I sort cards for a living selling budget commander decks on eBay. I'm actually the #1 seller in the world there for Commander decks. This was a good video. It's hard to keep up with all the prices of 55 thousand different cards with over 150 thousand variations of art / foil or not. I hope it lasts for long enough to pay for itself.
i_build_custom_commander_decks_just_ask is my username. You can also just search for Tribal Commander Deck and click auction and mine are the ones with bids on them that start at 20.24@@metallicflare1
Yeah, I wish you lived in boise I'd totally go to your store and talk magic. I sort by stacks of junk, usable, and then a stack on each side for artifacts or nonbasic lands, then farther away from me I sort into cards that might eventually or already be worth money and are NM into 5 piles, common, uncommon, rare, mythic/reserved list, foil/specialty set or played condition. Then I sell the bulk along with binders and decks in the medium flat rate box and everything gets sorted again into the 5 colors plus artifacts and multi and then again into each tribal/theme and then decks get built out of the 5 K boxes 1 row for each tribe. I use the 2 x 4 x 8 poly bags with open top/no zipper and then wrap those in newspaper and shove in a 5 x 9 padded scoth yellow envelope. It's tedious but it works-i get almost minimum wageand I'm hoarding some commons that might pay off in 10 years.@@KitchenTableTCG
Nice video! My instant reaction seeing these sorters was "damn, I'm way faster than that", but of course the point is it's doing its thing while I'm doing mine. Honestly I'd lose at least one source of cards if local shops got these to pick out the good stuff from their bulk 😂
Prusa is one of the leaders in 3d printing and this machine is very heavily based on 3d printers. For $3,000 I can buy a preassembled Prusa XL with a second tool head and have a strong expectation that nothing on it would be just mechanially broken. The $500 printer I've currently got has all of it's electronics neatly packaged up underneath the machine, and has been working doing prints on and off for over a year with a single mechanical failure. Front mounting them so they're more easily accessible isn't a bad idea, but then they need to create better brackets, etc... for it. A $3,000 machine should be expected to work without issues.
Thank you Louie it's good to see I'm not the only one having these types of issues. If I were an employee I'd be concerned too... this thing is above and beond what a regular retail or shipping employe should have to be responsable for. That said I think if you were to ask Joey to become the subject matter expert and give hime some resources like the magic sorter facebook group or the phone number for MTech Cave in case of emergencies he may not feel so alone and overwhelmed. Again thank you so much and please keep us posted.
Yeaaaah. I think whoever made this is probably more of a software kinda guy and just had to learn the basics of engineering to make this work (its effectively a modified 3d printer). There's definitely a ton of room for improvement. It also doesn't help its shipping from Europe so...prob gets damaged in shipment
Seems like these sorting machines could get real good for the same price after several more years of hardware development. Early tech almost always sucks!
I finally gave up on mine, I was spending more time repairing it then using it. Screws came off when in use and the sorter "arm" fell off and snapped pretty much every tray. Fixed that, then the bracket that held the arm in place snapped, I milled a new one. Multiple problems after that, the final straw was the edge sensor snapping off so it won't stop when it hits the side. Mind you pretty much all of these things happened when I was not in the room with the sorter and caused even more things to break. If it sorted properly I might keep trying but it made SO many mistakes. I had a sign in the shop offering sorting services ($30 for a 5000 count box) no takers whatsoever. I thought it was a more than reasonable price but my player just don't care. I think most players may find it fun going through their boxes and finding that one card that shot up in value rather then pay someone to do it, who knows. Anyway, worst thing I've ever bought and that's including my first car. I would have loved the Roku sorter but I'm a small shop that buys maybe a 5000 count bulk box every month or two so there is no way It's worth it on my end. Hopefully the Magic sorter gets better over time but for not it's just not worth it at any price.
Very helpful. I messaged the seller and they did not give me much confidence on the repairability and given I live in Australia I can expect to have to fix it myself.
I think most card sorters are built incorrectly. Cards start at a low state and end up in either a higher state (fighting gravity) or low state (fighting gravity then following gravity). Why dont they just have cards start at the top of the machine, veritcally (intended oritentation), then pulled from the standing pile to a chute which has a path or carriage that shifts to the proper drop off?
Real talk, unless you're a store there's no reason to by a sorter. And if you're doing enough volume to need one, buy a good one. Sorry for the bad beat on the thing. I'd push for a refund.
