Shipping – Strictly Average – MTG

Best Practices: Artist Signed Cards (Through the Mail)

Loren Toporek — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 18:58:59 +0000

If you’ve seen me around the PucaTrade Discord server, or our very own Patron-exclusive server under the moniker DankMeme, it will quickly become clear that I am a huge collector of artist proofs, artist-signed cards, and artist-altered cards. The art of Magic is what originally got me into the game, my first card being the alternate art foil Thorn Elemental that was in the 7th Edition starter computer game. This article explains how to get your cards signed through the mail, and proper etiquette when working with the artists.

If you don’t have a GP near you, and traveling would be too far, mailing your cards directly to the artist is a great way to have your cards signed. The first thing to note when getting your cards signed through the mail is that not all artists do it. This is typically the case when artists have several projects they are working on, and cannot devote the time to signing cards. It’s not that they don’t appreciate their fans, it’s just they feasibly can’t sign all of the cards in a timely manner. There are also some artists that flat-out do not respond to signature requests, likely because they are too busy and do not want to say no. It is not personal.

To contact an artist and request them to sign their cards is simple. Look up the artist and find their website. On the artist’s website, there is typically a section entitled “Send Magic Cards.” If an artist does not have this on their page, go to their contact info and find their email. In your email, let them know you’d like cards signed, ask how much they charge, and let them know how many cards you have; some have a limit and some do not. Do not request any special alterations or additions from the artist. It is too difficult for them to manage these through the mail.

A typical signature charge is $1-2 per card. If there is no charge, please always tip. These artists take the time out of their day to sign cards, and a tip shows them that what they do is appreciated. Including a thank-you note adds a personal touch to the envelope; just like the tip, your note will be much appreciated.

The other caveat to sending cards through the mail is not only do you have to pay shipping to the artist, but shipping back as well. Artists will not pay to have your cards shipped back to you, and if you send them cards without a return envelope they will likely remain somewhere within the aether. The complete package I send to artists consists of the following:

8.5×11 manilla envelope with tracked shipping to artist
10-20 cards in a single, oversized Toploader
Handwritten thank you note
Cash tip (if I did not pay or tip through PayPal)
4×6 manilla envelope with tracked shipping from artist to me

Tracking is imperative when sending cards, especially if they are expensive. The artist is not responsible for your cards if they never reach them. The only damage the artist is responsible for is damage done to the card during the actual signing process itself. If a pen explodes on your card, the artists will almost always work with you on an amicable solution. Of course, you can always consider it an alter. Tracking for getting your cards back also helps gauge the turnaround time for that specific artist. I’ve had artists send back cards the same day they receive them, and I’ve also had artists send back three months after delivery. If you send your cards out on Monday, do not expect them back by FNM. If you’re hesitant about sending cards because of the turnaround time, ask the artist. They will be upfront if they won’t get to them for a while. Don’t send cards and then email the artist two days after they’ve been delivered. This will only annoy the artist.

The more complicated it is for the artist to unpack your cards, the less likely they are to sign again, for you and perhaps anyone. Use minimal tape when packing. Do not have individual cards in individual sleeves and top loaders. This creates a maddening experience for the artist. A single oversized toploader makes it easy for the artist to open the package and sign the cards. Put 4-6 cards in penny sleeves an into the toploader. Expensive cards can be individually sleeved and put within the toploader.

All of these points are generalities. Each artist is different and has their own set of expectations and guidelines when receiving cards to get signed. My method is a boilerplate structure I use for each artist. Other methods may work for you. But, I have sent out 200+ cards through the mail using this method and have had no issues.

Please comment if you have any tips, tricks, cheat codes, etc about getting cards signed. I’d also love to hear if you have an experience with an artist you’d like to share.

Loren Toporek

While not a mix of sugar, spice, and everything nice, Loren wishes to share his love of Magic with everyone. Loren plays Modern (not well) and EDH (not well). He lives in northern Arizona with his girlfriend and vault of artist-signed cards.

Shipping International to Canada with Tracking

MTG Phil — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 02:51:14 +0000

As a supporter of our site, Phil has already made a splash with his generosity and willingness to help others. In a conversation earlier this week, I asked him to throw this guide together to assist those who are wanting to ship cards over the border to Canada with Tracking. I thought it was a great follow up to an older piece I did, Pucaing Internationally from the US.

-Strict

Shipping bubble mailers international to Canada WITH tracking, withOUT getting overcharged!

So the subject of international shipping has come up, with a few mentioning they can’t ship with tracking internationally for less than $15 US. I’m here to show you how to quickly and easily change that.

To begin, you must have a Paypal account. If you don’t have one, GET ONE.

