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identify7With all due respect to your assessment, Adam, I think there are many ways to invest in cards, just like in stocks and other vehicles. As Leon points out, timing is crucial.
When it is better to put your x dollars into penny stocks rather than their high priced counterparts is a serious field of study.
I believe that the same is true for baseball cards. During periods of this hobby's brief history we have seen cyclical focus on various areas of collecting, including grade. If you have not researched this history you have missed interesting phenonoma.
It is common, as you point out, for significant investors to purchase highly graded material. This happened on a relatively large scale in numismatics beginning in the late '80s. Thus far, based on recent and current coin pricing, the choices were mostly ill advised.
Mr. Moraine: you state that you want QUALITY cards for investment (ie. relatively higher graded examples). What factual data do you rely on for this determination? My analysis indicates just the opposite of yours. The basis of my analysis (which I am doing for fun) is the best available card pricing history 1975 - date.