Late 70's early 80's is a tough time to compare to for this hobby, and probably also for several others. For baseball cards it was the time when the hobby really got some attention and had a lot of growth. It had been around for a long time, but hadn't caught on like it did then.
More established hobbies would be a better indicator, but there was odd stuff happening in some of those as well. In coins the metal markets and the hunt brothers attempt at cornering the market on silver made things very strange. Prices went sky high since many were tied to some degree to the metal used. Then when silver collapsed so did a load of prices.
Stamps had huge price increases, but many of them were essentially false. The price guide had price increases shown to justify the sale of a 5-6 volume set every year. And buying at half catalog value was typical. (Stamp values are far more closely related to catalog values than card values) Eventially it got silly and the price guide basically halved almost everything one year so they could get back to "reality" What a mess that was! Everyone still wanted to buy at half catalog, but the new catalog was half what it had been. A tough time for all, and it took years to recover. It's back to half catalog now, but only for the average stuff. Grading has come to stamps, along with crazy prices for top examples of even very common items. And the really good stuff usually brings over the catalog price.
Through all this, the truly rare stuff and high demand items always did fairly well. If there's less than say 10 of something, or if it's something nearly everyone wants the price guide isn't really useful. Plus with everything costing more paying more for collectibles looks more reasonable.
Steve
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