[Exhibitman]

I think the only safe conclusion is that lots of cards offered for sale are slabbed, but there is simply no way of knowing anything more. Ebay is not a good measure since by definition it is self-selected to people who want to sell and whose motivation is to maximize their return by slabbing grade-worthy cards.

The vast majority of my collection is raw. I have no need and no interest in slabbed cards unless it is to match with an already-slabbed partial set or to protect a delicate item, or to sell. In fact, I often crack out newly-acquired cards from slabs to put them in the albums with their brethren so I can enjoy them all together [I also scan and print out laser copies of slabbed cards as placeholders in albums if I don't want to cut them out of their tombs, but that is another story...].

Lots of 'advanced' collectors I know simply do not want to spend the money and go through the hassles of having their cards encapsulated, the difficulties of storing them, the hassle of handling them in slabs, etc. I know one collector who had $10,000 cards sitting in binders with the rest of his sets. People in that position have no plans to sell and no need to have their cards blessed by someone else. They also figure [correctly] that if they ever decide to liquidate their collections the auctioneers will have to eat the cost of slabbing.