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Posted By: Mike Mac

With old cards, especially, the board has old posts that point out that true high grade cards are difficult to find: production and wear since production. Anything old and produced perfectly is difficult. Well, sometimes, it seems to me, anything produced well by Topps prior to (not including) 1987 is difficult relative to their total production, but this is a vintage board. If the card was produced well and entered a collection, then it was subject to 60-160 years of potential wear. Although I do not know this for a fact, I would think that more copies of superstars exist but they are likely to be subject to greater amounts of wear. Anything is a 1 of 1? Unlikely, but maybe truely scarce.

That's my opinion.

Also, I understand that high valued collectibles may be used as collateral. I think it would easier to carry a $110,000 baseball card accross the country than $110,000 in cash or a check, although I wouldn't know this to be true from experience.

With respect to Jay's comment about grading, I agree that attributes should be separately evaluated and published by 3rd party graders. I disagree that there should be some sort of formula deterimining a final grade. The true final grade might be determined by the seller and potential buyers. In essence, the market will eventually determine the desirable attributes.