assessing vintage card scarcity

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Posted By: Chris

I have always wondered the same things. Is it possible that if cards were produced in the same numbers that roughly the same number of each survived? probably not but how do we know which of the cards had the best survival rate? More importantly how many cards are buried in personal collections, never to be sold or traded? I believe there are less common cards out there than stars as people were less likely to save them but people are more likely to sell commons.
I will throw one more question out there, is it at all possible to have a population report for a certain set and have people register their cards? Probably not but wouldn't it be cool if their was someone who could start something like that and put advertisng $'s into it and get people to register their cards over a number of years. It would never be an exact number but it would give you a general idea. It might actually help the value of some cards, and of course hurt the value of some.