I know this has been brought up before but I haven't quite seen a legitimate answer for this yet.

How come there is no second market for X Wing cards or ships? It seems like a FLGS or an online seller would/could separate the packaging of the ships and their cards, and sell them for different values? I have seen one or two different sites offering to do this but no mainstream seller...yet. Is there any reason for this? I feel like people could make a killing off of this? Also I really like the ships that I own already and I'm really only looking for specific cards at this point.

Anybody else feel this way, or am I the loner?

My guess is that most people would rather buy a $15 ship then pay $5 or more for a single card.

For the larger packs like the YT's or VT's... There's perhaps more of a market for them, but still not a big one.

The largest market would be for cards from epic ships, like Palp or the x1 title, and to a much lesser degree 3PO... But then you're looking at spending $75 or so, and may not get much of a return on that investment.

Ebay not good enough for you? The way the game works there really is no good economic model for this. I buy an extra ship I don't need just to unbox it and sell the one card people want one for $2-$5?

Now that the good card is gone, nobody else will likely want just the ship.

nobody else will likely want just the ship.

That is the other problem, what do you do with the ship itself? How many people want any given ship without the upgrade cards that come in the pack?

How many expansions could you actually piece out and make more than what you paid for them?

Why wouldn't people want the ship? I know a handful of people who would love to buy multiple ships but not have multiple copies of the cards. Especially after they've bought one or two of the same expansion already.

Or maybe you want one ship and only one or two pilots. You'd be able to buy specific cards with the ship you want. Like I said, I could be the loner on this.

Why wouldn't people want the ship? I know a handful of people who would love to buy multiple ships but not have multiple copies of the cards.

How many ships does someone actually need? At most 3-4 of some and maybe 6-8 of others. But without the cardboard tile and pilot card the model itself isn't worth much.

Lets look at two extremes...

Tie Fighter Expansion. There's 2 upgrade cards in that pack and neither are all that valuable. So there's really zero reason to buy one with the plan of selling off the parts.

Starviper expansion. $20 expansion that has Accuracy Corrector, Calculation and Autothrusters. All cards people want, but you'd have to effectively sell them for $5 or so each, and then sell the Starviper itself without upgrades to make money off it.

How much is someone going to pay for a Starviper without those upgrade cards? Maybe $5... So there just isn't a huge profit in it, even with a pack with a lot of really popular cards.

There is a huge secondary market but it's online