Help - Sweet Cap 460 factory 25s - SERIFS!

[t206fix]

I've been working on a little pet project regarding SC.460.25 over the past few years and I think that I've reached a point where I need a little help from the t206 community. Regarding the 460s, I've notice that small percentage of cards in the subset have a unique printing flaw on the back side whereas the "SERIES" appears as "SERIFS". It's as if a small projectile laid over the E, causing it to appear as an F. I thought it would be "fun" to search out and collect all 69 cards with this flaw.

*I apologize, I don't know how to manage pictures, so I'm going to do follow up posts. Forgive the many, consecutive posts.

[t206fix]

I found examples of each card with and without the SERIFS. So it's not unique to only a certain group of cards.

The 460.25 subset consists of Super Prints, 460 only and 350-460 subgroup b. The SERIFS flaw is found in all three groupings, so it's not a print group issue.

[t206fix]

So, I'm asking you to check your SC.460.25s and look for these SERIFS. I really would like to know if there are just some cards out there that just don't have it, or if I need to keep searching. It's been about a year since I discovered a new SERIF, so it would be fun to see a new one. Please feel free to post on here with a scan of the cards you have, or feel free to PM me.

Thank you!

[brianp-beme]

Probably not too helpful, but the 4 Sweet Caporal 460 factory 25 cards I have (Johnson pitching, Needham, Reulbach no glove and Willis throwing) all have 'series'.

I guess that makes me a member of the 'SANS SERIFS' tribe. Hopefully some 'SERIFS' folks can come forward to help out with your quest.

Brian

[judsonhamlin]

Once again, this site is a font of knowledge

[brianp-beme]

Definitely our community is on the forefont of late-breaking T206 back minutiae. Which makes us way cool.

Brian

[steve B]

That should only be on one card on each sheet.

So the number you have plus any new discoveries would give us the number of different sheets were used for the 350/460-25s

[t206fix]

Oops, sorry guys, didn't look at this thread over the weekend.

I have found 12 - I thought I would have found a lot more.

Here they are

Abbatchio
Baker
Camnitz AAS
Doyle batting
Evers
Griffith
Joss
Lake
Magee
Merkle
Murray
Overall

It seems that Griffith and Baker are very common which is surprising considering they are HOFers

I've only seen one copy of Evers, Joss, Merkle

and like I said, it's been awhile since I've seen a "new" discovery.

Why do you think that it would only be one card on each sheet, Steve?

[t206fix]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Definitely our community is on the forefont of late-breaking T206 back minutiae. Which makes us way cool.

Brian

haha, this is very true.... I don't think anyone else in the world would find this even a slight bit interesting besides a handful of guys. We are cardboard nerds!

[Blapo]

There’s a Baker and a Doyle batting PSA 6 on eBay....

[Ronnie73]

I'll have to dig mine out and check them. I have a decent quantity. But give me some time to get to them. It's not simple like looking at 35 pages in a binder. The last time I weighed my T206 collection, I had just went over the 200 pound mark lol. Yes, much of it is plastic weight. But if I ever had to crack them all, for some sort of doomsday situation and you were limited by how much extra weight you could take with you, I'd be at 3 pounds completely raw, no sleeves or card savers. Yes, these are the things I think about at night when I can't sleep and had already searched eBay a few times lol I'm taking my T206's with me and leaving all my 1987 Topps. But if something like that was to actually happen, 1987 Topps would probably be more rare than the T206's. So some of you might want to start weighing your 1987 Topps

[t206fix]

Originally Posted by Blapo

There’s a Baker and a Doyle batting PSA 6 on eBay....

Yeah, Doyle and Magee are seen a lot as well.

I think there are a couple of Griffiths on there as well, at least last time I checked.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by t206fix

Oops, sorry guys, didn't look at this thread over the weekend.

I have found 12 - I thought I would have found a lot more.

