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barrysloateDJ made some good points and I think that when you discuss a bubble it's not about whether Croft's Cocoa or E94's will be any less rare- they would be rare in a bubonic plague. What a bursting of the bubble means is that the huge sums of money that are being funneled into the hobby could dry up, and that would trickle down to all areas of the market. If the economy tanks, many wealthy people might need to sell their holdings and the buyer/seller ratio will shift.
There was a story that made the headlines recently that a major retirement fund had put $50 million into rare coins as a hedge for the fund. The actual story was that many of the coins were stolen; but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Are millions of dollars being put into the baseball memorabilia market also purely for investment? What if that money starts to exit due to a weak economy? The whole market would be affected, and it would have absolutely nothing to do with whether certain E-cards are tough to find. We are seeing certain cards and the like double and triple in the blink of an eye; REA had a few high profile lots that went through the roof. If the big money leaves the hobby will those cards retain their value? As I said earlier, if the stories we are hearing about a burst in the real estate bubble turn out to be true, then baseball cards aren't far behind. It's not about the collector still trying to find a few rare type cards; it's about the state of the economy, and the economy always goes through peaks and valleys.