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Judge Dred (Fred)Without a doubt, you are correct about high grade cards being the fastest appreciating portion of the hobby. I wouldn't disagree with that statement at all. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. The unfortunate part is that it has also (not proportionally) led to the increase in the price of vintage cards. Some people will say it was inevitable but I firmly believe that the valuation on lower grade material also followed the high grade material (and it really shouldn't have). Then again, there aren't many high grade examples of a lot of different cards so it led to the "I have the highest known graded example of such and such a card..."
What I wrote before wasn't meant to stir the emotions of high grade collectors. It was just the rabmlings of a collector that has seen this hobby escape its roots of people that collected for pure joy and not for the competition of having the BEST of the best. People that have the resources to collect the high grade niche are fortunate and I think I could see how easy it could be fall into this categorey if given the resources. I bet that anyone on this board that has dreamed about winning a HUGE lottery has thought that they would buy just about any and every card they wanted with little regard as to cost. Well, there are some of us cheapskates that would still fight for that last dollar of value, regardless of if we were filthy rich or not.