Uncatalogued cards

Seeing the Hofnlan card brought this issue to mind, why do people want to hide uncatalogued cards?

On one level I understand that some will want to try and hoard the cariation before releasing the info, ala Fritsch and the Doyle variation. Others hide them because they feel they can get a better sale price if the card is uncatalogued.

My experience with the Hofnlan card disspells some of the above. I showed the card to people, even tried to sell it on eBay with a $250 BIN and didn't get any bites. After a lot of legwork, I was finally able to convince Bob Lemke to list it as a variation in the standard catalgue. After that, I consigned the card to REA and it ended up selling for more than 10 times my original asking price.

This is a perfect case where having the card catalogued made the card more valuable, rather than trying to hide it from the hobby. Personlly, I dislike the fact that people hide uncatalgued cards. Probably because I dislike the fact they are putting $$$ and petty self interest before expanding the knowledge base of the hobby.

Jay

I never understood why some collectors are reluctant to share information about their uncatalogued cards with the hobby. I realize some old school collectors prefer to maintain a low profile and are secretive with their holdings. But aside from that, are people really risking losing $ by bringing their uncat cards to light? Jay's Hofnlan story certainly speaks to the contrary, and I can think of numerous other instances where the same was true.

And for the advancement of hobby knowledge in general; wouldn't it be great to see more uncatalogued cards uncovered and checklisted? They are plenty still out there.

From personal experience, I have had the same luck as Jay - it is MUCH MORE difficult to sell an uncat. card than one listed in the SCD. One might think they are going to make more money, but in the end, it will more than likely cost them (unless they sell it through a major auction house and they describe the card correctly).

Non-sports cards are the way baseball cards were a long, long time ago (maybe before Burdick) in that it seems that most sets are uncataloged. It is kinda fun to report in new discoveries in each person's area of specialty and watch the knowledge and database grow. There are plenty of entire sets unknown, not solely card variations. Actually, variations are largely overlooked at this time.

Now if only that aspect of the hobby takes off like this one did - we will have all gotten in on the ground floor. And if not, well it is still a lot of fun at relatively low cost. But withholding information - I'm not sure that I understand the motivation for that.

While a new set will make more money if legitimized in the SCD, that isn't the case with new cards from obscure sets. For instance, if a new example (common player) from the Orange Border or Leader Novelty set gets reported, it will probably be listed in the SCD as a common with the lowest price for that set. But if it's sold as an uncat. card, it potentially could be unique, and therefore usually carries a descent premium.

I'm an evil bastard, I would sell the card and at the same time report the card to SCD so it can be listed in the next big book. That's one reason, if I had the money to spend on uncatalogued cards, I would be very leery of buying them just for this very reason. The person can say they never reported, but have no way of knowing for sure until the next book. Even then, as soon as another copy is found, it will most likely be reported and then whoever is holding the first copy is left holding the bag and losing money on the card.

Jay