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SCYou'd just have to be very selective on what you chose. The item would need to have:
1) Inherent demand - if the goal is to move the market, you're going to need people who want the card as well. Otherwise, no one is going to care if they can't get a particular card, if there's no real desire for it.
2) A reasonable quantity. If the item is too rare, it already suffers from a lack of demand because collectors can't want more what they already can't have. Equally, good luck trying to get a card that can still be found in bricks!
3) A price/quantity total that is within reason. Of course, they will tend to average, as many more expensive cards are that due to scarcity, or visa versa.
In looking at it, I would target a card as follows:
A 1950s Topps card - pre-57 there's still some scarcity (in relative terms) to Topps cards compared to anything later, and prewar cards as a whole just don't have the market appeal of the baby boomer generation players.
A major HOF rookie, but not Mantle as he's just too expensive
My thought would be to go after the rookie cards of Aaron, Banks, Kaline, Clemente, or Koufax. I would probably choose Aaron or Koufax because they have the widest market appeal.
How many Koufax RCs are on the market? eBay shows 10 active (1955 topps koufax search) and 40 in stores. Are there more than 1000 Koufax's in the available market? Maybe if you want to narrow it further, only go after Koufax RCs in 7 or better.
IT's a couple hundred thousand dollar project, but it would be interesting.