What explains this?

[dodgerfanjohn]

Between around 2012-2017 I took on building a 1960 Topps set in ExMt average condition, with the goal of no card worse than 70/30 centering. I already had several of the star players as I had been buying random tpg HOF cheap when I saw them. Right off I got lucky with a Greg Morris action that was under viewed and picked up around 80 commons and semi stars for chump change.

From then on it was a slow build. I’d mostly watch Greg Morris and Zorbacca auctions but there are other set breakers too. In some of these auctions, the bids went way higher than they ought to have. Why pay psa 8 prices for a raw card advertised as nrmt-mt? Just buy the psa graded copy. But that’s what happened. I actually posted about it on the psa forums at the time. One response was the guy had utter faith in GM’s grading snd said GM frequently over graded. I personally disagree and believe GM is generally accurate but can have a tendency to slightly undergrade and also discounts centering. But that is what the poster said was his belief. Another poster said he uses a shotgun approach and simply places his high bid early on all the auctions and those he wins cheap bring down the overall cost of the lot. Short sighted IMO, but great for sellers and the guy will get his cards.

In a few instance, and I’m not talking about already known hard to find commons, I suspect that one person was attempting to create additional short prints by buying up all available supply of raw commons in certain grades. It’s a habit I find bizarre, and fully motivated by OCD and/or likely autism, but there’s known instances out there of this occurring.