Miniature Market Buy Back System for Magic: The Gathering

Miniature Market is an online and retail gaming store located in St. Louis, Missouri. They sell board games, trading card games, tabletop miniatures, and other gaming-related products. A robust buy back system is available for customers to sell Magic: The Gathering singles and sealed product. Customers can also sell miniatures for Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons. In addition to offering cash for buy back lists, Miniature Market offers a 30% trade bonus for store credit. ​

Buy Back System Overview
The buy back system on Miniature Market is easy to use. Customers can filter by MTG set, rarity, and foiling. There are options to sort by alphabetical order and price. Foil cards are highlighted to show differentiation between card editions. Prices are shown for Near Mint condition. Played condition is accepted at 75% of the Near Mint price. A robust FAQ is available to help answer questions about the buy back system and process.  ​ 

Buy Back System

Processing and Payment
Miniature Market reviews all buy back lists before approval. They advise customers not to send in any items until an approval email is sent. The FAQ states that this can take 24 hours during weekdays or longer over weekends. This not a positive customer experience since card quantities and prices quoted at submission is not guaranteed. The delay for approving buy back lists adds to the wait time for receiving payment.

The processing time for received orders is three to four business days, not counting weekends. Orders received on a Friday may have extended processing time. Customers should understand that the entire process can take around two weeks. 

Buy Back Experience
I submitted a buy back list to Miniature Market featuring multiple Commander format cards. The buy back list was approved within 24 hours. I compared the cash prices of cards between the Miniature Market and Card Kingdom. Prices were lower on Miniature Market for cards such as Karakas and Cathars' Crusade. However, some cards I submitted had substantially higher cash prices on Miniature Market. Tana, the Bloodsower was $6.50 on Miniature Market and $2.50 on Card Kingdom. Sram, Senior Edificer was $3.40 on Miniature Market and $1.80 on Card Kingdom. Sen Triplets from Mystery Boosters was $13.25 on Miniature Market and $8.00 on Card Kingdom. The additional cash offer of $10.85 made it worthwhile to split the buylist between two vendors. While a few cards were graded down to played condition, I was pleased with the amount of cash received. Unfortunately, Miniature Market labeled the PayPal transaction as goods and services. This caused me to pay at 3.4% transaction fee. I have never had an online vendor label a buy back or buylist payment as goods and services. Miniature Market will mail a check for payment, but it is not as fast as PayPal. The overall process between shipping and receiving payment was less than two weeks.

Buy Back Card List

Even with the PayPal transaction fee, I believe Miniature Market is a suitable buylist alternative to Card Kingdom. I found the system fast and easy to search for card prices. The highlighting of foil cards helped me avoid selecting the wrong edition. The overall process of selling cards to Miniature Market was smooth. However, Miniature Market's response time to questions and comments is slow. Customers should not expect the same level of customer service offered by Card Kingdom. While Miniature Market may not always offer the highest buy back pricing or level of service, it is a worthwhile consideration.

*This article is not sponsored or affiliated with Miniature Market.*