[AMBST95]

As already mentioned, the collector is just a lot more educated on rarity. There are a lot of 30-40 somethings coming back to card collecting and they all got hosed in the 90s as kids. As a result, they are more inclined to purchase a hard to find rare back over a more common one. The information available online now really helps to empower the buyer to make smarter choices than they may have in the past. This is why you are seeing the prices blow up. This should continue for awhile, as this generation of collectors start amassing their collections. Eventually as the hobby as a whole starts to decline, these values will come back to Earth, but I'm talking 20 years from now when today's kids want nothing to do with cards in general.