The Collector Store LLC — Local services in Saint Peters

While this ship has one of the most diverse and well priced selection of Magic the Gathering cards, their practices around purchasing cards from sellers is malicious and unfair to customers.

This past weekend, a friend and I took a collection of cards to sell to the store. When I left the cards with the staff to review and make an offer, I asked for a list of the cards and the amounts they’re offering for each once the process was complete. They told me that they wouldn’t be able to give me anything like that, as their system doesn’t allow them to give that information for each card. This is a request that any other shop I’ve dealt with has happily obliged. Impact Gaming in Fairview Heights printed a receipt with every card and their purchase price. My personal favorite shop, The Underground Dojo in Collinsville, goes through prices with me as they scan items or when I ask. The lack of transparency from The Collector’s Store was alarming, but because my friend and I are thorough, we had a very good idea of what our collection of cards was worth already based on market price.

Each card was entered into a collection tracking website with the exact printing, as “lightly played”. Many of the cards are near mint, the majority were lightly played, and there were certainly some lower quality cards as well, but not many. The long and short of it is that the value of the cards that we handed to The Collector’s Store was realistically valued at well over $2,500 based on current market price (a very conservative value, as the website actually shows the value at $3,400). We expected a fairly standard offer of about 40% of market value for cash and 50-60% in store credit - an offer of $1,000 in cash would have been tempting and certainly in line with what we expected.

A staff member began processing our trade and we hung around the store for a while. After a few hours, we asked if we could leave and come back, which they said was fine. I asked if I could leave my name or phone number with them and they said it wasn’t necessary and declined when I insisted to leave it anyway. I should have known better by then and just taken them, but we figured since we knew what was there, we could verify everything was present when we picked it up.

Several hours later we came back to the store to find the employee processing our trade sitting at a table playing a game with some others. When I asked another employee if the trade was finished, he said no and called to the other to let him know we were back. He took his time finished his turn and then went back to processing our trade sitting it took another hour or so to finish. Pretty unprofessional conduct from the staff that I’ve consistently had issues with in this regard in the past.

When he finally came over to give us his offer, he presented a cash offer of $307. This offer was, frankly, insulting. When I asked how they arrived at that number, he told me the majority of it was “bulk”. I mentioned that we had many, many $30+ cards within the stack and picked up a few to go through them with him. This small stack - maybe a dozen cards out of several hundred - was well over $150 in market value. He said he couldn’t offer any more than that and when I asked to see a price breakdown, he said no. We declined the offer and expressed our disappointment, but he didn’t seem to really care and just walked away.

They also purchase bulk cards at $2 per 1,000 cards, which is 40% of the normal market rate of $5/1,000.

We ended up selling about 1/4 of the box to The Underground Dojo later that day for over $400, for the record

This store’s core value is greed and they will gladly deceive you in order to purchase your cards for significantly less than their actual value. Their lack of transparency is a big red flag, so while I might buy packs and singles from them in the future, I will never sell cards...

The Collector Store is the second card shop I played Magic: the Gathering at in Missouri, the first being Manticore Game Shop. I occasionally go to the Collector Store to play Modern, but due to schedule changes, I can no longer attend their Friday Modern tournaments.

Of the three card shops that I play Magic at, the Collector Store is the smallest and the most secluded. It is small and easy to miss, and it is not easily visible from the highway. The parking lot has tight parking spaces which might be a problem for people who live in the country and drive larger vehicles like trucks or minivans.

The Collector Store awards store credit for its Magic tournaments, and it is based on attendance. Players can choose between singles credit, which can only be spent on singles (individual cards for sale), or a small amount in general credit, which can be used for almost anything except for entry fees.

The staff are friendly and willing to help customers. Some of them do play when on duty, though they seem to rotate between each other so customers don't get ignored. Compared to the cold reception I receive in my part of Missouri, the Collector Store staff are at ease when talking to brown people like me.

However, I have received the telltale racist death glare from several customers, all of them white males. Most of them are older gentlemen, possibly the fathers of the younger players. A few are the younger players themselves who look at me like they've never seen a brown person before. There is at least one player I have encountered who is passive aggressive towards me and keeps jumping the gun when I play against him in Magic.

Overall, this level of racism is extremely mild compared to what I encounter in other aspects of life in the Show Me State, and I do not blame the Collector Store for it. After a few months, the icy glares of death thawed and while these specific customers will probably not socialize with me, they don't seem to see me as a threat anymore. Even the younger player who kept jumping the gun doesn't look at me as hatefully as before.

I did go out of my way to be super nice to people here. If you are not white, I highly suggest doing the same. Note that this does not apply to the staff but to some of the customers there.

Going back to the Collector Store, the shop has one unisex restroom. I don't know if the staff have their own restroom, since I have never seen a line forming in front of it, and the place is usually packed when I'm there.

The store is cramped. It is the smallest of the card shops I frequent, and there isn't much space to move around. The tables are usually full when I go there, and I will admit that they are arranged very efficiently for the store's small size.

In addition to the cramped playing area, the Collector Store has a lot of stuff for sale. At first glance, everything looks cluttered, but there is so much stuff neatly crammed into such a small space that it makes the place look more disorganized that it actually is.

With regards to stock, the Collector Store has the most variety among Magic: the Gathering singles, and generally offer the cheapest prices among card shops in my area (Manticore Game Shop and the Fantasy Shop tend to be more expensive when it comes to singles). They also get new stock often, and what might not be available one week might be overstocked the next week...

Been a long time since I had walked into a card store. Was looking to sell my card collections from when I was a kid. I walked in and was greeted by an employee. Jason (sports guru) assisted me and was gentle/respectful of my cards as he was going through them. The one card that caught his eye was a 1993 Mike Piazza Ultra Pro Rookie Holographic Card. He stated its worth a good $35 or so. He didn’t have to tell me that as he was going through the cards, but he did. Its good to know that he doesn’t take advantage with customers because of his expertise and gives them a fair price for cards that are worth something. I purchased 6 cards (baseball/hockey) while I was there with some of the cash from my collection I sold to them. Bout a few weeks later I ran across the trading card game, Pokémon. I never knew it was a game. I just thought it was card collecting. It would be nice to have cards that you can collect but also use in a game. I decided to bring the 6 cards back. I explained to Jason id rather be able to use the cards instead of having them in a cabinet for show. He understood and gave me a very generous instore credit offer on my 6 cards that I got from him weeks earlier (these cards were all in protective sleeves and a plastic case). I got a Pokémon starter kit, and extra card decks instead. A month later, I walked in to get some more Pokémon battle decks, card sleeves, deck boxes, etc and was greeted by Josh. Josh was patient and informative. An hour later, I had what I came in for and then some. Found some damage counter dice at the front register and he went to the back 3x to find as many as he could. In a world where service has gone to crap, its good to know this place takes their service seriously. Thank you Jason and Josh. The Collector LLC has a new customer. 😊

10/31/22 UPDATE (-1 star) A reminder to the employees working in the back. If you walk out to the front and all other employees are helping customers and another customer asks for assistance, under no circumstances to you say, "I only work in the back," and WALK AWAY??? (2 occasions).

12/4/24 UPDATE (-1 star) The new lobby set up with less glass cases to see cards is a worse shopping experience. It takes a lot longer to sit at an in store comp, order a card, wait for an emloyee to get them from the back, only to find out the card is badly off center. I could have done that...