Population of common preWWI cards

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Posted By: Matthew

Can someone help me out. I have been using the search function for a while & cannot find this. It seems like I remember a post (it has been a while back) that had a chart with a list of most pre WWI sets and the approx population of each that may still be remaining. Am I dreaming this up or does anyone else remember seeing that? Thanks.

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Posted By: leon

I don't remember seeing a post where anyone estimated populations of total pre-war baseball cards or cards by sets. I think we could all give it a SWAG guess but that's all it would be. If I had to guess I would say 2,354,932 in total. I am probably off by a little .... best regards

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Close Leon, but 2,345,678 may be a little closer... Now give me that 4BH Kelly for answering the question.

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Posted By: Paul Kaufman

Sounds like we have the makings of a new contest here!

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Posted By: Andy

Sounds great Paul. Now, everyone send me your pre-WWI cards and I'll start counting for the contest.

Andy

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I think Scot Reader's ebook had an approximation on card population, didn't it? There's lots in Scot's work, and I might be associating something I heard or read elsewhere while reading his book.

Frank.

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Posted By: peter chao

I really don't know where to start. But I will assume that there are fewer commons than star cards. Kids and adults for that matter tend to collect and keep their star cards because they are their heroes, the commons are the first to be given away in a paper drive, or thrown in the trash when people move.

Peter

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Posted By: Darren

How about counting up the # of pre WWI cards from our collections, I'll start a new thread.

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Posted By: John

So you will be looking for cards from 1887-1913 correct?

Also sports only or would non-sports and other sports count??

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Posted By: John S

I do not recall the list that you mention, but there have been many discussions of the relative populations of various issues. As part of those discussions I do remember estimates of the numbers of cards that have survived. I believe that Scot estimated that approximately 3000 of each common T206 are on the market or in collections.

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Posted By: Darren

John,

you are correct, technically 1887 to 1913.

It would hurt to note your non-baseball cards as well, cause I'm interested in that stuff.

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Posted By: John

It would hurt to note your non-baseball cards as well, cause I'm interested in that stuff.

Would hurt? Or Would Not? LOL

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Posted By: Joe D.

one of the tech guys here -
mine the PSA and SGC pop reports by set (if that is allowed?)
Figure out how many "complete sets" is possible among current graded cards.
Take out the real rarities in sets if that has a big effect on the numbers (like the big four in the T206).


Then post here: how many 'complete' sets are currently possible for each set (going by currently graded cards / pop reports).
I know the numbers won't be accurate, as POP reports don't tell the whole story and can over-count many cards.

But it still would be cool to see....

T200 - x possible sets
T205 - x possible sets
T206 - x possible sets
e92 - x possible sets

etc.


c'mon Trae - a program like that would probably take you about 5-10 minutes to write. No?

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Posted By: Scot Reader

John is right.

If I remember correctly, I came up with the 3,000 estimate as follows.

*Assume Demmitt (St. Louis) is a 350-only subject that was printed only with the Polar Bear back. (I believe this is correct for reasons that I won't elaborate on here).

*Assume the number of Demmitt (St. Louis) specimens extant is roughly 200.

*Assume Demmitt (St. Louis) is as prevalent as other 350-only subjects with the Polar Bear back.

*Survey data show that the Polar Bear back appears on roughly 6.6% of 350-only cards.

Therefore, the number of a typical 350-only subject extant is roughly 200 / 0.066, or 3,030. Round this to 3,000.

Assuming other T206 series are roughly as prevalent as the 350-only series, the total number of T206 specimens extant is roughly 3,000 * 520, or 1.56M. Round this to 1.5M.

Of course, these numbers are only as good as the assumptions.

Scot