Quote:
Originally Posted by Leon
Items might be flooding the market, but in our space especially, the cards all have unique attributes so they aren't common even when there are hundreds or thousands of examples. The Goudey Ruth 144 is actually quite common. Show me one for sale that has 50/50 centering though. Those are a needle in a haystack.
Great stuff is appreciating and the mid to lower stuff is staying the same or having a slight reduction, imo...
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This is the key. I don't think most collectors quite realize the extent to which this is true. I went through every single 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson card, one-by-one on VCP, and tallied up the number of cards that were dead 50/50 centered and the number that were fairly close, but just slightly off (say 48/52 one way and 50/50 the other). There were ~1,000 sales to comb through (note, I only looked at non-creased cards, mostly VG/VG-EX or better). Out of those ~1,000, there were 9 (yes NINE) dead-centered copies and only 22 that were close. Obviously, the Jackies don't have the exact same pop report as the Mantle, but it should be a directionally accurate approximation for it since the two cards were next to each other on the sheets, both being double printed.
As you said. Finding a 52T Mantle is easy. Finding a centered one? Good luck with that.