The moral of this story is there is a lot more product out there than you could ever imagine. Most of it is thinly spread out and sadly a lot of it has likely been lost along the way. It is hard to imagine but more and more still gem mint cards are lost every year somehow. I bought a 4 figure collection off a guy last year that yielded me tons of gem mint 10’s from base unlimited, jungle fossil rocket and gym 1st editions and he had mentioned how under a year prior his kids binders, which were very similar in quantity and quality, had been lost (likely to a dumpster) in a move. It’s saddening.
The hoards like the one I am sure the photo shows though are the ones that as Gary mentions could really rock the markets if they hit it the wrong way. I’m not even sure if it’s proper to say “the wrong way” because if someone dealt with those gold star dogs from that hoard “the right way” all it would have done is prolong the inevitable drop in prices and burn a lot more people with higher prices than they were worth along the way.
I think Base 1st maybe would be the exception but I would wager to guess that there is still to this day enough product out there in hoards for every pop report to go up anywhere from 10x to 100x from where it sits today. That is counting all the hoards of untouched pack pulled gems as well as all the sealed product out there.
I’m actually working on something to get closer estimates on print runs of certain sets than I think anyone has shared before, but we will see how it goes.