It bothers me too, for any number of reasons. First, what we have is a hobby, something that should be enjoyed in one's leisure time. When I hear pop report, it makes that pleasure of collecting feel a little too much like Wall Street. Most collectors want to know the pop report to determine rarity and value. That sounds a little too investment oriented for me.
Second, I don't believe pop reports are accurate, and I think the information they provide is greatly manipulated. So many cards are resubmitted, information from one grading service does not translate to that of another (collectors will call a PSA card a "pop 1" when SGC might have graded two others at the same level), and it's human nature to fudge the truth, so I feel at times these population numbers are not even close to what's actually out there.
I know the registry collectors live and die by pop numbers, but the average collector doesn't care about them at all.
Last edited by barrysloate; 12-13-2010 at 09:21 AM.
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