I owned the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle for 22 years. I miss it terribly. I can honestly say if the number of specimens grew to 5,000 or 50,000, I would still ravenously desire the card! Not rare? What do I care? If I don't own one, I'm still one of the tens of thousands of collectors on the outside looking in. If "everybody" owned one, I'm still without that card, and not loving the fact I will probably never own it again.
A few years ago I emailed Joe Orlando the same sentiment as the gent who expressed the fact that kid collectors from the 70s, 80s, and 90s who saw the card, and saw what the card did to their dads, had a seed of deep desire planted that is now growing to the point where some of them still have the red hot desire, and will finally be able to purchase a beautiful example--and have the delight of sharing it with their dads, if they're still alive.
Unless one to five cases of pristine 52 Topps high numbers are found, the bubble will not burst. A find of this magnitude would be interesting, but why waste life pondering that vastly remote possibility.
---Brian Powell