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Reprint season is upon us!  As a result, I, like many other people, am attempting to majorly downsize my collection.  Many people are trying to do this now to scrape every last penny they can out of their about-to-be-reprinted chase cards from the past year or so.

Thank you Sean, we all know what reprint season is, what does this have to do with trade tips or a documentary?

Well, for the tips, I'd like to start off by saying DO. NOT. SELL. DURING. REPRINT. SEASON.  I am fully aware that I am breaking my own advice here, but, I am in a very awkward financial situation at the moment and every little bit helps. 

What is wrong with selling in reprint season?

Everything is divebombing in price, for starters.  Let's look at card values today versus, say, card values in April, about a month after the new banlist.
 
Tour Guide from the Underworld (Secret Rare)
Today: $85 (easy to get a set for $200)
Then: $150 apiece. 

Obviously the Battle Pack has since been released, but, again, reprint season has reprints, go figure.
 
Wind-Up Zenmaines (Secret Rare)
Today: $50
Then: $90-$110 apiece

I had trouble finding my own copy of this card for $80 cash.  Now I couldn't get $40 for it at locals.
 
Evolzar Dolkka (Secret Rare)
Today: $40
Then: $65-70

Technically you cannot get Dolkka for less than $35-$40 off of Ebay and similiar vendors, but, I bought my copies of the Dragon XYZ at nationals for $35 ($17.50 apiece).  How the mighty have fallen.
 
Maxx "C" (Secret Rare)
Today: $50
Then: $120

When the Wind-Up deck didn't get touched by the banlist, there was a point where everybody was maindecking 3 copies of this card.  It basically forces your opponent to stop whatever combo they're attempting to pull off.  I'm not here to describe why this card is good, but, there isn't even a reprint announced for this card, and it has dropped.  People, on principal, are afraid of it getting announced and don't want to invest much into it.
 
The point is, most of the things you invested in before reprint season, are going to be worth significantly less during reprint season. 
 
So, what should I do after Nationals and before next season?

I personally think that this is the best time to invest in new cards.  I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but, look at Pot of Duality and Dark Armed Dragon.  After they were first spoiled as reprints, they were similiar to toilet paper when trading, but now, their value is slowly climbing, simply because it is the 'most holo' version of the card, and they're getting harder and harder to find. 

If you wave significant cash at someone, they will generally be willing to lower their values on cards.  I have been able to pick up almost all of the singles I've ever paid cash for, for significantly less than 'retail' value of the card, just because people like money.  Don't get me wrong, I also love my good friends 'Washington and "Big Ben", I'm not saying that you should always try to get retail value on your cards, but, don't by from players for retail value, unless vendors just don't have the card.

Generally April or early May is the best time to try to sell out of the game or offload inventory.  Inversely, June and late July are the best times to invest, for reasons listed above.  Everything is much cheaper that you would generally find it.  One can get Evolzar Dolkka from a player for $15-$20.  Wind-Up Rabbit was recently announced as a card being reprinted, likewise, we can expect the value to drop significantly, and even after winning 3 WCQ in a row, I imagine one could optain a playset of Wind-Up Rabbit for around $50 from a player. 
 
So what does this have to do with a documentary? 

Well, earlier in this article, I mentioned that I am selling a majority of my collection to personal reasons.  This has led me to think a lot about my playing cards in general and hoping to become more revered amongst the Yu-Gi-Oh! community and better at playing and trading in general, so I'm going to start documenting my trades.  I am not sure exactly on all of the details, but, it will be a series on Pojo and/or Youtube about the trades I make, why I make some of them, and how you can apply that knowledge to your trades.

I'm doing all of this because of the current readers that I receive feedback from, asking about more trade tips, and hopefully, this will provide some more personal insight into trading, rather than talking just about past formats and trades I've done to 'juice' people. 

I'm not starting the series just yet, as most of the questions I receive involve paperclipping, and I want to try to start out with a binder worth less than $100 in order to communicate the real idea of 'paperclipping'.
 
Ok, I haven't read your past articles, what exactly is paperclipping?

Paperclipping got its name from the stories people will hear of someone trading a paperclip up to a very valuable item, generally a nice car or a house.  It is something where someone just tries to trade for something more valuable than what they are giving away, so they end up with something better than what they started.  Think of it this way:

Paperclip -> Pencil
Pencil -> Bic Pen
Bic Pen -> Nice Pen
Nice Pen -> Rubber Band Ball
Rubber Band Ball -> Masking Tape
Masking Tape -> Stapler
Stapler -> Calculator
etc.

Obviously you can trade even with paperclipping just to get trades in and to trade some bulk stuff for more bulk stuff etc.  There are many ways to trade and gain value over time, and hopefully I will be able to outline some of these techniques and go into depth with trading more and more as the series continues.
 
Finally, while I cannot promise anything, I may begin streaming games from Dueling Network onto a Twitch account or something similiar, but, that is still in the works, if anyone would be itnerested to see me shout at a computer and play children's card games, please let me know, as I don't want to purchase the equipment and everything to have nobody watch. 
 
Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and, while I know this article is mostly a precursor for things to come, I do hope that it was helpful in some regards towards investing and selling during reprint season*.

Feel free to hit me up on any of the social media sites to talk about the game in general, I love talking to readers.

facebook: facebook.com/shakezilluh
pojo forums: themcshakealchemis (no T)
youtube: themcshakealchemist (with T)
twitter: paper_gangsta_
email: andro_sphinx@yahoo.com
Dueling Network: Shakezilluh

Thanks for reading!
Sean Handy
The McShake Alchemist
 
 
 

*Reprint season is generally late May to the end of August, when Gold Series, 1-2 structure decks, a reprint set (Battle Pack, Master Collection, etc.), a pack special edition, and the tin reprints are announced.