1964 Topps Curt Flood and 1961 Topps 242 Hal Smith
 

In looking through both the active and completed listings for these two cards on ebay, for some reason these two cards both seem to command premiums(in most cases) over similar cards. Neither of these cards are low population counts on the PSA registry and there appears to be an ample supply of both cards, so why are collectors willing to shell out more for these two cards?

I don't have a specific answer to your question, but I will say this. A lot of times collectors have the 'rare' cards they own graded, while leaving the common/less 'valuable' cards alone. This might be the case here, or maybe it's an insight into the actual reason. Just because similar amounts of these cards have been graded as compared to other cards in the set doesn't preclude them from being something of a rarity.

For instance, the 1952 Andy Pafko is always talked about for it's rarity and/or value, but if you look it up, I believe close to 900 of them have been graded. Many/most of the other cards in the set hover around the 200-300's graded mark. Same goes for the 1967 Brooks Robinson high number. A ton of those have been graded--exponentially greater than the totals of other cards--so it makes you wonder how rare it actually is.

Dunno, might be something here.

1962 topps george witt
 

was always one of the most famous examples of this as for whatever reason that card is almost impossible fo find in high grade. Don't be surprised is a real nice raw nm/mt or better card has a premium

Rich

When I put my 62 set together 7-8 years ago, I would sell of my raw dupes on ebay and several cards that sold well beyond my expectations and stick out in my mind were the 323 Landrum, 301 Cisco and as mentioned the Witt card. I had not looked in a while until today, but a well centered PSA 7 Landrum recently sold for almost $400 (another less centered copy sold for $45??) even though there are 110+ PSA 7s and less than 20 higher.

I just did not put either the 61 242/64 103 cards into the same group as these tougher 62s. Reason being, is while these tougher 62s command premiums at higher grade levels but not typically as lower grade cards, the 61 242/64 103 command a premium as both higher and lower grade cards.

If you think the 1964 Topps Flood is tough, try the 1964 Venezuelan:

I browsed the completed listings for the Smith, and you can see from the examples shown that most are off-center. Still, good examples seem available at a decent price. Here is a PSA 7 that sold for $9.99:

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1961-Topps-24...3)w~~60_57.JPG