Trend toward collecting "scarcity" in t206 continues?

[cyseymour]

[QUOTE=egbeachley;1129384]

Originally Posted by frankb22

The pricing scale never made sense mathematically. This is just a
correction based on percentages. If a card is 50 times more difficult
to find with a certain back vs the most common back then pricing it
only 4 or 5 times that of the common back made no sense from a
statistical standpoint. Prices were based on previous sales, not math.
Now they are being based on a more statistically correct formula.

QUOTE]

I respectfully disagree. A card with a back 50 times more difficult absolutely does NOT mean it should go for 50 times more. Even if this is how the pricing were to work statistically, you would need to factor in that 90% of collectors may not care about the back. That would mean a price 5 times more. If that dropped to 80% not caring then the price would be 10 times more.

Of course the correlation betwen difficulty and price is not 1:1 but this example may help explain why back prices are going up - more people collect them.

It may also be partially from herd mentality. Prices are going up and will continue to go up so I need to get in now at any price then sell when it's really high. Tulip bulbs anyone?

Well said. But let's assume that, okay, it used to be that only 10% of collectors care about the back. Assuming that nowadays, 20% of collectors care about the back, that is double the amount of collectors. But then, not all collectors are created equally. The additional 10% of collectors, it seems, have 10x as much money as the original 10%... when it comes to the market, money talks, as they say... you vote with your wallet... not exactly a full-fledged democracy, lol.