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Inherited a Magic: The Gathering collection? Start here

By Geega Games · Updated

Finding boxes of Magic: The Gathering cards in an estate, an attic or a closet is more common than you’d think — the game has been around since 1993. Some collections turn out to be worth very little, and some are worth a surprising amount. Either way, a few simple steps protect the value until you know which one you have.

1. Don’t throw anything away yet

Keep all of it until someone who knows the game has looked: loose cards, binders, deck boxes, sealed packs and boxes, even cards that look like junk. Unopened product from the ’90s and early 2000s can be worth far more than the cards inside, so don’t open anything that’s still sealed.

2. Keep it the way you found it

  • Leave binders intact and cards in their sleeves or toploaders.
  • Never use rubber bands — they bend and dent cards.
  • Don’t clean, flatten or write on cards.
  • Store boxes somewhere dry, flat and out of direct sun — not a damp basement or a hot garage.

How someone organized their collection also tells a buyer a lot, so resist the urge to re-sort everything.

3. Get a rough idea of the size

You don’t need an exact count. Card storage boxes are sold by capacity (“1,000-count”, “5,000-count”), so a full box is a quick estimate, and each page of a standard binder holds 9 cards per side. Photos of a few binder pages and the tops of the boxes are the single most useful thing you can send a buyer.

4. Look for the obvious signs of value

You can do a quick first pass without learning the game: gold and orange-red rarity symbols, very old cards with no symbol at all, anything in a graded plastic case, and sealed product. Our guide to what a Magic collection is worth walks through each of these.

5. Understand your options

  • Sell card by card yourself. Usually the most money, and by far the most work: listing, photos, marketplace fees, shipping and customer questions, often for months.
  • A local game store. Quick, but many stores only buy the specific cards they need, and some won’t take large or unsorted collections.
  • Online buylists. Good prices for specific cards, but you have to look up, list and ship each card yourself.
  • A collection buyer. The least work: one offer for everything, bulk included, from someone who does the sorting.

6. Protect yourself

  • Get the offer in writing, and don’t let anyone rush you into deciding on the spot.
  • Be careful with buyers who want to cherry-pick a few cards and leave you with the rest — unless that’s what you want.
  • Use a payment method with protection. We pay by PayPal Goods & Services (never Friends & Family) or store credit worth 20% more.
  • For a collection with clearly high-value cards, a second opinion is always reasonable.

7. Keep what matters to you

Collections often carry memories. If there’s a favorite deck or a few cards you want to keep, set them aside — any good buyer will make an offer on the rest.

How we handle inherited collections

We buy estate and inherited collections as they are — no sorting needed. We’re based in St. Louis (local meetups), we drive to sellers within about 6 hours, and you can ship to us from anywhere in the US.

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