Update in this that’s related. It may need a new thread, if so, let me know.
I ordered a card today from eBay user magicprincess. They have 11k+ in ratings, and I’d never bought from them before. Yet, when my credit card was charged, it was charged to toad and troll. Has toad and troll stealthily changed their name? Has anyone else here had this experience? I’m @ing@zorloth because he said he got some cards from them.
Interestingly, I haven’t had this experience for Troll and Toad but I’ve had it with Collector’s Cache. The eBay user ‘infiniteprodux’ is actually Collector’s Cache, but you wouldn’t notice this until you order from them and see the payment info. They also send using Collector’s Cache as the return address. And Collector’s Cache still uses their normal eBay account, too.
I’m looking at ‘magicprincess’ and it looks like they only list heavily played/damaged cards. My guess is that this is Troll and Toad’s account for selling cards that are too damaged to sell on their website. I don’t believe Troll and Toad sells heavily played/damaged cards on their website (or at least they dont label them as such lol) so this could make sense. The seller is also located in the same place as Troll and Toad (Corbin, KY). Their main eBay account just lists their website’s stock, so this one appears to serve a different purpose.
Another fun question is whether Troll and Toad hold the same condition standards when buying as they do when selling. Buy some “near mint” mid-end cards off them and then sell the same cards back to them at their near mint buylist prices. See if they bitch. Obviously not worth the money and effort, but a neat lil thought experiment nonetheless.
They just processed a buylist of mine about a week ago. Mostly mint EX Series non-holos but also tons of reverse holos, most of which were not what I’d personally consider NM. They were all PSA 7-8 range; no creases or dents or anything, but some minor edge-whitening (like PSA ~8 amount) and light holo scratching. The quote was for ~$2900 in credit when I submitted it. I ended up getting ~$2820, which I was pretty happy about. More or less everything I sent them was as nice or better than what they consider NM. I personally don’t feel like I should’ve had any amount subtracted, but I was still happy about it since I didn’t know what to expect having never buylisted to them before.
The kind of annoying thing is that they don’t tell you which cards they dinged on condition. This is in contrast with Card Kingdom and CoolStuffInc, both of whom I’ve buylisted to countless times. I like knowing what was dinged for transparency’s sake. But both of those stores are also stricter on condition (both as buyers and sellers) than Troll and Toad. My guess is that Troll and Toad would buy most of what they send out as NM at NM buylist prices.
I’m actually curious how they deduct for condition now that I’m thinking about it. There’s nothing about that in the FAQ. If I sent them a bunch of MP/HP cards, would they just flat-out reject them? Or would they just accept them at a giant discount? I wish they actually outlined how they deal with cards that are buylisted to them that don’t meet their standard of NM.
That’s actually not bad at all; maybe I should be less cynical. TBH, the last time I told to Troll was at Nationals 2010 or something when I gave them a bunch of WOTC bulk (fuck me right) and I’m pretty sure they just paid me whatever the NM rate was without even bothering to go through it. I’m sure they’re more particular about specific buylist items, but based on your experience it sounds like they aren’t too picky, and at the very least won’t try to pull one over on you.
Yeah, I’ve read a ton of bad things about their buylist online (people alleging they steal cards, don’t pay, etc.), which is why I held off for so long on buylisting to them. But my experience was pretty smooth. In fact, they didn’t even notify me that they had finished processing my order. I only noticed when I was buying some cards from them a few days ago and saw the web credit option in checkout lol. Another nice thing about it: they still allow you to use discount codes when using credit. TCAGaming has a 5% off discount code that’s been active for a few weeks or so and I’ve used it 10+ times at this point. I didn’t expect it to work when paying with credit, but it does. Another nice thing is that they don’t charge sales tax.
Definitely not a perfect company by any stretch of the imagination. But they honestly aren’t that bad. There are several stores I much prefer over T&T, but none of them have remotely as good inventory. Those stores actually send you NM cards when you order NM cards, but at least T&T does like a third of the time lol.
Weirdly enough, the fact that they have a store under a different name on eBay (magicprincess) selling cards that are almost all in played condition shows that they can in fact assign semi accurate grades. So why can’t they do it with their main store…
I made a video about PSA case cracking where I also
clean a card but it’s not explicitly on card cleaning. In summary - get a microfiber cloth and use a bit of water. You want the microfiber cloth to hold the water not to transfer it to the card. So not too wet. Be very gentle and remove any moisture that transfers to the card immediately. Practice on modern or even vintage bulk. Kind of takes practice
If you dont check the box where they tell you it’ll be processed faster they will on bigger value items. I never click the box and I always get an email with what is being dinged down on my buylist.
Oh ok, I guess I checked that box then lol. How much do they subtract typically? And do they reject cards below a certain condition threshold in your experience?
Typically I dont get subtracted unless I put higher value cards in. They are much stricter with those and it really depends on the cards. Yeah I’ve had cards rejected and they send it back to you at no cost. The ironic part is that because it’s T&T i sent some of those back in another order and they were accepted as NM.
I’ve had two orders recently come back with almost half the cards in worse than NM condition, although each order was for a dozen or so cards so a pretty small sample size. There were a couple that were in great condition that might grade as a 9 or 10. I’ll be sure to follow up in 18 months when my PSA submission is returned to me.
Any dirt and/or smudges should clean off of the card. That’s basically it! Sometimes you’ll get unlucky and what looks like dirt is actually a print mark or a chip in a reverse holo. But usually you can tell if something is on the surface by tilting the card in the light. Glasses cleaning cloth should be ok. Just experiment with a few different ones to see what works best. Good luck.
. But yeah, they definitely could do better lol.