There are a couple alarms for me with eternal staples.

1. Fakes becoming unrecognizable to the real thing. I have some of the most recent fakes. They are getting closer. Casual players will settle for fakes.

2. Stability in specific formats. Modern IS an attempt to create a big meta to satisfy the legacy player base while sidestepping the reserve list.

3. You have to find a buyer. Selling any card over 5k may be like selling a car.

4. Same as 3 but the other way around. When buying these staples you need to really verify legitimacy.

5. Reserve list is a legal binding suggestion that a giant company could overturn.

After my concerns I have reasons to see why this is attractive.

1. Reserve list staples are rare.

2. Demand will always be there.

3. New players ensure growth in demand.

4. Cards are demanded in lots of countries.

5. You could influence the market with reddit, community pumping or artificial demand.

I'm still reluctant to sell my set of duals even though 4 billion cards printed before 1994. Lots of duals in there.

As for back pricing the lotus. It would be fun to back log pricing from inquest for major staples. The system supports back logging. Pretty much just need one price entry a year before 2011.