Another theaory on why High Number series are rare

[Volod]

Originally Posted by steve B

The place to look isn't at what the kids were buying - Retailer to consumer.
But at the wholesaler to retailer business.

Any retailer, and the corner store people have been pretty sharp forever, would have to believe they would sell through the last series. If not, they wouldn't order them,in favor of something else. And with a need to preorder, the wholesalers salesmen would have been pushing football or something else in late summer to early fall. Then maybe hockey in some areas.

I dunno, Steve - My old man was a retailer in the 1960's and reasonably sharp, I suppose, and his corner store carried a large selection of cards, but the storeroom was relatively small. Since I worked there after school, I can recall many discussions he had with wholesalers about ordering stuff. The salesman would try to push new cards and my father would yell he had unopened boxes of earlier series that had to be returned because he couldn't move them. I recall him getting especially annoyed when the wholesaler once refused to extend a return credit because the merchandise was past its return date. I had to haul a couple of large cases of 1961 baseball cards out back to a dumpster because the storeroom needed more room. Painful memory now.