Puca Pals: Hi Ho Silver, Away! – Week 27 and 28

Puca Pals is a monthly/bi-weekly article I write to chronicle my adventures on Puca Trade, the online trading system where Magic Players around the world trade with each other. In the articles, I will be discussing what cards I’ve traded away, the total amount of shipping I’ve paid, the total profit I’ve made after shipping costs, and what cards I’ve received in return. If you have any questions regarding the website feel free to ask. If you want to make your own account there, click on this unique invite link of mine and get started!

 

 

 

Week 27 and 28: August 22nd – September 5th

 

Cards Sent

• Izzet Charm (foil)
• Hearltess Summoning (foil)
• Sliver Queen
• Worldspine Wurm
• Barborygmos Enraged
• Geth, Lord of the Vault
• Rhys the Redeemed
• Ghostfire Blade (foil)
• Shrine of Loyal Legions (foil)
• Diregraf Ghoul (Promo)
• Chandra, Pyromaster
• Caged Sun
• Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
• No Mercy
• Omnath, Locus of Mana
• Goblin Chieftain x2
• Warren Instigator x2
• Door of Destinies x2
• Admonition Angel
• Skithiryx, The Blight Dragon
• Goblin Bushwhacker x2
• Captain Sisay x2
• Apostle’s Blessing x3 (foil)
• Might of Old Krosa x2
• Dack Fayden x2
• Various Tokens
• Planeswalker Checklists

 

During these two weeks I managed to send 35 cards, which wasn’t as good as past weeks, but I managed to get rid of a lot of cards I had sitting in my Puca Trade box and feeling that get lighter is always a good thing. Having too much value spread across too many cards isn’t that good of an idea. Of course when investing you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, but when we’re talking about hundreds of cards that I bought for cheap and I’m only looking to get $3-5 in profit on, it’s not really worth the time and money spent. I made that mistake when I started Puca Trade and have since focused on high value, high profit targets. I need a little more money to buy those cards than I did with the nickel/dime cards, but it saves me a lot of time not having to search through boxes again and again.

10 cards went out in week 27, and 25+ cards went out in week 28. I say 25+ because a lot of those were tokens and checklist cards that I had talked about sending to somebody in a special trade.

 

Initial Costs and Total Shipping

 

Nothing too exciting to talk about during these two weeks. I did get a Sliver Queen for 2180 yen that I turned for double the profit, other cards like Rhys the Redeemed for 500 yen, and Warren Instigators for 580 (before they spiked to $20 last year during the summer), but otherwise I was getting rid of a lot of “dollar stocks” during this period and emptying out my PucaTrades box. The Dack Faydens were also pretty good deals as I got them for 2280 and 3480 respectively and made a special deal with someone for about double their cost. This was months ago though, before they were reprinted in Legacy Masters.

As for the shipping, I sent out 11 packages for 110 yen each, 3 expensive ones with tracking and extra cards for 570, 600, and 860 yen each, one overweight package for 190, and one to South America for 130. The total shipping costs during this period was 3560 which wasn’t that bad I think. It’s an average of 101 yen an envelope for shipping, but I think the profits offset the high cost. Week 27’s average cost 123 yen per card due to registered mail, but week 28’s shipping average was a much more manageable 93 yen an envelope. It seems like during slow weeks shipping always costs a bit more.

 

Profit and How Long it Took to Ship cards

 

As I said above, I got a decent profit of about 1600 points on the Sliver Queen, but also made a good 1000 point profit on a No Mercy and Ob Nixilis the Fallen I picked up for cheap. The Warren Instigators I had picked up for 580 yen each were shipped along with a Goblin Chieftain I had gotten for pennies and I made almost 3000 points in profit on that transaction. The “Dack Deal” I had worked out with somebody actually netted me close to 4200 points in profit, which more than paid for the 860 yen I spent on package for the oversized package.

Week 27’s profit on 10 cards was a mere 4491 points, but 28 netted me a cool 11,747 puca points in profit. It’s nothing like the previous time period’s 25,000 points in profit, but alright in it’s own light. The per card profit in 27 was 449 points on each card, and in 28 it was a more robust 470 points per card. These are both increases from weeks 25 and 26, and they are pushing me in the right direction.

The total profit I made was 16,238 points (or 463 points a card), but with the shipping costing me 3560 yen, or eating into 21% of my profits overall, it’s nothing to be proud of. I was just happy to get rid of the extra cards I had laying around.

