General card valuation question

[raulus]

I’ll mostly agree with Jim here.

I do think that if you want a card badly enough, then your only choice is to pay what the market demands.

But in a case where you’re not nearly so motivated, then you have every right to pass if you’re not willing to pay the going rate. Along those lines, particularly for rare stuff that almost never trades, sometimes you have to be willing to lose out on stuff to learn what the market really is. Otherwise, you end up buying everything and always wondering if you’re just setting the market yourself, with no one else being willing to pay anywhere close to that amount.