It doesn't matter what it would sell for raw. It doesn't matter what it would sell for in a BGS slab. It comfortably sits in a PSA 10 holder and has been awarded the grade of Gem Mint.
I will never dispute that there are cards that you look at in a holder and think boy I don't see how that was given the grade it got. Some are damaged in the holder while others are simply poorly graded. The most glaring example I have ever seen was a 1974 Topps Dave Winfield rookie that looked like a solid 7 but had a 10 on the holder and it still at the time went for $7,400. Whether you or I or anyone else for that matter agrees is irrelevant. What matters is that card still will change hands for more than a card with a 9 up top.
When I got back into cards in 2009 and switched from baseball to wrestling I saw the writing on the wall. It was clear the only way to radically change the value of a card relative to another example was to get it graded. If anything during this time frame the spread has widened even further and that isn't going to change. Someone can either fight the trend or get on it and enjoy the ride.
There is no doubt that much of the value is in the bragging rights and all one has to do is understand this and the rest makes sense. My card is better than your card and only a small number of people can say they have one that is a 10. Throw in rising prices and you have a perfect storm.
No kicking, fighting or screaming is going to change any of this and as the number of participants expands so do the discrepancies. All one must do is look to the gaming category and the explosion there and see how quickly they have adopted getting cards graded. Simple stuff dude.
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