Quote:
Originally Posted by glynparson
as collectors become more advanced they frequently move to rarer and less often seen material.
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+1. While not necessarily bearing any relation to the sets originally mentioned in this post (which I would not categorize as true variations), I see the demand for true, rare variations growing in much the same manner as they did in coins. In that hobby, it took decades for collectors of a series to even be concerned with different mint-marks, and once that took hold, the scarcest among them rose rather consistently in value. After that, variations such as over-stamped dates and doubled dies (1955 S pennies) became much in demand, rising to stratospheric prices in popular series. I would expect rare-back HOF'ers in the T206 to especially continue to be in great demand, and other scarce to rare variations (1955 Exhibit Postcard backs? Mantle? Mays? 1935 Diamond Stars "Greenburg" error--probably one of the scarcest nationally distributed cards of the '30's) might just have similar potential. The collecting mindset simply doesn't vary that much with the item being collected. What happened in coins foreshadows what will continue to occur with baseball cards. Note that a high-grade 1990 Topps Frank Thomas no-name on front (some would not consider this a true variation, as it arose from a problem occurring during the printing process, but I think this is a distinction without a difference) recently sold for nearly $3,000 just after his popularity spiked with his election to the hall--that card could have been purchased for $600-$800 3-4 years ago. Demand for rare variations is here to stay,although it may be cyclical, with its price going through up and down periods,where the subject has less significance and/or is in greater supply, instead of nearly linear, rising rather steadily in value, where the significance and/or rarity of the card is great.
Best to all,
Larry