The story I heard about the 70 Bench
was Card Collectors Company had a warehouse fire and for whatever reason a ton of the 70 Benches were destroyed in that fire (or water damaged). While other cards may have had similar issues, the Bench was the most in demand of those cards
As for the SCD article on Brooksie, iIRC Gary Sawatski and his then partner in the business Duane Scrhoen (sic) had sorted 5,000 or more 67's without finding ONE of those cards.
You do have to remember that in 1979 Bench was among the leading superstars in the game and Brooks had just retired and was beloved.
Plus, both players were World Series heroes in the days when being a World Series hero may have been the only 90 percent of the country saw you play
So, those cards being tougher cards in tough series were thus being not only sought after by collectors but also being kept by both advance and not so advanced collectors
Growing up in NY, we had tons of baseball to watch in the 70's on free TV and the games of the week as well. But if you grew up in a city like LA, I believe the only Dodgers games televised were Sunday road games and all the National games. And in cities without major league teams, probably less games to see as well.
Rich
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