There are a number of legit sales. I sold my first 21 cards for $899 and buyer paid right away. What I am concerned with is a small group of dealers each of whom bought over 100 of each card have created false demand with manipulated sales. The example I use is the Altuve #16 if you look at sales of the card last week it was selling for between $5 and $9, Then on April 29th there is a sale of one card for $199 the next sales after that are $12.99 $14.99 $17.99 then 24.99 then 14.95(not part of manipulation) then 19.99 36.79 $79.47 15.99 $10 $7.50 $15.99 then all sales in the $30 to $35 range. clearly why would buyers pay $79.99 and $199.99 for a card that is offered for $7 to $10? They would not sellers are manipulating the ebay sales record.
If you look at the sales record of "Topps Living" sort by Highest price and you will see a sale of 21 cards for $5899.97 with the highest auction price for those same 21 cards being $899.00 and Buy it now sales as high as $1,100.00 but it is the $5899.00 fake sale that begins the price swing upwards. Clearly not a real sale but every body sees the Big bucks and then the price starts a quick move to the upside. In any manipulation there are real sales and real sellers that benefit by upswing but the real benefit goes to the dealer group that purchased a couple thousand of each of these cards. And to post fake sales to drive prices upwards is wrong and in the end when prices crash some buyers are not going to have happy memories of card collecting.
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