Next, go here:

This will take you to the Paypal login page. Log in and you should see a popup like this:

This is the easiest place to input your shipping info, starting with the country. Once you fill that out, it should take you to this page:

Notice the service type and package type chosen. These are the reasons why:

According to the USPS description, a large envelope being sent First-Class Internationally may be up to 11.5 inches long, 6.125 inches high, and UP TO ¼ INCH THICK. This covers the majority of any bubble mailer you may send as long as it’s not a large number of cards being sent. And as you can see, the shipping (tracking IS included!) comes to a whopping $2.71 to send to Canada. Fill out your customs slip (make sure the weights match, if you say your package weighs 3oz, you need to say you have 3oz of cards in there. It won’t accept partial ounces as a weight on the individual cards, however. You need to say there is 1 card that weighs 3oz for it to accept, just easier that way.) and complete the payment. You are now able to print your label, and drop it off at the post office in the morning!

-MTG_Phil

Phil is an avid collector of Storm Trooper Winter Hats, has a crush on Smurfette, and is a HUGE fan of Deadpool. His favorite MTG tribal is humans, and Thalia’s Lt is by far one of the most underrated cards in all of MTG. Also, this is what happens when you do not provide the editorial team with an actual Bio yourself.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE STRICTLY AVERAGE MOVEMENT OR IF YOU WANT TO GET IN ON NEXT MONTHS DRAWING, FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT OUR PATREON

MTG Phil

Strictly Short – Shipping Larger Items

Jeremy Beardsley — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 13:42:18 +0000

Ever since sealed product was added to PucaTrade, I’ve been receiving many questions regarding how to ship larger, and weirdly shaped packages. I’ve been selling odd sized boxes and sealed product on eBay for a while now and have found some economical shipping methods. These can be leveraged for shipping anything but I will only cover the most commonly sent Magic Product.

Shipping Labels

The first and most important piece of advice I can give is to use PayPal to ship. By using PayPal you’re able to save money on the cost of shipping, obtain your tracking number immediately, file customs paperwork, and print your own shipping label.

Some people I’ve spoken to have reported that they just show up to their local Post Office with what they want to ship and ask for help. This tends to yield the worst horror stories. One user told me he ended up paying $15 to ship a Commander Deck. I only recommend this option if you’re short on time and don’t have a chance to prepare your package. I recently sent a bulk box the size of an unopened commander box for $5.75.

In order to leverage PayPal shipping to the fullest value, I recommend printing your own labels. I get my labels for free from UPS. I use the 4-per sheet labels for padded envelopes and 2-per sheet labels for larger packages. I did have to obtain some templates online for my version of Word and do some tweaks to them to fit the UPS labels but I found this to be well worth my time to spend in order to get free labels. I’m not covering this in more depth because everyone’s configuration may be different based on printer, software and Operating System.

I create and print new labels from PayPal by going to http://www.paypal.com/shipnow. I choose my desired shipping method and then generate the label I need. In a bit, I’ll cover the shipping types that I use. After filling out the Ship to Address and selecting the shipping method, I calculate Shipping Cost and then Confirm and Pay. My account is charged and label generated. At the prompt to Print, I use the Windows Snipping Tool to snip out just the label from the print preview window so the added junk at the bottom half is discarded. The rest of label printing is easy, as I just copy and paste the snipped label into my Word template and reorient the image accordingly.

Small Sealed Product

If I’m shipping small sealed product, a high-value card or a stack of cards too thick for an envelope, I use small 4×7 padded envelopes that can be bought for as little as $.11 each. These envelopes can fit a handful of booster packs also. I use the First Class Mail Parcel Service option with the Package type of Package/Thick Envelope selected. This makes the cost $2.60 for mostly all padded envelopes I send. I try to accurately list the package weight and have found that I usually always stay at that rate.

Larger Sealed Product

For my larger items (Booster Boxes, Commander Decks, and broken down Fat Packs) I order Priority Mail Padded Flat Rate Envelopes for free from USPS. Here is the link for all of their free shipping materials (in case you need to order some other items too). The important thing to remember about these envelopes is that you can shape and tape them to fit your item, but you cannot cut them. When placing a box inside one of these padded envelopes I tape down the corners of the envelope (almost like wrapping a Christmas Gift) so that the envelope fits tight around the booster box. I try to get as much as the air out from between the envelope and the product as possible as I do not want the product to move around.

Sealed Fat Packs are very very tricky to fit into these. I know of one user who successfully fit one in these envelopes. I try to avoid doing this for Fat Packs that the recipient intends on keeping sealed. I have found that when moving newer product I can convince the buyer to let me open just the external packaging and remove the cardboard dividers that make the Fat Packs so tall. I leave the internal packs, land packs and dice sealed in the Fat Pack, and place it into the large padded envelope. If breaking down the Fat Packs will not be an option, I’ll move to a Flat Rate Box and ship it that way. Even though boxes can also be obtained for free, I try to avoid these, because they’re not economical -unless you are fitting multiple boxes into one flat rate box. I wont’t go into deeper detail on this method because it’s pretty situational, and I’d suggest getting the free boxes and seeing what shipping option on PayPal is the most economical for that particular situation.