I bought one in 2020 and it hasn't changed much in quality. It make such a mess with the piles and damages the sides of the cards and jammed cards on top of each other and caused bent cards. I would not trust it for any cards of value. The software also stopped working and I'm expected to be a programmer and flash the new update in. You have to sit next to the machine to make sure it's not misaligned and missing the drop slots. Finally you have to pay a monthly service fee, and as a home user, it's not worth the 25 Euŕo a month price tag to sort commons and uncommon. Yes, if you don't pay the monthly fee, you have a $3000 machine that does nothing. It's also one guy running this business so technical assistance is slow. It's been sitting in my garage for years now and I can't in good faith sell it because it's so bad.
The thing just looks too slow, it needs more computing power, and faster machine parts. Hopefully the next models will just keep increasing the speed the way technology doubles every year. I mean the 3d printers are already much faster now, just need to apply that technology to this machine, they basically run on the same system.
Machines like these are mainly meant for sorting high-volume bulk cards- you're probably not going to need to worry about sorting foils, because expensive cards get stored separately in the first place and don't really ever need re-sorting, they just stay sorted
Not even the card manufacturers can sort right sometimes, flesh and blood had to make changes to their cards in order to avoid the sorter misplacing Spanish and Italian It is a good tool but gonna have some flaws
Yea nobody is coming to fix my roca, I have had to become robotics expert 😂
Haha. How often does it go down?
@@KitchenTableTCG only time it’s down is when I need to do standard maintenance. It’s extremely reliable
That thing is built about as well as a boeing aircraft at this point
I sort cards for a living selling budget commander decks on eBay. I'm actually the #1 seller in the world there for Commander decks. This was a good video. It's hard to keep up with all the prices of 55 thousand different cards with over 150 thousand variations of art / foil or not. I hope it lasts for long enough to pay for itself.
Super interesting! Would love to know the details of how you do all that!
What’s your eBay id be interested in buying!
i_build_custom_commander_decks_just_ask is my username. You can also just search for Tribal Commander Deck and click auction and mine are the ones with bids on them that start at 20.24@@metallicflare1
Yeah, I wish you lived in boise I'd totally go to your store and talk magic. I sort by stacks of junk, usable, and then a stack on each side for artifacts or nonbasic lands, then farther away from me I sort into cards that might eventually or already be worth money and are NM into 5 piles, common, uncommon, rare, mythic/reserved list, foil/specialty set or played condition. Then I sell the bulk along with binders and decks in the medium flat rate box and everything gets sorted again into the 5 colors plus artifacts and multi and then again into each tribal/theme and then decks get built out of the 5 K boxes 1 row for each tribe. I use the 2 x 4 x 8 poly bags with open top/no zipper and then wrap those in newspaper and shove in a 5 x 9 padded scoth yellow envelope. It's tedious but it works-i get almost minimum wageand I'm hoarding some commons that might pay off in 10 years.@@KitchenTableTCG
I really appreciate the review. I've been curious about getting something like this for my private collection.
Nice video! My instant reaction seeing these sorters was "damn, I'm way faster than that", but of course the point is it's doing its thing while I'm doing mine. Honestly I'd lose at least one source of cards if local shops got these to pick out the good stuff from their bulk 😂
Prusa is one of the leaders in 3d printing and this machine is very heavily based on 3d printers. For $3,000 I can buy a preassembled Prusa XL with a second tool head and have a strong expectation that nothing on it would be just mechanially broken. The $500 printer I've currently got has all of it's electronics neatly packaged up underneath the machine, and has been working doing prints on and off for over a year with a single mechanical failure. Front mounting them so they're more easily accessible isn't a bad idea, but then they need to create better brackets, etc... for it. A $3,000 machine should be expected to work without issues.
Thank you Louie it's good to see I'm not the only one having these types of issues. If I were an employee I'd be concerned too... this thing is above and beond what a regular retail or shipping employe should have to be responsable for. That said I think if you were to ask Joey to become the subject matter expert and give hime some resources like the magic sorter facebook group or the phone number for MTech Cave in case of emergencies he may not feel so alone and overwhelmed. Again thank you so much and please keep us posted.
Man, I WISH I had a store like this near me. That place looks awesome to hang with locals
$3000 vs $20000+ You basically got a home dishwasher to doing the work of a commercial dishwasher. It will not hold up to constant use.
Yeaaaah. I think whoever made this is probably more of a software kinda guy and just had to learn the basics of engineering to make this work (its effectively a modified 3d printer). There's definitely a ton of room for improvement. It also doesn't help its shipping from Europe so...prob gets damaged in shipment
Seems like these sorting machines could get real good for the same price after several more years of hardware development. Early tech almost always sucks!
