You seem like an EXTREMELY educated person. You must grant me two things: 1. Mike trouts are one in a million. Collectors will spend way too much money chasing prospects that simply will not pan out. As Peter stated, a guy dropped a million bucks on a Strasbourg! It was cute when I chased Brien Taylor and Todd Van Poppel for 10 or 20 bucks, but it's dangerous to chase them in the five-figure range.
2. If the same card is printed with a minor difference in color, and they stamp 1/1000, 1/100, 1/50, 1/10, 1/5, and 1/1 on them, there are 1,166 of that card. The different color or stamp used by the card company to entice and trick people doesn't change that fact. This is nothing but a marketing ploy used to fool people into the illusion of rarity.
If you like modern players, by all means collect them. This hobby is meant to collect what we love. My anger is directed at the card companies and Beckett for propelling this fraud. Collect what you love. I'm just trying to share my experience from 31 years of collecting cards and watching can't-miss prospects fail. New generations always tell older generations that their experience is different, and we just don't understand. But the reality is that things don't change much, they just come in different packages.
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