Discussion re E Cards -- Opinions Needed

[T206Collector]

I am by no means an expert in E cards, but I am a serious T206 card collector who sometimes gets distracted by certain E issues. What I mean by that is I sometimes spend months or even a year or two collecting an E issue. I went through an E95 phase, a Dockman phase, and an E90-1 phase. To me the biggest difference in collectability is that the caramels are just not as liquid as the T206s. They just sit there and don't get offers very often. And if you do sell at auction, the prices realized seem to me to be much more inconsistent than T206s, which are liquid and consistent in pricing. The market for T206s is healthy and predictable.

Having said that, Wagner on Caramel cards - like Cobb - will often see pretty strong prices. So I wouldn't imagine there would be too much trouble if you wanted to resell at some point in the near future.

[Peter_Spaeth]

E103s are highly desirable, for me anyhow, disagree with you there.

[Rhotchkiss]

Peter, I have actually noticed that E103's, at least Cobbs and Wagners, etc tend to have higher prices, so perhaps you are right there. That's likely the result of the relative scarcity of E103s, as their population seems to be more in line with E105s and E92 Crofts than other cards I suggested may be less desirable, but that's a topic for another thread. Regardles, good point and noted.

[x2drich2000]

No one cares about caramels so walk, no, run away as fast as you can

In all seriousness, Pete and I have the same feeling about T206 vs caramel.
One of the main reasons I moved on to caramels is cause they are generally much harder to find then T206. I look at this way, if you go to a big show such as Philly/White Plains/etc and $ wasn't a factor, you could probably come close to building a complete T206 set minus the big four (and probably could get at least a good lead on those as well). On the other hand, I doubt you would be able to put together any E90-E106 set and likely wouldn't even get half way unless someone was breaking a set. Over the past 3 or 4 years, I think I've found only 3 E92 nadjas (excluding the St. Louis players). Most of the time when I ask dealers at shows if they have have any caramels they look at me like I have 3 heads.

The reason you see so many more of the E92/101/102 family of sets is just due to so many different varieties having the same front compared to sets like e93/e95/e96/etc which have unique poses for each set. Thus it seems the e92 family of sets appears to be more popular. Also, the E92 Dockman is one of the easier caramel sets to complete and includes both Wagners and Mathewson which make those cards appear much more frequently than the other caramel sets.

1 other thing that I think is consistently overlooked is certain players in the E92 family are easy with one back compared to others with the same back, but with a different back, may be harder much harder. Young is a great example, compared to other E105's, his card is very easy. Same with the crofts cocoa. However, with the nadja back is harder than most other nadjas. Same thing with Davis, his blue crofts candy and nadja are not terribly difficult, but I've never seen any indication that a black crofts candy, which in general should be easier, even exists.

As far as paying up for rare backs, I absolutely will