I finally gave up on mine, I was spending more time repairing it then using it. Screws came off when in use and the sorter "arm" fell off and snapped pretty much every tray. Fixed that, then the bracket that held the arm in place snapped, I milled a new one. Multiple problems after that, the final straw was the edge sensor snapping off so it won't stop when it hits the side. Mind you pretty much all of these things happened when I was not in the room with the sorter and caused even more things to break. If it sorted properly I might keep trying but it made SO many mistakes. I had a sign in the shop offering sorting services ($30 for a 5000 count box) no takers whatsoever. I thought it was a more than reasonable price but my player just don't care. I think most players may find it fun going through their boxes and finding that one card that shot up in value rather then pay someone to do it, who knows. Anyway, worst thing I've ever bought and that's including my first car. I would have loved the Roku sorter but I'm a small shop that buys maybe a 5000 count bulk box every month or two so there is no way It's worth it on my end. Hopefully the Magic sorter gets better over time but for not it's just not worth it at any price.
thanks again, very helpful
Very helpful. I messaged the seller and they did not give me much confidence on the repairability and given I live in Australia I can expect to have to fix it myself.
Please remove the cardboard card holders from near/above your $3,000.00+ card sorter. One little bump and that stuff falls on the running machine.
I think most card sorters are built incorrectly. Cards start at a low state and end up in either a higher state (fighting gravity) or low state (fighting gravity then following gravity). Why dont they just have cards start at the top of the machine, veritcally (intended oritentation), then pulled from the standing pile to a chute which has a path or carriage that shifts to the proper drop off?
This is how the PhyzBatch works/sorts.
Real talk, unless you're a store there's no reason to by a sorter.
And if you're doing enough volume to need one, buy a good one.
Sorry for the bad beat on the thing. I'd push for a refund.
I bought one in 2020 and it hasn't changed much in quality. It make such a mess with the piles and damages the sides of the cards and jammed cards on top of each other and caused bent cards. I would not trust it for any cards of value. The software also stopped working and I'm expected to be a programmer and flash the new update in. You have to sit next to the machine to make sure it's not misaligned and missing the drop slots. Finally you have to pay a monthly service fee, and as a home user, it's not worth the 25 Euŕo a month price tag to sort commons and uncommon. Yes, if you don't pay the monthly fee, you have a $3000 machine that does nothing. It's also one guy running this business so technical assistance is slow. It's been sitting in my garage for years now and I can't in good faith sell it because it's so bad.
How does your camera run? One of my local lgs's has had a problem with his
Does that mess with the card quality by introducing artifacts on the cards? (i.e. scuffs or feathering an edge etc.)
Very useful series. I'm curious about the whole category.
The thing just looks too slow, it needs more computing power, and faster machine parts. Hopefully the next models will just keep increasing the speed the way technology doubles every year.
I mean the 3d printers are already much faster now, just need to apply that technology to this machine, they basically run on the same system.
Doesn't really need to be fast if it is working 24/7
Thank you for the good analysis.
I'm currently waiting to see if tcgplayer drops a nee sorter otherwise I will probably pickup one of these in the fall
dude I worked with a roca.... I hate to tell you they do not send anyone out either they will walk you through fixing it
G U E S S T H E C A R D W I N T H E C A R D !!!!!!!!
I just dont understand the price points of these products
If this someday results in my getting a Grist, The Hunger Tide then so be it
I bet Boo-Boo's AI startup investment could fix this.
'we've named the machine after our employee Joey. And here's a 12 minute video on why Joey sucks'
We love you Joey! He's a good boy!!!
Can it sort foils in perfect fit? I'd hate to try and sort foils exposed to air so they pringle.
Machines like these are mainly meant for sorting high-volume bulk cards- you're probably not going to need to worry about sorting foils, because expensive cards get stored separately in the first place and don't really ever need re-sorting, they just stay sorted
You need to look at it like a 3d printer in the early days. You will be doing all the trouble shooting and upgrading to get it to be reliable
Can somebody say what size top loaders do I need to buy for sorcery cards?
Not even the card manufacturers can sort right sometimes, flesh and blood had to make changes to their cards in order to avoid the sorter misplacing Spanish and Italian
It is a good tool but gonna have some flaws
For us it was a nightmare, just threw it in the bin where it belongs.Maintenance is horrible, even with tech knowledge.
You see that robot machine that puts glizzies in a bun and then drops them off to you? I want one of those
That really is super cool though. 🥪
Nothing will be worth it for the consumers unless it works consistently and is less than $1000.
no way that thing is still running in 3 years 😬
Well seems better sort yourself starting on sorting my commons and uncommon got close to 300,000 to go lol
humans can sort cards we need a machine to assist in uncurling foils haha
Instead spending that money maybe you could make yourself one seeing how it works
I guarantee you'll spend more time getting it to work than it would have taken to just sort cards yourself.
Doubt it
Hate the magic sorter $3500 peice of garbage
But if you were willing to invest 10-15k to have MTG sorting abilities then you should just consider getting the Roku. It becomes feasible with scale.