I Want My MTG
If you own more than a binder or two of Magic cards, you have probably asked the question: what is this stuff actually worth? The answer is trickier than it sounds, because card prices move every day and most collections are scattered across boxes, binders, decks, and the occasional forgotten longbox under the bed.
This post walks through the three ways collectors usually track value, in order from least to most effort, and the point at which each one stops being worth it.
Option 1: vibes and a recent receipt
The default for most casual collectors. You bought a few hundred dollars of singles last year, you remember the big ones, and you assume the rest is worth roughly what you paid. The number lives in your head.
This works fine up to a point. The point is usually around 200 cards or $500 of value, whichever comes first. Past that, two things start to go wrong:
- You stop knowing what you own. A card sitting in a box for six months might as well not exist. You will not remember to look up its price, you will not notice if it spikes, and you will not include it when you estimate your total.
- Your “remembered” prices get stale. A card you bought for $8 might be worth $25 or $3 now. If you have not looked recently, your mental estimate is closer to a guess than a number.
If your collection fits in your head, vibes are fine. If it does not, move on.
Option 2: a spreadsheet
The classic upgrade. One row per card, columns for set, condition, foil, quantity, purchase price, current price. Total at the bottom.
A spreadsheet solves the “I forgot what I own” problem because everything is written down. It does not solve the “current price” problem unless you update prices manually, which nobody actually does. Most spreadsheet collectors update prices once or twice a year, panic when they realize how out of date the numbers are, and then either start over or stop tracking.
The other thing a spreadsheet does badly is anything involving change over time. Want to know what your collection was worth six months ago? You would need a snapshot of that day’s prices, which you do not have. Want to know which cards have appreciated most? Same problem.
A spreadsheet is a snapshot tool. It tells you what you have right now, but it forgets what you had last week.
The transition point is usually one of two moments: either the spreadsheet gets big enough that opening it feels like a chore (around 1,000 rows), or you decide you actually care about how value moves over time. At that point, an app is doing the same work for free.
Option 3: a tracking app
An app does three things a spreadsheet cannot:
- Prices update automatically. You log a card once. The app pulls today’s price every day after that. The number on your portfolio page is what the card is worth right now, not last March.
- History is kept for you. Every daily price snapshot is saved. You can look back at what a card or your whole collection was worth a week, a month, a year ago. This is the feature spreadsheets cannot match.
- You can search and filter. “Show me every rare from a Modern-legal set that I own more than two copies of and that has gone up 20 percent this year.” A spreadsheet can do this if you are good with formulas. An app does it in two clicks.
The cost is the time to enter your collection. If you have 2,000 cards, nobody is typing those in by hand. The fix is bulk import: every serious app supports CSV imports. Our import page accepts exports from Moxfield, Archidekt, Deckbox, TCGPlayer, and our own format - so if you already have your collection logged anywhere, you can move it across in one upload. We talk about how to log purchase history alongside that data in a separate post on transaction logging.
When to upgrade
A rough guide:
- Under 200 cards and you do not care about value over time: stay on vibes. Tracking is overhead with no payoff.
- 200 to 1,000 cards, or you want a real total: a spreadsheet is enough if you do not mind updating prices yourself.
- Over 1,000 cards, or you want history: an app pays for itself in the first week, because you stop spending Sunday afternoons updating cells.
There is no right answer for everyone. The right answer is the cheapest tool that gives you the number you actually want.
What “current value” actually means
One last note. Whatever tool you use, the “value” you see is a market estimate, not a guaranteed sale price. Buylist prices (what a store will pay you) are typically 50 to 70 percent of market. Retail prices (what the same store sells for) are typically 110 to 130 percent of market. The number on your portfolio page is the midpoint, not the floor or the ceiling.
If you are thinking about selling, the realistic number is buylist. If you are thinking about replacement cost, the realistic number is retail. Market is the honest answer to “what is this worth right now” and a useful planning number, but it is not the number that lands in your PayPal account if you sell tomorrow.
Where to start
If you want to try the app version: make an account, upload a CSV from wherever your collection currently lives, and the Portfolio page will show you a real number within a minute. If a CSV is not handy, the getting started guide walks through the first manual entries.
Either way, the goal is the same: stop guessing what your collection is worth and start knowing.