Here they are

Abbatchio
Baker
Camnitz AAS
Doyle batting
Evers
Griffith
Joss
Lake
Magee
Merkle
Murray
Overall

It seems that Griffith and Baker are very common which is surprising considering they are HOFers

I've only seen one copy of Evers, Joss, Merkle

and like I said, it's been awhile since I've seen a "new" discovery.

Why do you think that it would only be one card on each sheet, Steve?

The plates/stones would have been laid out using transfers, which all come from the same master.
Flaws like this are usually from the transfer not getting fully transferred, so usually only happened once. Similar to the clipped or doubled name/team lines.

A few years ago I started looking at some plate scratches on P150, trying to assemble at least a partial sheet. (In stamps it's called plating, but there the sheet size is usually known... ) something that Pat R really understood right off, and took it way beyond what I had. He's got most of them figured out, and Unless there's a triplet I've missed, he has nearly all of them, with only two different fronts.
He's done the same for a bunch of other flaws, and a few other people have as well.

Another approach I was looking at was pop reports, but it was very difficult for anything but the 150s, and not conclusive. Chris B I believe shared a possible sheet/print run breakdown he did a different method that was for the 460's, and all the ones I checked using pop reports looked like they checked out. (and one group of SC was suprisingly difficult. )

I just recently found his chart again, and I'm planning on comparing it to the list of fronts you've seen with this flaw. I suspect these will confirm most of those groups - In other words, each front with the flaw will only appear once in a group.

It's also possible the transfer was larger than a single back by the time the 460's came out, and that the "master" for that larger transfer was laid out with single transfers one of which didn't transfer properly so it was on multiple positions.
For example if they did a 4x? grid and the bad transfer was in column 3 then every 4th column would have the same flaw.
Since transfers don't always transfer perfectly, one way to try to prove or disprove either would be through other smaller differences and whether they're there or not there consistently.

[t206fix]

Thanks for the response Steve. Any info you have (you mentioned a chart), I'd love to take a look at and do some research as well... In fact any info you have I'd like to look at.

I've seen the progress on the P.150 scratch plates. Cool work!

thanks!

[steve B]

The plate scratches is almost all Pat R. I started, and going from Ebay and auction scans had found around 30. Pat wanted to compare notes, and he had something like 3x that many.

The chart Chris did wasn't something he put out there, so that should be up to him if it gets shared. It's a bit complex, and needs a little interpretation. He didn't think it was really done.

One thing that makes it all more complicated is that there were multiple slightly different versions of most cards, indicating multiple press runs with different masters. The 150's were done probably 3 times, one of those being very difficult and maybe just an on plate alteration. 350s were also redone at least once, probably twice.

Some of that I really need to write up properly. I'm still trying to figure out how to share the visual spreadsheet I'm working on for 49 Leaf, which is much simpler.

I may try to get started on T206 the same way as they've shut down school to remote learning here in town, and I'm stuck at home.

[t206fix]

I understand. Anything anyone wants to share with me, I would appreciate it. I love to work on these things.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by t206fix

Oops, sorry guys, didn't look at this thread over the weekend.

I have found 12 - I thought I would have found a lot more.

Here they are

Abbatchio
Baker
Camnitz AAS
Doyle batting
Evers
Griffith
Joss
Lake
Magee
Merkle
Murray
Overall

It seems that Griffith and Baker are very common which is surprising considering they are HOFers

I've only seen one copy of Evers, Joss, Merkle

and like I said, it's been awhile since I've seen a "new" discovery.

Why do you think that it would only be one card on each sheet, Steve?

Hi Tony,

Here's 3 different Evers I'll look for some of the others when I get a chance.

Evers 1 Back.jpg
Evers 1.jpg

Evers 2.jpg

Evers 3 Back.jpg
Evers 3.jpg

[Pat R]

six different Joss. It looks like 40%-50% of the subjects found with the flaw are missing part of the E

Joss 1 Back.jpg
Joss 1.jpg

Joss 2 Back.jpg
Joss 2.jpg

Joss 3 Back.jpg
Joss 3.jpg

Joss 4 Back.jpg
Joss 4.jpg

Joss 5 back.jpg
Joss 5.jpg

Joss 6 back.jpg
Black Background - Copy (3).jpg

[atx840]

Thanks Steve, even I cant quite recall how to use this and it was no where near finished.

