TCGLow, TCG Market, and TCG Mid – What do these mean and who uses them?
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To get the most out of buying and selling MTG, you’re going to want to have a good handle on the differences between TCGLow, TCG Market, and TCG Mid. These are prices that can be found on the online trading card behemoth TCGPlayer.com and their mobile app.
The first time I received an offer for 65% of TCGLow on some MTG cards I was selling, I nodded my noob head and took the offer. I tried to emulate this early on and offered someone 65% of Market for a stack of foils. This turned out to be closer to 80% of TCGLow, which made it extremely hard to make any sort of profit. It took some time for me to realize the price points can be vastly different.
TCG Market Price: TCGPlayer.com says this of their Market Price: “TCGplayer Market Price shows you the value of a collectible based upon actual recent sales, drawing from thousands of transactions daily across thousands of individual sellers on our platform.
Market Price shows you the current ‘true value' of each item available on TCGplayer.com. We take the prices at which a collectible has been selling, average across multiple recent transactions, and use that information to show you the most reliable market value of that product.”
Further, the article states, “instead of relying on currently listed prices, Market Price uses the value at which a product has recently been selling as a key data point in calculating that collectible's worth. This makes Market Price a more accurate representation of a product's actual value.”
TCG Market is popular to use among sellers on TCGPlayer, local game stores (LGSs), streaming giants like WhatNot and TikiTok, commerce platforms like Ebay, and other large online platforms. If the seller is going to encounter the fees of running a shop or paying the 10-15% that commerce platforms charge, one can expect to buy and sell closer to Market price. For the entrepreneur or casual player selling on Facebook, you’ll be sitting on your cards for a very long time if you expect to sell at Market.
I’ve been selling on Facebook for years, and TCGLow reigns supreme for those buying/selling on Marketplace and especially the wonderful world of MTG buy/sell groups (article on these to come).
TCGLow: Otherwise known as TCG Marketplace Low, this price point is very popular among buyers and sellers who aren’t working in the mainstream. If you’re wanting to jump into the world of selling cards, this will be the price point you buy and sell at. If you are looking for good deals, you’ll likely be able to find a seller who is selling at 10% below TCGLow. The popular “10% off TCGLow” or “90% of TCGLow” is a standard rate for buying and selling on Facebook.
TCGLow represents the lowest priced version of a card at any given moment. Someone could go on TCGPlayer and buy at least one copy of said card at this TCGLow price. Now, how does one sell their cards quickly? Well, they beat the competition. This is why there is a humming “underground” community of buy/sell groups that sell below TCGLow.
While there are many caveats and imperfections with TCGLow, it is fact that you will encounter this price point, especially if you are selling your collection on any platform where potential buyers can communicate and make offers. For the first-time seller or seller who is moving into the Facebook buy/sell space, selling this low can feel like they are getting ripped off. Similarly, those who hunt for deals on these groups will feel the inflation right away when they go to purchase from their LGS or large card vendor.
It should also be noted that TCGLow is different from the “Low Sale Price” or past sales data that one can see on TCGPlayer.com. The Low sale price is a data point from an actual sale that was completed, whereas TCGLow is the cheapest available copy at a moment in time.
TCGMid and Listed Median: If someone is trying to sell cards to you at TCGMid or Listed Median, please, please, please, run away! There are just too many others out there selling the very same at TCGLow or TCG Market. TCG Mid uses the median average of all listed items. It doesn’t factor in recent sales data like TCG Market and therefore shouldn’t be used to price cards for buying and selling.
Let’s use the popular Revised dual land Bayou as a case example. At the time of writing this the TCGMarket for a lightly played (LP) is $343.49. The TCGLow is very close to this, at $331.83 plus shipping. However, the TCGMid in the TCGPlayer phone app is $426.90 and the Listed Median on the website is $464.84. While the price points of TCGMid and the Listed Median are different, they are both metrics that showcase an average price of all listings. They use different averaging formulas to generate their price points, but both will almost always be substantially higher than Market or Low. There are too many inflated, highly priced copies of cards for this metric to ever be the best for buying and selling. In fact, it is the worst for buying and selling. TCGPlayers affirms this.
So, what is TCGMid/Listed Median good for? The only use I have found for this metric is to satiate my personal love for data and statistics, to get a good chuckle, or when placing cards up for razz. Don’t know what a razz is? Well, that’s a secret that you can learn more about by reading my soon-to-come article.
Sources:
https://help.tcgplayer.com/hc/en-us/articles/213588017-TCGplayer-Market-Price