What creates this price difference?

[Exhibitman]

One of the more interesting elements of auctions is how the interaction of rational people with differing rationales can lead to results that seem irrational or anomalous on the surface. Or to paraphrase George Carlin, never underestimate the stupidity of outcomes from independent actions of people in large groups.

I think of it like a Venn diagram of people with centering and registration considerations overlapping collectors who are bargain oriented. One group is composed of people who will not bid on a card that is off centered or has registration issues; the other group is composed of people who do not really care as much about those issues. The overlap are condition bugs who like a bargain and will bid on the lesser card to a point, and condition insensitive bidders who are willing to match bids on the 'nicer' card but really prefer to get the lesser card at a relatively low price. I am one of the latter; I always look for the slightly lesser example in the auction, but placeholder bid on both and chase the lesser one as long as it remains at a discount.