What is a hoard? People throw around the term "hoard," but it is one of those terms that few people will agree on its absolute meaning. A "hoard" might mean 10,000 certificates. It might mean 10 certificates. Regardless of the number, the release of hoards affects prices.

Someone would have to live under a box not to know that when hoards of certificates hit the market, prices drop. The question is not IF releasing hoards will hurt prices, but how much and for how long.

Three concepts govern how much downward pressure may result from selling a hoard.

• How fast the seller wants to liquidate the hoard.
• How many collectors want items in the hoard.
• How much the hobby knows about the hoard.

These concepts are nothing more than a subset of the major law that governs the sale of all collectibles: the law of supply and demand.

Let's say 500 people want one particular variety of certificate, but only ten examples are known. No matter how much money they may have, 490 people are going to clammer for something they can't have. THAT is demand.

Conversely, imagine there are 500 examples of a very plain certificate and only 10 people really want that variety. No matter how low prices fall, selling any of the remaining 490 certificates will be difficult. THAT is over-supply.

It is against this backdrop that hoards affect prices.

The faster that sellers want to liquidate, the lower the prices they must accept. This seems obvious, but it is almost uncanny how many people choose to ignore this inviolable rule. If you want to dump a hoard quickly, you must be willing to accept pennies on the dollar.

Experienced sellers will liquidate hoards, even small hoards, over spans of years in an effort to balance unknown demand with their potential over-supply.

When it is there, demand makes itself known by higher auction prices. Gauging demand is tricky because it rises and falls throughout the year and with the ups and downs of national economies. Moreover, it takes multiple sales to establish whether an upward trend exists, or high prices are merely the result of two or three monied collectors satisfying a thin demand.

Information about hoards most emphatically affects prices, but predicting directions is almost impossible. Sometimes, full disclosure of a hoard's existence generates interest and a commensurate increase in demand for selected items. There are other times when it appears that knowledge decreases demand (and prices).

Like most other commodities, knowledge about hoards is neither equally distributed nor equally appreciated. That is why predicting the effect of disclosure is so difficult.

In general, simply understand that hoards will push prices down. The larger the hoard, the deeper and longer the effect.