Tale of 2 1953 Topps Mantles

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I think the mega premiums on the centered cards was a little market manipulation and will return to the normal lower premiums. One "seller" was seriously into promoting them. He bought a bunch of mid range perfectly centered cards for his personal(LOL) collection, got the hype going. Then unloaded them through PWCC and repeated while the prices went up.

I couldn't disagree more. Even if this one of the reasons the bigger premium for centered cards got started, they're here to stay. Collectors realize how rare a perfectly centered card is, and how much better it looks. Trying to find a centered Mantle on Ebay is like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. When they do pop up at even close to a reasonable price they're gone within minutes. Same with the big auctions, REA, Heritage, Goodwin, etc. Often there won't be a single centered Mantle in the entire auction.

Edited to add: I seem to remember the Net54 motto used to be "buy the card, not the holder." I don't get why members are surprised collectors are now doing this and paying premiums for nice cards.