I think you answered your own question in the first paragraph about why there is a large value gap in the price of wire photos.

It is a confusing market. Prices are all over the board. There does not appear to be a set price guide for these wire photos. There are no "sets to complete" or checklists. How many were produced? How many survived? What exactly does dictate value? How do I educate myself about them? Will current production become obselete as media delivery to the public morphs? There are a finite number of these things from past years but reproductions also cloud the water.

I could track say autograph prices and card values for the last 20 years by analyzing written price guides. I can study those markets and their trends over a period of time. When I study the wire photo market, I see alot of inconsistency like you have also pointed out(actually, this data is even tough to locate). It is very difficult to get a feel for the price market for wire photos during the last 20 years. Collecting wire photos and original sports photography seems to be a market that is just currently emerging to a wider audience. The market is now picking up despite the fact that much of this photography has been around for decades and decades.

This shift in the market is in part due to the expense of current cards and autographs. There is a invisible financial thresh hold that collectors unknowlingly bump up against and then their eyes start to wander towards another segment in the hobby to graduate on towards. There has been a growth of the single player or single team collector. Wire photos are a perfectly seductive alternative for all types of collectors. They display great, are flat and can be stored easy, can be found very cheap at times,some have descriptive captions, many are very old but in nice condition, they can be a true "one of one", are great conversation pieces, and they are not over produced. Add to this that any collector can find a wire photo that fits into their collection: all teams, all cities, all sports, and all moments are arguably available including many casual shots . Many of the photos have a cross collectible aspect(fashion, other celebrities, economics, sociology, history, and on and on).

Wire photos are generally produced during a players career and were not necessarily meant to be saved, two of my favorite measuring sticks for uber cool collectibles.

Once the demand increases, photos will start to be slabbed, authenticated and graded. Let us just hope we do not see cut up "wire photo swatches" pasted with a glue stick into insert cards. Ironically, several old wire photos have been chopped up for a cut autograph.

That Joe Jackson went for $2300? I wonder how many similar authentic photos can be found at garage sales for a dime. They are out there. Maybe it is time to start keeping an eye out for them.......................... there are truck loads of them that have yet to be discovered.