Posted By:
Al CrisafulliJust because you can't see them, doesn't mean they're not there.
Again, if all the best sets were already graded, then there's virtually nothing left to grade. Who would get into that business? And yet there are two - some would say three - grading companies that are thriving and growing and consistently bringing in new material.
I think there is a long, long way to go - like, GENERATIONS - before ALL the best cards make their way out of the woodwork and back into the hobby. High-grade prewar cards have only been a serious, big-money endeavor for 20-30 years (with some notable exceptions). The incentive to sell has simply not been there long enough to have shaken out ALL the best collections.
I think it's a strange element to this hobby, to look at a few dozen high-grade sets that happen to be on registries, and draw the conclusion that since those are the only sets that are registered, that those are the only sets that exist. It's one of those strange occurrences where concepts like "probability" and "math" get thrown right out the window.
It's like saying that "All the best doctors in the country go to the AMA convention," or "All the best songwriters in the country get nominated for Grammies." The logic is flawed, because it's simply impossible to know all the best doctors or all the best songwriters - so nobody would make either of those statements.
To me, it is simple math. If one out of 50 MILLION people in this country has a high-grade, raw T206 set, then there are more high-grade raw sets than registered ones. I think that probability is higher than other people think it is, I guess.
-Al