Conundrum Looming

[mrmopar]

I would add to that the fact that I suspect a lot of people just want one to be able to say they own one. Pure demand with no reason other than the desire to own one because it is THE THING to do. Maybe it is someone scraping enough together to afford their top card or someone who has money to burn and realizes that people will drool all over a nice copy if they buy one.

For exactly those couple of reasons you state that the card should NOT be that much more valuable, or at least the other 52 High numbers should be worth more than they are, proves this to me. The demand for the card, regardless of what the price rises to is never satisfied by the supply so the price continues to rise and rise, yet so many other cards are harder to find and cost considerably less. The Pafko is another example of a card being "worth" way more than it should be worth.

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Originally Posted by steve B

I've expressed this before, what makes a top collectible in any field isn't any of the things that are usually thought of, at least not on their own.

This hobby has a number of great examples, the 52 Mantle being one of them.
Is it "rare"? Not exactly. It's a double print, so as part of the 52 high numbers it's one of the three most common.
So why don't any of the other 52 high numbers even get close?

It's got all the other factors.

It's not common, but also not so rare that someone who wants one can't find one.
The subject is very popular.
There's even a great story, that the 52 high numbers are "rare" because the remainders were dumped in the harbor/river/ocean

And that really all it takes.
It doesn't hurt that the set it's from is a great looking set.
Or that his popularity is in NY, one of the larger cities.

It shares those things with some of the other very expensive collectibles at the top of their respective hobbies.
The Wagner T206 of course
The inverted "Jenny" airmail stamp
The "CIA invert stamp -- although less so, because it's newer and not a particularly good looking stamp.
The 1804 Silver dollar
And maybe the 1913 liberty nickel (although it IS rare, it also has the great story/mystery)