T205 Breakdown for back scarcity 2004-05

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Posted By: J Levine

T-205 Breakdown for 2005:

This is my yearly breakdown of back frequency on the T-205 Gold Border set. This year, I have broken it down a little further including factory designations. This continues my quest to figure out how they were printed (incl. how many on a sheet, and how many different printings there were). It is also an examination of the rarity of the backs and how they relate to prices, scarcity, etc.

The following includes back information taken from card shows, e-bay, other online/phone/mail auctions, internet sales sites, and collectors. Granted, this is but a small cross-section but taken over the years I feel it is becoming pretty accurate. At the end of the yearly notes is the compilation of the last several years work with the breakdowns. Also some interesting notes on scarcity and rarer cards.

Last year was a banner year for T205 sales especially on e-bay. This year was slower (over 500 less t205s seen and sold) but had some different finds that changed the percentages. Many more Honest Long Cut and Sovereign backs were seen this year. Oddly, the only Drum I saw this year was one that was sold last year as well, so I did not include it in the population report. Prices overall were up but not really all that much (around 5% for commons on e-bay and 7% for Hofers and scarcities) and many HOFers and scarcities (with a few exceptions) could be had at bargain prices this year especially in lower grades.

2005 T-205s seen by scarcity order from least to most. Factory codes are only listed for cards that have different factory codes.

Advertiser/ Color/ Fact. Code/ # of cards seen/ %Total
Piedmont/ Blue/ 25/ 512/ 16.4
Polar Bear/ Blue/ / 473/ 15.2
Sweet Cap./ Red / / 451/ 14.5
Sweet Cap./ Black/25/ 321/ 10.3
Sweet Cap./ Black/42/ 309/ 9.9
Hassan/ Green/649/ 307/ 9.9
Honest Long Cut/Black/ 307/ 9.9
Sovereign/ Green/ 191/ 6.1
Cycle/ Black/ 107/ 3.4
Hassan/ Green/ 30/ 99/ 3.2
American Beauty/ Black/ 17/ .55
American Beauty/ Green/ 8/ .26
Piedmont/ Blue/ 42/ 6/ .19
Broadleaf/ Black/ / 2/ .06
Broadleaf/ Green/ / 2/ .06
Hindu/ Brown/ 2/ .06
Drum/ Brown/ 0/ .00


Total 205s taken for this research: 3114


A few observations...
The Moran w/ stray line of type is commanding huge money lately. That is as it should be but the Gray w/ stats should not be commanding such a huge premium. To be honest, this variation comes with two distinct back ads, Piedmont 25 and Sovereign. This should change things as the Piedmont 25 back was seen twice this year and the Sovereign twice. The Moran stray line only came up for sale twice total this year (and I think it may have been the same card that was graded but unsure).

Wilhelm is also getting a lot attention but I think that will calm down...both variations come with common backs and several were seen lately on and off e-bay.

Big discussion about scarcity lately concerning the Joss. I still feel it falls somewhere in the middle scarce range with cards like Collins/Breshnahan open mouth, Vaughn, etc. I still think Wagner, Karger, Kleinow, Fisher, Grant, Suggs, are a lot tougher.

As an aside, tracking back-front combinations...I still have not seen some supposedly common combinations and if anyone has a scan of these I would be wonderfully appreciative.

Looking for the following:
Bailey Piedmont 25
Birmingham Piedmont 25
Carrigan Polar Bear
Collins closed Polar Bear
Devore Piedmont 25
Dygert Polar Bear
Elberfeld Polar Bear
Goode Piedmont 25
Groom Polar Bear
Killian Piedmont 25
Lennox Piedmont 25 and Polar Bear
H. Lord Piedmont 25
Lush Polar Bear
Magee Polar Bear
Milan Polar Bear
Murphy Polar Bear
O’Leary Polar Bear
Schaefer Polar Bear
Scott Piedmont 25
Sharpe Polar Bear
Speaker Polar Bear
Doc White Polar Bear

Lastly, I do have the collation for the last six years if anybody is interested they can drop me an e-mail.

Joshua Levine

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Posted By: jay behrens

It still amazes me that ABs are so rare by your studies. The set I used to have had somehwere between 15029 ABs. They never seemed that rare to me, but then again, I handled a lot of HLCs too.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: tbob

15,029 ABs? You must have had close to a half million T205s
I saw 2 T205 Hindus at national and passed on both. Bigger fish to fry although the prices were not that out of the ballpark.

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Posted By: jay behrens

ooops, serious typo, that should be 15 to 20.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: J Levine

Jay,
Honestly, I think that American Beauties are more plentiful than what I have seen as well. They just do not come up for sale that often...I have seen the same American Beauty (black) Stone come up for sale at least four times this year. In my personal collection, I have 4 blacks and 3 greens. I think that collectors like you and I also tend to seek out the rarer backs and buy them for our sets whereas older collectors and orginal collections just did not do that...If you look at my set, I now have 7 Piedmont 42 backs because I tend to buy them and replace the other backs whenever I can because I still feel they are unrecognized as a rarity.

I also feel that Honest Long Cut is not as rare as the research portrays either but again, they have not come up for sale in the past few years as much as other backs (although did make a small jump this year).

All my fairly unscientific casual observations and opinions and dissenting opinions are certainly welcome.

Joshua