[GaryPassamonte]

Barry,
I think the market is so thin for many 19th century cards that once they are added to the collections of 19th century collectors, the market becomes all the thinner. All it takes is one or two players to not need or want a particular card and the demand collapses. Many hard core 19th century collectors are not sellers, particularly of the more obscure issues. Once they're in a collection they stay there. The result is a thin market with wide price fluctuations. In my thread you mentioned the similarity in pricing for the 1870 Forest Cities, 1870 Athletics, and the 1875 Hartford CdVs historically.. In order, the prices from the most recent sales of these CdVs: $32000, $2000, $16000. They each have a single digit population, but have quite different prices. It would seem the market is very small.