even using their automatic document feeders — and capture both sides of the card at once, without bending the card.

Fi series scanners are trusted by countless card sellers. But if you’re looking for the safest scan possible, consider the ScanSnap SV-600. It uses an innovative, contactless LED scanner to capture highly accurate images without physically manipulating your cards. Plus, with multi-document detection, it can scan several cards at once and automatically separate them into unique images.

All three scanners come with CollX Card Dealer Pro Software, which makes it easy to turn scans into listings. Click here to learn more or shop the rest of our production scanner line.

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