Not sure about all the ebay haterade with the magical chase. Not sure 'buy low, sell high' is greedy, considering no one's will was imposed upon and no one was taken advantage of. Here's a little story I've told before...
I was 14 years old and bought a pack upper deck baseball cards from the local grocery store. I opened the pack and inside was an autographed Gaylord Perry special edition baseball card. This was well before Al Gore had invented the internet so I had to go to the nerd kid's house up the streeet to look up this cards "VALUE" in a monopolistic Beckett price guide. It wasn't listed in the latest months issue. Upon the chance encounter of this autographed baseball card, my father decided it was time to take his well rounded son and introduce him to the nerdery known as a "baseball card show." It was there I learned that this card was worth $100 and was part of a set of 5 autographed legend cards. So, my father told me to wait and hold onto the card for one more week. I saw dollar signs everywhere I looked, but my dad convinced me to hold onto the card. How he did that, I'm still not sure.
So the next weekend we went to the one baseball card store in town, Gothic Coins and cards. The two chain smoking dudes who rented a small glass enclosed store in an otherwise classy office tower we're your two stereotypical card store owners. As we walked in the cramped store, I noticed the other four autographed legends cards in the glass case. They were missing the gaylord perry I held in my hand. Accompanied by my father, oddly enough he's an investment banker with a Masters in Econ, we began to ask about the cards in the glass case. I told the creepy greasy men that I had a gaylord perry was was interested in selling it for $200. At that moment, every law you ever learn about ECON was in effect. No coaching from my father on this one. I knew at 14 years old the greasy dudes needed my card to complete the set, and it at least doubled it's value instantly. The thought that they might never see this card again just added value to it. If they didn't have the other four cards, I probably would have gotten $40 bucks for it. Was I greedy, no. I knew my card was worth about as much as it was ever going to be worth So, we negotiated. I got $185 and 36 packs of upperdeck baseball cards for my gaylord perry card. The next stop after that was to Toys R Us where I bought a Turbo Grafx-16 and Blazing Lazers. The rest folks, is how you say, HISTORY.
The moral of this story is knowing the market and your buyer. Stocks, Bonds, Stadium Events, Magical Chases, or Beanie Babies. Know the market and the right time to sell. Three years ago MC was what, $200. Now it's $2000. Don't be mad some dude made $600 on a magical chase. Be mad that some lady's $6000 Nintendo has spiked a furvor for "rare" games that were produced in limited quantities. Will the price of Magical Chase come down, I don't think so, but once the market for "rare" games has died, the price won't move much.
