A couple of different categories here: Hoarded cards like the 52T Bartirome, and condition sensitive / hard to find centered cards.
There are a few mainstream media reports about the Curt Flood. Not terribly expensive but more expensive than it should be.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-baseball-card
As to condition sensitive cards, there are examples at the high end of grades in many of the sets from the late 40's to the 60's. The Gibson RC in 59T is very hard to find centered. But that's a star card. A few examples of non-HOF's or non-star cards of that vintage include:
1953 Topps Dick Groat, non-high number - the PSA 8 is something like 6X the PSA 7 and 60X the PSA6, where usual multiple is more like 2x more than the 7 and 4X more than the 6. It is the a non-high number and is the eighth most expensive card in a set at high grades, while there are about 20 HOF cards in the set.
1954 Topps Chuck Harmon and Ben Wade. Same story - exponential increase at PSA 8. These two are the 8th and 9th most expensive cards in a set that includes about 20 HOF cards.
Another set of anomalies can be found in 1959 topps. The #330 Gus Triandos comes in at the 11th priciest card in that set in grade 8+. Not in the high number series either.
Also, look at the last card in the set. Billy Pierce #572. It's really condition sensitive.