Most Magic collections in Australia get sold badly. Not because the owner was ripped off, but because they either burned six months listing singles for two dollars a go, or they took the first number someone offered without understanding how it was reached. Both are avoidable.
This is how a Magic collection actually gets valued, what you should expect to be offered, and how to hand it over without the process eating your life.
First, work out what kind of collection you have
Magic collections split roughly three ways, and the split matters more than the total card count.
The chase layer. Reserved List cards, Commander staples, Modern staples, foils and alt arts, Universes Beyond crossovers, Final Fantasy cards. This is almost always where the money is. In a typical 20,000-card collection, a few hundred cards carry eighty per cent of the value.
The playable middle. Uncommons and rares that see play but aren't scarce. Real value, modest value. These are worth including in a lot but rarely worth listing individually.
The bulk. Commons, off-meta rares, damaged cards, decades of draft leftovers. Individually worth cents. Collectively worth having, but not worth pricing card by card.
If you do nothing else before contacting a buyer, separate the first group from the other two. It is the single thing that most changes the speed and accuracy of an offer.
How the valuation actually works
Every serious offer starts at the same place: eBay Australia last-sold prices. Not asking prices, not a price-guide number, not what a card was worth in 2021.
The distinction matters more in Magic than in any other game. Magic has a huge spread between what people list cards for and what those cards actually clear at. A card with a $60 asking price and a $28 last-sold is a $28 card. Any valuation built on listed prices is fiction, and any collector who has watched their own listing sit for four months already knows it.
From that last-sold figure, a buyer works to a percentage. At HOKO, premium singles ($25+) sit at 70–80% of eBay last-sold, and graded cards (PSA, BGS, CGC) at 60–70%, depending on grade and population rarity.
That gap between the two is not arbitrary. Graded cards are slower to move, tie up more capital per card, and carry more risk on a grade that the market later re-prices.
Why a buyer pays less than eBay — and why that can still be the better deal
The honest answer is that a buyer is taking on everything you would otherwise do yourself. Photographing every card. Writing every listing. Answering questions. Packing and posting each sale individually. Absorbing the ones that arrive damaged or never arrive at all. Waiting out the cards that take a year to sell.
Sell to a buyer and you convert all of that into one transaction. Sell it yourself on eBay and you keep more per card, but you pay for it in months of your own labour and platform fees on every sale.
Neither is wrong. What is wrong is comparing a buyer's offer to the eBay listed total and concluding you have been lowballed — because that listed total is not a number you were ever going to receive.
What to send, and what happens next
You do not need a spreadsheet. A rough list plus clear photographs is plenty. Card names, sets, conditions and quantities for the valuable pieces; a photo of the boxes and binders for everything else.
An offer comes back within 1–2 business days, itemised, with the comps shown next to each card so you can check the working yourself. If a number looks wrong to you, say so — that is what the itemised list is for.
Payment is cash by bank transfer anywhere in Australia, or store credit with a 5% bonus on top, which is the highest payout available. For high-value lots in the Mount Gambier and far south-west Victoria area, an in-person meet can be arranged.
What to do with the bulk
The part most people get stuck on. Thirty thousand commons in a tub have almost no per-card value, but they are also genuinely difficult to get rid of responsibly.
Send them with the collection. We take the bulk and binders along with the rest, and a good portion of it goes on to local kids and players just getting into Magic. It costs you nothing and it beats the alternative, which is usually a landfill.
The mistakes worth avoiding
Don't part out the good cards first and then offer the remainder. A collection with its chase layer removed is worth far less than the arithmetic suggests, and a buyer will price it accordingly.
Don't clean, straighten or trim anything. Ever. A trimmed card is a worthless card, and attempts at improvement are visible.
Don't sleeve everything before quoting. It slows down assessment and doesn't change the number.
Don't assume old means valuable. Most cards from the nineties are bulk. A handful are not, and those few are worth identifying properly.
The short version
Separate the good cards from the rest. Get a valuation built on last-sold, not asking prices. Understand that a buyer's percentage is buying you out of a year of admin. Then decide whether that trade is worth it to you — for most people with a large collection and a job, it is.
We buy Magic collections Australia-wide, from a shop run by a 20-year collector rather than a price-scraper. Send photos of what you have and see what it comes back at.
Get an offer on your Magic collection →
— Ethan Ryan, HOKO Collectables