T206 Back Scarcity, Pricing, and Other Tidbits

[53toppscollector]

Originally Posted by HobokenJon

A very minor nit . . . In post #62 above, did you mean to say Wagner left shoulder instead of right shoulder?

Separately, another example of a 350-only Tolstoi back that isn’t in either of the pop reports is Stephens. I believe it probably is scarcer than any of the backs shown in your spreadsheet.

Yep, I fixed that Wagner notation, good catch.

[HobokenJon]

Here’s another “pop zero” 350-only Tolstoi: Ira Thomas. This is the only copy I’m aware of that’s been graded by PSA or SGC.

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...e?itemid=98759

[53toppscollector]

Thanks to everyone that commented/PMed me about errors and items to add that are not in either the PSA/SGC pop report.

I really wish they had a functionality where you could submit updates/corrections to the POP reports and they'd be handled quickly. Some of us take this very seriously!

Anyway, I have re-formatted the charts to remove a few little things that were bugging me, and I made in the updates people provided. A change log is at the bottom of the last post on the last page.

As I noted, I plan to re-update my population counts again in a few months, and if anything changes, I will be sure to update it here.

[parkerj33]

Fantastic data and research. Serious thread of the year candidate right here.

[53toppscollector]

So now that I've had a chance to kind of zoom out and look at the data I put together, I have some thoughts:

* Old Mill is underrated as a back, in general. And it is not just the 150 series HoF, there are so many very low pop Old Mills. Print Group 2 Old Mills are more plentiful (around 30 or so combined copies per front), Print Group 3 are plentiful (around 40-45 per front, on average), but they got tougher in Print Group 4, averaging only about 26 per front. Within Print Group 4 there are a bunch of very tough Old Mills, including 12 subjects that have less than 10 total combined copies. McGraw Glove at Hip has 105 copies of a Sovereign 460 back, but only 8 Old Mills, for instance.

* The American Beauty 460 sub-group is really fascinating to me. The same 12 cards mentioned above in the Old Mill group are very plentiful in AB 460 backs while being very very hard in OM backs. That group is

Crandall With Cap
Devore
Duffy
Ford
Gandil
Geyer
Hummel
McGraw Glove at Hip
Pfeffer
Sheckard Glove Shows
Tannehell (Tannehill on Front)
Wheat

These 12 cards all share a very similar card profile that I find super interesting:

-- AB 460 backs are very plentiful
-- Sovereign 460 backs are very plentiful
-- Tolstoi backs are very plentiful
-- SweetCap Factory 42 backs are very plentiful

-- Old Mill Backs are very scarce
-- EPDG backs are scarce
-- Polar Bear backs are scarce (relatively)
-- Cycle 460 backs are scarce

* Tolstoi backs are either very very rare or very very plentiful as a whole. The average number of Tolstoi examples for all subjects is 17, based on my numbers. However, there are 50 subjects with a pop of 5 or less! Tolstoi is generally not considered rare (by T206 standards) but as we see above in the charts and in the comments, there are a ton of very rare Tolstois out there and I am sure a few more will continue to pop up.

* I know this is bordering on sacrilege, but is it possible that Hindu Brown is.....overrated? According to my numbers, the average combined population for Hindu Brown per front is 20. That isn't Polar Bear, sure, but the average is also higher than Tolstoi, per subject, as noted above. Yet Hindu Browns command a massive premium over all the other moderate off backs. Now, there aren't any fronts that have a massive number of Hindu Browns. I count a total of 11 subjects that have 30 or more combined Hindu Browns:

- Bresnahan Portrait
- Fritz (SL)
- Greminger (SL)
- WaJo Portrait (38 examples, most populous)
- Leifield Pitching
- Lipe (SL)
- McCauley (SL)
- Persons (SL)
- Revelle (SL)
- Shaughnessy (SL) (38 examples, most populous)
- Sullivan

Of those 11, 7 of them are SLers.

On the flip side, there are only 8 subjects that have 10 or fewer Hindu Browns:

- Delehanty (Washington)
- Ewing
- Killian Pitching (7 copies, rarest)
- O'Leary Portrait
- Owen
- Schmidt Throwing
- Stone
- Wilhelm Hands At Chest

For those 8 cards, the Hindu Brown is not the clear cut scarcest back in a number of cases:

- Delehanty (EPDG is more scarce)
- Ewing (Hindu Brown is the most scarce)
- Killian Pitching (Hindu Brown is the most scarce)
- O'Leary Portrait (Old Mill is the most scarce)
- Owen (Old Mill/Hindu Brown are tied for most scarce)
- Schmidt Throwing (Old Mill is the most scarce)
- Stone (Hindu Brown is the most scarce)
- Wilhelm Hands At Chest (Old Mill and Hindu Brown are tied)

Hindu Brown is definitely a rare back, it was only available during the early part of T206 production, but is the price people are willing to pay a bit distorted based on population counts and relative scarcity? Not sure. Maybe?

[HobokenJon]

For the “Exclusive 12,” do your numbers show that these subjects are unusually scarce with Sweet Cap Factory 42 overprint backs? See Duffy, for example. Similarly, do your numbers show these subjects are relatively more plentiful with red Hindu backs? That’s been my experience, and Ted Z has pointed this out many times.

And on a personal note, would some kind soul out there please sell me an EPDG Hummel? Any condition will do!

[53toppscollector]

Originally Posted by HobokenJon

For the “Exclusive 12,” do your numbers show that these subjects are unusually scarce with Sweet Cap Factory 42 overprint backs? See Duffy, for example. Similarly, do your numbers show these subjects are relatively more plentiful with red Hindu backs? That’s been my experience, and Ted Z has pointed this out many times.

And on a personal note, would some kind soul out there please sell me an EPDG Hummel? Any condition will do!

Here are the numbers I have on the Exclusive 12



* Hindu Red for those averages 16 per front

* The average for the other subjects with a Hindu Red excluding those 12 is only 4. So they are exponentially more populous with Hindu Red backs than the other subjects that have a Hindu Red back

* The SC 460/42 OP average for all fronts that have at least 1 copy is 12, and the average for the Exclusive 12 is 8, so slightly lower. A few are quite rare (Devore, Pfeffer), but of course we don't really know how many of these exist because of labeling issues

[53toppscollector]

One of the big thrills for me, when looking at that last table, is that we should expect to find an Uzit for those remaining where the cell is blank. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't, and we know that if it does, we'll likely only find a small handful.

Everyone wants to own a Honus Wagner (I do, as well) but what I would really love would be to have old records from ATC that detail print runs, how many were actually made of each, etc. There are so many mysteries and things we don't know, and finding that set of written books/ledgers would be even more exciting to me than the next Drum or Lenox or Uzit find.

[HobokenJon]

Grazie.

You’re right about brown Hindu backs being overrated, of course. But they look so, so cool.

When I look at the numbers, the glaring candidates for most overrated are the Polar Bear Demmitt and O’Hara. I realize these subjects are less common than most Piedmont and Sweet Cap backs, and it’s also true that every 520 set needs both. But they are not rare. A Tolstoi Demmitt (N.Y.) is far rarer than a Polar Bear Demmitt (St. Louis), just as an Old Mill Magee is much scarcer than a Piedmont Magie error card. Maybe someday more Monster collectors will care.