T206 set question/survey

[rfurnish]

OK....so not including the big four.

PSA currently has 16 sets listed
SGC currently has 9 sets listed
tedzan personally knows of 28 sets
drdduet, ethicsprof, jimVB, & tbob account for four more

That's a total of 57 known, completed sets, assuming no overlap (ex: drdduet is not on one of the registrys or included in tedzan's group)

So there would still have to be 943 additional sets out there somewhere to hit the 1,000 mark. Man, that seems like a lot of sets. Assuming that Scot's surviving card estimates are fairly accurate, the logic for that total is sound...it just seems like a lot. Are there 1,000 copies of Demmitt, O'Hara and the lower printed southern leaguers floating around (and gathered together as a group)? I guess it's possible, but then again......

[T206Collector]

My latest passion is for signed T206 cards. After an initial burst of 25 or so a couple of years ago, getting additional ones has been in serious drips and drops. I added just 1 new player/pose during the entire 2008 calendar year, and this year I have added just 2 new player/poses.

And yet I am certain there are many out there that I have never seen, that are frankly just buried in collections and will never see the light of day. I have a theory that is similar to my friend's old cockroach theory -- if you see one on the floor, that means there are a 1,000 behind the wall. There are so many T206 cards available on ebay at this moment, that the number of T206 cards extant has just got to be huge. Which means to me that there must be a ton of massive collections out there as well -- many of which were completed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s that are just sitting there in binders or boxes.