[Leon]

Originally Posted by jrawlsian

Does anyone know where, if anywhere, to find total print runs of various pre-war sets. Aside from the grading company populations, I want to see the actual population estimates for all cards produced. Just a curiosity to calculate some of the true rarities of old editions.

I did find this for some of the Bowmans: http://portasite.com/?page_id=4266 .

Would building up an estimate from retail sales organically be the only way to arrive at the numbers? I'm actually most interested in pre-war for this so might have to estimate packs of gum, tobacco or cigarettes produced.

Thanks.

There are numbers on some cards concerning the number of players in sets. And I think a few series (CJ's etc..) said they made a million or however many cards (probably as marketing hype). I don't think I have seen any hard distribution numbers...I don't think counting today's populations/sales of pre-war cards would be accurate in estimating how many were produced.