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JimBIf somebody has found a proliferation of high-grade caramels recently, please send them my way. These cards are extremely hard to find in ex/mt or better, even today. One only need look at SGC and PSA pop reports to know that they are not around in any significant numbers in high grade. So what has changed? At the National I looked at about 250 caramel cards for sale at various tables and only one or two graded ex/mt and none higher. They probably averaged about gd. There are more caramels changing hands these days - probably because of the escalating prices, but I do not see any significant number of high grade examples. Even five years ago I rarely saw many caramels at all at shows when I was vigorously trying to upgrade my E93 set. Now I see them a bit more. It does not mean that a bunch of fakes have been produced. It just means they are more actively traded these days.
The same could be true for high grade T cards. For example, at the National I pulled some of the best T206 commons out of my set and got them graded. Then when I found vg/ex examples for replacements, I sold the PSA 7 commons for a lot of cash. The prices that those commons are bringing right now brought those cards out of my set (where they have been for 15-20 years) and into the market. There was nothing particularly sinister, just market demands. I would rather have some nice caramel HOFs in vg/ex to ex than T206 commons in nm. That is just my preference. So I went with it.
JimB