For some reason, shipping was also a lot slower during this period than in the past. 9-10 days to ship seemed to be the average during this time, and a package to Canada even took 16 days. A card I sent to Brazil during the same period only took 14 days, and that’s A LOT further away from Japan than Canada is.

 

What I Received

 

 

 

During this period I added a lot of cards to my want list for my Tempest/Exodus/Stronghold cube and got TONS of them sent to me. Between these three traders alone I managed to get about 70% of my want list! (FYI, I still have a few cards left on my want list for my cube if you want to send them!). It was pretty awesome to get all of these cards shipped to me, and also goes to show how great Puca Trade can be, especially if you’re not only on the website to get Legacy/Modern staples (which are really hard to get).

During this time I also picked up a few cheap cards from Magic Origins and Dragons of Tarkir, and even got some Tarmogoyfs! Too bad they were fake though. I ended up sending them to Puca Trade’s offices and got a full refund once they received the cards.

 

Hi Ho Silver, Away!

 

 

I grew up in the 80’s, which means old TV shows like The Lone Ranger, Hogan’s Heroes, and Bonanza were always showing on re-runs on one of the the few channels I had at the time (my family didn’t get cable until high school). If you know any of those shows, or better yet if you’ve SEEN any of those shows, my hats off to you. It was way before my time, but I still found myself watching a few episodes here and there in no small thanks to my mom giving me ample TV time on weekend mornings.

But I digress, that’s not why I’m here today. Today I’m here to talk about upgrading to Silver. I finally bit the bullet during Puca Trade’s Future Site promotion and signed up for a year of Silver. I’m about a week in and it’s already showing it’s benefits.

The main reason for upgrading was that my account was stagnating. I had a good variety of cards on my want list from various formats (including standard), but people simply weren’t sending the cards. One of these reasons is because of the recent increase in Silver and Gold members. As a Silver or Gold member, you can put “bounties”, or point bonuses, on cards that you want in order to entice members to send you cards. What you want to give as a point bonus is up to you, but the market average seems to be a 5% bonus, or 5 points on each 100 a card is worth. I’ve seen traders also offer a straight up point value bonus of 100+ points if a want is fulfilled.

During the early days of Puca Trade there wasn’t as much competition as there is now and people actually had a chance at getting good Modern/EDH/Legacy cards. Sadly those days are gone, and upgrading is a necessary evil if you want to be competitive in trading.

Aside from the bounty system people are using, there are a number of other benefits to being a Silver/Gold member:

• Give Points – You can give bounties with this function, but you can also use this ability to negotiate the value of a card you have that’s in less than NM condition in order to entice your trading partner to take it.
• Added Visibility – Silver and Gold Members are moved to the top of the trading lists so that people who have cards and want to trade that card will see those people first. I believe that people with Silver/Gold also seem more trustworthy than regular members which gives them a one up when people are deciding whether or not to send a card.
• Get Foils – You’re probably not going to get those Expedition Lands or the foils of format staples, but it’s a great way to foil out your Pauper, Cube, and EDH decks if you’re building them. The less popular they are, the easier they are to get a hold of.

Of course there are a number of other benefits to getting Silver, and you can check them out on Puca Trade’s upgrade page, but for me these are the best reasons for getting Silver. You get an instant 1500 points back, which makes it feel like Silver actually costs $30, and all of your referrals net you 200 points instead of 100 as well.

If you’re sitting uncomfortably on a large number of puca points and looking for ways to reduce them to a more manageable level, I recommend considering Silver. I’m currently sitting at 35,000 points, but there really aren’t a lot of cards that I care about getting anymore. I got my set of Tarmogoyfs, put together my EDH deck and Cube, and even a bunch of Pauper decks. What I’ll be focusing on for the immediate future is standard, and for that I doubt I need more than 15,000 points at any one time to pick up playsets of cards I want to use. I think Silver will help me to achieve this goal, and I would like you to consider it as well.

If you have any other questions or comments about today’s article please feel free to leave them down below! If you enjoyed this article and are convinced to start a Puca trade account, feel free to thank me by using this link to give me a referral bonus! If you are already a member (and have a silver or gold account) and want to show your appreciation, I’m always willing to accept gifts of points ^_^. Just check out my profile and click the “SEND POINTS” button. Thanks again for reading and see you back here in a few weeks for my next update!