by ·0 Comments

I’ve been playing email ping-pong with someone who wanted one of my camera lenses and I arranged to meet him at the Market East station at 11 AM in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts (that’s where the convention center guard is, how apropos).  Leading up to the sale, the buyer asked nearly a dozen questions and I was worried I was dealing with a reseller or someone else who’d rake me over the coals and took the train to Philly to find out.

I met him in his imastudent/hobochick coat and he pulled out the most beat Canon 30D I’d ever seen.  I passed him the lens which he nearly dropped and he commented on how he’d finally have a lens with both caps.  He put the lens on and started taking pictures of the floor.  I asked him if there were any problems and he said “no, but maybe just one.  It doesn’t seem to… focus.”  Normally, I’d be terrified but I’d been so bowled over with is confidence that I politely removed the lens hood covering the focus ring and put the lens into manual focus.  He smiled and passed me the money.  I saw the guard shake his head and it was off to the Reading Terminal to enjoy the fruits of my sale:  five bananas and something unhealthy made by the Amish.

by ·0 Comments

My pricings at the Ockanickon Magic Tournament is highly correlated with how much stuff I still have.  Normally, I sell grab bags for $5.00 but having many left I dropped the price to $3.00 or 4 for $10.  A staff member was very happy to have sold 4 at once for the first time this season, he chalked it up to ability, I chalked it up to a 40% discount.

There were a surprising number of participants considering that Week 8 was our lightest and I was very excited when Joe kept showing me cards and asking me “did I want them?” to which I always said “yes”.  The problem is that my buy decisions are normally informed by who I think will take the card and I failed to consider that my next sales opportunity was not 7 days away but 309 days away as part of the 2011 camp season (I’d lose my shirt on dealer prices and FNM folk rarely buy cards).  Should anyone at that time wish to walk down memory lane and build a standard deck from a format that’s no longer current I will be ready.

Edit: I’ve come to learn I may have lost a Foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor that night.  Damn.