- Generally, I prefer to trade vintage for vintage and modern (1980 and newer) for modern.
- I'm not super-strict on condition criteria, but would like to know what I'm getting if there are any big/obvious flaws to note. I know that none of us are professional graders, but it's nice to put a grade to a card to know whether a card is G, VG, EX, NRMT, etc. I've always liked these general guidelines:
- It's nice to trade star cards for similar value star cards. Doesn't always have to be 1 for 1, but if I'm trading a $100 card, I'd rather get one or two cards back in similar value instead of a stack of 100 cards at $1 each. If I am trading down and taking lower value cards in return, I'd like to get a little more book value back in consideration for trading down
- For value, I'm pretty flexible. If we are close in value, it generally works for me. These are cards, afterall, and condition grades are subjective. I tend to use eBay sold prices of similar condition cards. I'm also open to using Becket high value, then adjusting to condition based on their guidelines. Other price guides are fine, too. We all have our preferences but I've found eBay solds to be pretty easy/reliable since sometimes Beckett and others don't do the best job at capturing some of the high numbers and/or short print values, at times.
- Lastly, there is shipping. I'm usualy fine with plain white envelopes and toploaders for lower value and small amounts of cards. It's nice to have bigger value cards in a bubble mailer (maybe anything over $50 or so).