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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

While what Barry says certainly on its surface makes a lot of sense, I'm just not sure how true it is. Take CDVs, for example. To my knowledge the great majority of known baseball CDVs are not part of any set. Yet, because they are slabbed and thereby perceived by many as baseball cards, they very well might sell for (considerably) more than a larger-size version of the same image. Take even the mammoth plate of the 1874 Boston team that Hunt auctions recently sold. I am aware of two cabinets of the same image and if I was a betting man, I would predict that they would sell for more than the mammoth plate. Yet I don't regard that cabinet as being part of any set.

In addition, it could be argued that with Joseph Halls, given the number of known imperial cabinet size examples, the "set" was produced in imperial cabinet size. Yet, even at that it is very unclear whether the imperial cabinet size would outprice their cabinet counterparts.

In the end I still think that perhaps the best explanation is that within baseball circles the card market is stronger than the photograph market, not primarily because of security or wall space concerns (though those are certainly valid considerations) but simply because they are baseball cards. And CDV and cabinet size images, regardless whether part of any set, do get slabbed and thereby achieve that magical designation as being a baseball card. Or, to use Barry's words from an earlier post, "plastic rules". Should the day ever come that imperial cabinets or mammoth plates are slabbed and have general hobby recognition as being baseball cards too, then at that point watch out where their values go.

Edited for grammer