High grade cards are undervalued

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I agree with the "assumption" made by my fellow economist, Dr. Warshawlaw.



The way I see it, there are THREE categories:

1) RARE cards that are SO rare that they are very valuable in ANY condition. (1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth, 1910 T210 Joe Jackson, etc.) These are so rare that the discovery of a new one will probably NOT change the market price at all.

2) SEMI-RARE cards that are in high demand at all grades -- which means that the higher graded versions are very valuable while the lower grade versions can be seen for sale fairly frequently (1915 M101-5 Babe Ruth, 1914 Cracker Jack Ty Cobb, etc.) These could be affected price-wise if new high grade examples appear in the future.

3) COMMON cards that are ONLY in high demand at the HIGHEST graded levels. These stand to face the biggest loss in value when and if other high grade versions of the same card come to the market.

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Then again... there is the age-old question:

Is it more likely that someone stashed away their 1933 Babe Ruth card in a box so that it may still be found in pristine condition by future treasure hunters...

or is it more likely that a random common player's card will show up?

Just ask the people hunting for BID McPHEE cards about this phenomenon. Apparently everyone in 1889 knew that they should keep their King Kelly OJ's... but hardly ANYBODY from 1887 to 1997 gave a second thought to trading or tossing out a Bid McPhee OJ.