Each 28 group could be combined with the different 6 groups to make a sheet of 34 unique cards. As well as one sheet of the 21 & 13 groups.

Right table shows the possible combinations to create the different back brand sheets/subsets.

The SC460F25s subset/sheets are made up of:
Group 1A (with Ames) + Group 7
Group 1B (with Dougherty) & Group 7
Group 3 & Group 4

[Luke]

I save all my scans so I should have a couple dozen or so. I'll email them to you.

[t206fix]

Thanks Chris, Steve, Pat...

Can anyone provide a color coding to the chart - very interesting...

I find that there are some 350/460.25s that are super abundant... O'Leary, Doyle Batting, Reulbach, Dougherty... and some not so much.

460 only 25s are tougher than the 350/460s, but some are super tough. I wonder if this is a function of the sheet groups that you guys pointed out. I would like to delve into it a little more.

Another question, why sheets of 34? What would that look like? I know there are some threads about sheet size, but haven't read them in awhile. Maybe I'll go research them, unless you guys have links.

Thanks for the scans, Pat. Did you find anymore of Merkle?

[Pat R]

I only found one Merkle Tony but I only found six different SC350/460 factory
25's images.

Here's the one I found is it the same one you have on your list?

Merkle Back.jpg
Merkle.jpg

[steve B]

Sheet size is probably going to be one of the most difficult things to figure put, and one of the most rewarding once it is.

There are basically sort of two camps, one that believes solidly in sheets being multiples of 12 subjects. * The other basing things on 17/34 subjects.

When you look at the set as a single unit, there are solid arguments for both.
The traditional 150 only cards are pretty much a group of 12.
48 southern leaguers for OM and Piedmont.

AH! BUT

Hindu Southern league...34

And many other groups that are 17 or 34 cards.


Then there are the heretics like me that say it's nowhere near that simple...

Depending on how you interpret a particular gap, some of what Pat has found with the plate scratches leads me to consider a sheet 34 or more cards wide, by some unknown number tall. (we know almost certainly that each column was the same player. Some sheets had a change to a different player at some point on the sheet)
Figuring printing time based on number of colors and the sheets/minute of most old presses would seem to indicate not only multiple different sheets simultaneously, but larger sheets as well.

I think that the same stack of fronts getting different backs is almost if not already proven.
But it's entirely possible that some of the less common brands had their own sheets with fewer subjects.

The Pop report breakdown of the chart Chris did lined up very well, maybe 4 cards seemed potentially out of place. (across almost all groups HOF and high demand cards seem to be graded about 2x as often as commons. The exceptions being the rare backs where there just aren't enough cards to tell. )

[steve B]

Darn, left out a bit.

Just definitions of how I call some stuff, which is based on stamp stuff.

Subject- a particular card like a player portrait vs non- portrait.

Position - the single location on a sheet. Like row 5 card 3. (In stamps where the sheet size is usually known, the positions are numbered from 1 at the top left to however many across then for a 10 column sheet 11 just below 1 in the first column.

[t206fix]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I only found one Merkle Tony but I only found six different SC350/460 factory
25's images.

Here's the one I found is it the same one you have on your list?

Attachment 422965
Attachment 422966

Haven't revisited this thread in awhile...

Here is the one that I have - that means only two seen so far... anyone else own or have a scan of a Merkle SERIF? The others seem to be quite common except this Merkle. But I think in general, the Merkle is one of the tougher 460.25s to find.

[dougscats]

If you'r keeping stats, Tony, I've got Griffith, Overall, and Lake.

[frankbmd]

Que serif, serie
Whatever the font will be
On only the back we’ll see
Que serif, serie

Credit: The Man Who Knew Too Much
& the lovely Doris Day