I hope you have learned something from my shipping methods. If you have something to share, please leave a comment at the bottom.

And as always Drive a Tranquil Bargain Friends.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE STRICTLY AVERAGE MOVEMENT, FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT OUR PATREON

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

Strictly Short–Team bags, Use Them!

Jeremy Beardsley — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 02:33:08 +0000

Debating over shipping methods with other traders is the logical equivalent of debating PCs verses Macs, iPhones verses Androids, or Slytherin verses Gryffindor. It seems everyone is as passionate about their personal shipping methods as they are about these other topics. I find that there are many positive points within each argument. No method is the correct method. Instead of preaching my preferences as correct, I’ll spend some time sharing the methods that have worked for me with the hope that you’ll find what’s best for you.

A little while back I covered International shipping from the US to Canada, and the costs associated with that. This short will revolve around an interesting product that I was turned onto called team bags. These awesome inventions got their name from original sport card purpose, holding team sets of cards. You’ve seen these before if you’ve received orders from any of the major online card retailers. They can be purchased from Amazon for roughly $3 per 100.

These bags can be used to protect your cards more than a top loader alone can, and they allow you to cleanly pack a stack of cards with one top loader. When shipping more than 2 or 3 cards, the weight of your envelope can be an issue and make shipping very costly if you attempt to load up multiple top loaders into an envelope. Thickness of your envelope is also a major concern when shipping many cards. My shipments usually only include 1 top loader, a stack of unsleeved cards, and a team bag.

When shipping a large number of envelopes out accidents are bound to happen. I personally feel that it is my duty as the sender to ensure the cards get to the receiver and have found that the protection of the team bags is worth the effort and cost. I recently a received a message from a receiver in Canada who’s envelope was mangled in the mail, but the team bag and the cards were intact. The receiver praised my shipping methods and attributed his cards arriving safely to the use of team bags.

Once I started using team bags, I found myself increasing the number of cards I was willing to send to users. I actually find it easier to ship using them. Gone are the days of jamming cards into top loaders. I’ve received some amazing feedback from others who I’ve informed about them and am curious to hear about your experience with them. or if you might have other methods for shipping larger stacks.

That’s all for now, and remember… Drive a Tranquil Bargain Friends.

Jeremy Beardsley

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

Strictly Short–Pucaing Internationally from the US

Jeremy Beardsley — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 17:40:02 +0000

Fear of the unknown holds us back from trying new and rewarding things in all aspects of our life. Until recently, I had never sent an overseas package on Puca Trade. I didn’t know what I was missing. Once I opened myself up to the idea, cards that were not readily available to me suddenly became available. I’m currently awaiting a playset of WPN Promo Path to Exiles, in Italian. (Whoo!)

Today I am hoping to remove some of the mysticism around sending cards overseas and hopefully open a new world of recipients and senders to you.

Receiving

The is only reason to block other countries from sending you cards, is if you are on a deadline for your cards. (Honestly though, If you are on a deadline and need cards fast, why use Puca to begin with?) PucaShield and sender responsibility covers you from anything that can go wrong.

Sending

This is where things get complicated. As far as I know there is no easily accessible shipping guide for sending cards from the US to other countries. The most important question is cost. It costs $1.15 to send a 1oz envelope to all international countries, Canada is an exception. The Canadian Postal Service and the US Postal Service have an arrangement, which allows you to send up to a 2oz envelope to our Canadian Friends. This $1.15 cost can be paid with any amount of postage you have to reach that amount, or you can purchase a single International Forever Stamp for the same cost from the Post Office. It’s also a good idea to keep a supply of $.21 ‘extra ounce’ stamps on hand, and add them to any package that is over 1oz. I use a food scale to ensure that I’m within the weight limits. With Pucashield, there is no need for additional insurance.

Some other tips for sending cards overseas:

Write Air Mail on the envelopes, this helps the letters get sorted faster.
Use Greeting Cards to smooth out the thicker envelopes, as it will help the envelope not get torn when being processed.
Secure the envelope as tightly as possible, using tape to hold down all parts of envelope that could get open/torn. Remember International shipments touch many different hands, so I try to secure them as much as possible.
Always pay the extra $.21 if you are unsure. Its safer to pay .$21 then to pay to reship.

There’s so much more to cover regarding proper packaging and postage, and I’ll be going deeper on this in a future post. For now I wanted to touch on something that I get asked daily. If you have tips for international shipping / receiving please leave them in the comments.

Drive a Tranquil Bargain Friends.

Jeremy Beardsley

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com