Is there a person that maintains the site? Are they aware of the issue? I feel slightly handicapped because the guide is down. Sure, cross referencing on ebay and SCG for a price here and there isn't much work but updating inventories takes like 200 times as long. I hope nobody takes this post the wrong way. I am very appreciative of the price guide, the mods that volunteer their time, and this whole community. But right now, what is the issue and is there anything we can do?

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Originally posted by lickaneye:

Is there a person that maintains the site?

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Yes, although they're quite busy and aren't necessarily involved in Magic any more. Nobody knows how often Leshrac and inca911 check up on MOTL.

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Are they aware of the issue?

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It's more than likely that yes, they are aware of the issue. After all, there's a topic in the suggestion forum (which does get checked), and I'm sure the support email account has been getting a few emails.

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I feel slightly handicapped because the guide is down. Sure, cross referencing on ebay and SCG for a price here and there isn't much work but updating inventories takes like 200 times as long. I hope nobody takes this post the wrong way. I am very appreciative of the price guide, the mods that volunteer their time, and this whole community.

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Yeah, I hear you. FWIW, the Apathy House Trade Evaluator's values are basically commensurate with MOTL's values, so it's a decent approximation of the price guide (although you'll have to check ebay for hot stuff).

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But right now, what is the issue and is there anything we can do?

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Not really, just sit tight and perhaps donate to MOTL one day. That's pretty much all we can do.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

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Originally posted by lickaneye:
I feel slightly handicapped because the guide is down. Sure, cross referencing on ebay and SCG for a price here and there isn't much work but updating inventories takes like 200 times as long. I hope nobody takes this post the wrong way. I am very appreciative of the price guide, the mods that volunteer their time, and this whole community. But right now, what is the issue and is there anything we can do?

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Agreed. I have about $6-$10k worth of stuff to price and post from a few friends' collections, but it'll take way too long to use eBay to price every card. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know when this will get fixed. I posted this issue in the Suggestions forum and it hasn't really gotten any attention...

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Originally posted by coinmagic45:
Agreed. I have about $6-$10k worth of stuff to price and post from a few friends' collections, but it'll take way too long to use eBay to price every card. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know when this will get fixed. I posted this issue in the Suggestions forum and it hasn't really gotten any attention...

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if you want to use microsoft excel and web queries, you can get data from tcgplayer pretty easily, and vlookup to price everything on a list (if it's already sorted by set).

EDIT: Incase this will help anyone else, i figured i'd post up the instructions that i sent a few people;

At magic.tcgplayer.com, each set has price guides. Start by clicking Cards -> View All Sets. Click the set you want and let it load (for example, M12, then click "M12 Printable Price Guide" at the top of the page to load the printable version. You must use the printable price guide. Here's the M12 one: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/price_guide.asp?setname=Magic 2012 (M12)

Using the link, in Excel, go to the Data Tab, and click 'From Web'

Paste the link and hit 'Go'. It will load with tables, each indicated with tabs. You only want the one table with the card data in it.

Import it (you might want to rename the table depending on what set it is by hitting Properties and renaming it at the top. In this case, I'd name it M12)

You'll need to do this for each set; you can even just put them right under each other. It's a little time consuming, but has the benefit of automatically updating whenever you want by Refreshing the data, so you only need to do it once. It's also a fairly accurate price guide for my taste.

Once you've imported all the price guides you'll need, make a new table with a list of your haves. You'll need to separate the name of the cards from the quantity you have. So, in this case, you can't have a cell that says "2 Acidic Slime". You need to have just "Acidic Slime" by itself.

So lets say this is your first line (starting at Cell A1):

2 | Acidic Slime |

In the third cell of your haves list (Cell C1 in this case, you'd put the VLOOKUP function.

code:

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=VLOOKUP(" "&B1,Sheet1!M12_,6)

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B1 is the cell on your haves list that you have the name of the card in (In this case, 'Acidic Slime' is in B1. The " "& at the beginning is because, for some reason, price guides seem to import with a space at the front of the name of the cards. So, if we look for "Acidic Slime", we won't find it. We need to look for " Acidic Slime", with a space at the beginning. This part of the code fixes that.

Sheet1 is the name of the sheet where you've put your price guides. I'd rename it for simplicity, but leaving it Sheet1 is fine.

M12_ is the name of the priceguide. Usually it imports with a '_' at the end for some reason. If you've imported multiple price guides, you need to change this only when you move to a new set. If you just drag the formula down to every cell in your haves list, you'll probably notice where it isn't working anymore (for example, because 'Acorn Harvest' isn't in M12, it will show up as #N/A)

6 is the number of the column that has the price (depending on what you prefer - high, medium, or low). So you need to count which column has the proper price in it. I think it usually imports with 6 as high, 7 as medium, and 8 as low. Lows are skewed by condition, and highs are skewed by foils. Medium is more reliable but might be skewed for cards with high variability.

For foils, this method isn't very reliable (but you can, for example, use the high price if you assume the high is a foil)
Alternatively, Blackborder.com has foil price guides you can use. I don't know how well updated they are. You must slightly alter your vlookup for blackborder though, to look like this:

code:

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=VLOOKUP(B1,Sheet1!M12F_,2,FALSE)

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Originally posted by dfitzg88:
GL!

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If anyone want the code feel free to Email or PM me !

Starting in 2010, I think it started taking in the price of "BIN auctions with no buyers", basically BIN auctions usually from shops that were priced on the high end, attracting no buyers. That skewed prices towards the high side.

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Originally posted by MTDetermine:
In 2007-2009, the price guide was perfectly fine.

Starting in 2010, I think it started taking in the price of "BIN auctions with no buyers", basically BIN auctions usually from shops that were priced on the high end, attracting no buyers. That skewed prices towards the high side.

Recently, some of the prices appear to be a bit low. If you think something is priced too low, just check out ebay completed auctions and use the mid-range prices. You should do fine by that measure.

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Could be. I think that the high prices being fetched by cards with altered art are also skewing it a tad, unless it somehow filters those out.

__________________
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RIP Ari

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Originally posted by MasterWolf:
Is Lesh willing to sell?

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That would be something to explore. I bet there would be buyers.

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