Are some cards too rare for their own good?

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by BobC

Of course you can, the dealer you had originally purchased your Allegheny cards from had about two dozen 1904 Allegheny cards for sale in his case at the National in Cleveland this past August, and probably still has them. I was able to purchase one common from him for a reasonable price and had a great conversation with him about the set, but other than myself, he wasn't really getting a lot of interest or buyers for the others he had on display. As a bit of a type collector I just wanted to be able to say I owned one.

And you actually helped me to get that one at a reasonable price. I believe it was the weekend just before the National that you had put an Allegheny card up on Ebay for sale, and I used that price to negotiate with the dealer. He even said he remembered selling you several Allegheny cards, and pretty much confirmed to me that your Ebay sale was at a loss.

This sort of confirms what Leon was bringing up about these rare cards not getting as much interest (or value) because they are so rare. You would have expected this dealer to have sold out the ones he had at the National pretty quickly had there been a lot of interest in them. Word of mouth would have gotten around the National fairly fast if these were really desirable. I had only been that aware of them because of that recent Ebay sale just before the National, which caught my eye and piqued my interest. Still, they do not go cheaply in relation to most other cards from the early 1900's.

You can also compare these 1904 Allegheny cards to the 1921 Herpolsheimer cards, which are also all 1 of 1s, though the Herpolsheimers appear to go for quite a bit less. Possibly due to the fact they are more recent than the 1904 Allegheny cards and that most all of them have a written dollar amount on the backs in pencil, but still all 1 of 1s. If either of these issues were to trade a little more often, they may start to see a bump up in value. Otherwise, unless it is a type card collector looking for an example of that issue, or a specific player collector looking for that card of the player he collects, most mainstream collectors go right past these auctions/sales of such ultra-rare cards when they do come up.

+1...I used to have the 21 herpolsheimer cobb...and the t207 red cross lowdy...and the m101-6 ruth(yankees)...all rare cards...all I sold before their time...except for lowdy of which I do not believe will ever be the right time!!!! A good example of a card too rare for its own good. Also recently inquired about the 53-55 howard photo willie mays...a rare...early willie mays card...of which there are 6 on the pop reports...very little info and interest.