Thanks for all your responses, guys. Good to know I'm not alone.
A few further thoughts/follow ups:
I definitely understand the BIN philosophy if you're selling, say, a crockpot. I hate when memorabilia sellers do it because, if it's "good," I'll never see it in time. If everything I was after was in an auction, at least I'd have
a chance. I'd still probably get beat most of the time by "that one other guy," but I can live with that. Most of you guys are probably familiar with ebay seller jonsstats...I think he
auctions everything and starts his auctions at 99 cents. I believe he almost always gets a good price when his stuff is good. Besides me not liking BIN, I think it also often hurts the seller.
As far as "looking for a steal"...I'm not. I just want a chance. Steals are super rare and usually only occur when you stumble upon something with a bad description and/or bad picture(s). There's just too many damn eyeball for much of anything to ever fly under the radar.
As far as starting a new collection...God, no!
Finally, the "salesman's samples" theory on rare PM-10s is interesting. It's a possibility. It makes sense that guys like Mays would be produced and bought (in the day) in the greatest quantity but I also have thought that kids would have pestered their Dads into buying the other guys for them on subsequent trips to the ballpark.