Posted By:
Al CrisafulliUnfortunately I went to SmartCollector and searched the Ebay history for the past 120 days, and could not see any PSA 6 T202s that sold for more than $3800, and none had paper loss that I could see, so I guess the transaction in question happened more than 4 months ago.
In any event, I see the point that you're trying to make, Lee, but I also think you're taking an exception and trying to make it the rule. There are any number of reasons why that particular card sold for as much as it did. Perhaps the person was a "cert buyer" looking to inflate their position on the registry with an overgraded card. Perhaps the person was careless and did not see the paper loss. Perhaps the buyer wanted to win the card, and set a very high snipe to ensure that they would - and someone else did the same thing, driving the price up extraordinarily high (I've had this happen to me, though never for $5K). Perhaps the buyer thought the paper loss was just a bad scan - who knows, maybe it even was.
The reality is that it's not common to see a PSA 6 with paper loss, and it's less common to see someone overpay for one. So I think this is probably a relatively isolated incident.
I see cards sell for what I think are outrageous prices almost every day. Other days, I see cards sell for much less than what I think they're worth. Sometimes they sell for just the right amount. I've been on the buying end of all three of those scenarios, as well.
Bottom line is that while some of us might view a transaction as "overpaying", the winning bidder may be completely comfortable with it. Who cares? Why is it an issue? And who's to say it has anything whatsoever to do with the registry?
-Al
(Edited to address the correct Behrens)