Trader Etiquette

Today is not about value or posts of my trades during the week but rather etiquette. At the local gaming store I've noticed a few things have been happening since I started my intense trading practices, one of them being others have gotten into trading themselves. Others getting into the trading game is a great thing, however, some of them aren't quite sure of how to deal with others trading around a table. One FNM I was attempting to close in on a deal involving a foil Primeval Titan among other cards, now my trade partner and I had agreed on a value of around $60 for the foil Titan. The guy with the Titan wasn't a newbie to the game nor was he retarded when it came to valuing cards for playability. As I'm about to close the deal this kid, who I know pretty well mind you, comes up and exclaims "A foil Primeval Titan! Man, that thing is like 85 bucks!" Now I lose the trade because the guy I was trading it for figures that if someone at the shop values it that high he can get more then I'm giving him for it. This is a very irritating thing to happen to any trader, the fact that we had agreed on it's value only to have an outsider who hasn't been watching the trade go down step in and jumble the prices. This is something that people who aren't aware of the trading aspects of Magic don't quite understand, I don't value the cards at retail like most others. I'm sorry but a foil Primeval Titan isn't anywhere close to a Jace, the Mindsculptor in trade, not if I'm pulling it in anyway. Now, back to those at the local shop that are dipping into the trade game, and a little story about an incident the other day.

So, it's Tuesday, not a big day in the ways of Magic at the store since there aren't any tournaments going on but I decided to stop by anyway. Within a good 45 minutes to an hour about 5-6 others show up including a few friends of mine and some new faces. Me and a friend were finishing up a trade when this new kid came up and asked if that was my binder, I said yes and he began looking through it. At the same time I notice the rest of the people in the store kind of crowd around a different table with binders from a few different people splayed out. I unfortunately can't get a trade from the kid so I turn to watch what's going on behind me. Apparently this guy had a Vengevine and Grave Titan for trade and a few people were trying to trade him for it. I hear "Hey whoever has the best trade gets it man." This is the worst thing I could hear from a trade table, it basically means someone got into a bidding war over a card. I'm sorry but the trade tables aren't eBay. The trade finishes and the crowd disperses, my friend grabs me and pulls me outside. Here's the dish as told from my friend to me: My friend had initiated the trade and sat down with the guy to see what he had, the dude didn't have a binder but instead had everything in color piles. As my friend is looking through them a bystander, let's call him Bob, picks up a pile and starts looking through it to find a Vengevine and immediately pulls out his binder and initiates a separate trade. I have a giant issue with this, I don't mind someone watching my trade but if they see something they want they better just keep it to themselves until my trade is closed. Not only is it considerate but also what if my friend wanted that Vengevine, which he of course did, now he has to fight for it which isn't what trading is all about. So my friend says he'll trade for the Vengevine too along with the Grave Titan he found and the guy starts searching through my friend's binders, now Bob is watching this and is again trying to cut in and grab the Vengevine from the guy. At every chance Bob got he would say something along the lines of "Hey I have those, want to trade that Vengevine?" and would begin to pull cards out of his own binder and throw them on the table in front of the guy. This irks me a lot, and it shows the amateur and childish trading that can go on at a local store when something rare is on the line. Trade tables should not be eBay nor any other type of auction site, if I initiate a trade I have first dibs on anything in that person's stuff regardless if you see something you want or not. After hearing this from my friend I asked him if he was going to say anything to Bob about it, he said no but I insisted that he say something. That kind of stuff can't go on at the trade tables, we're not vultures, we don't circle around the binders and pick off cards as others are trying to get stuff they want.