There is a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about what exactly constitutes a “T206 Rare Back”. If you do an eBay search for T206s right now, you’ll find dozens of listings using the word “Rare” to promote a card that really isn’t. If you’ve been collecting T206s for a number of years, you probably have a pretty good handle on the respective scarcities of the various T206 backs. Like most aspects of the set, the best way to learn the intricacies of the different backs is by handling a bunch of cards and spending a little bit of time most days looking at online listings and auctions. For me it took 4 or 5 years before I felt like I had a good understanding of aggregate and relative back scarcity.
This two-part article will be more helpful to new collectors than seasoned ones, but I think there is a little something for even the most advanced collectors. For collectors who are just becoming interested in the rare and mid-tier backs, the Back Scarcity Rankings that can be found online can be very helpful, but they only tell part of the story. These lists are designed to show you which backs are the scarcest, in an aggregate sense. For the most part, they deliver very useful information. For instance, it’s very important to know how rare a Uzit or Lenox back is, so that if you happen to find one, you will know that you should try to pick it up because it might be years before you have another shot at one.
However, those types of scenarios are more pipe dream than reality. The more likely scenario is something like this: Someone posts a bunch of T206s on ebay. Most of them have a Piedmont back, but one has an American Beauty 460 back and another has a Tolstoi back. Going by the Back Scarcity Rankings, you’d assume that the American Beauty 460 would be the card to acquire (assuming you can’t get both). But in reality, it could go either way. There are common American Beauty 460s and rare Tolstois. In this article, I’ll attempt to shed some light on relative scarcity and scarcity within each back subset.
These are the “Rare Backs” of the T206 set:
- Brown Old Mill
- Brown Lenox
- Broad Leaf 460
- Drum
- Uzit
- Red Hindu
- Black Lenox
- Broad Leaf 350
- Blank Back
- Carolina Brights
There is a pretty big gap between the rarity of Carolina Brights and the next rarest back. I believe Cycle 460 is the next rarest back (and I will delve further into this in a couple weeks) but you could argue for American Beauty 460 as well.
Here are the “Mid-Tier” backs, separated into three tiers based on rarity. Within each tier, they are listed in alphabetical order:
Tier 1:
American Beauty 460
Cycle 460
Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42
Tier 2:
American Beauty 350 No Frame
Brown Hindu
Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 25
Tier 3:
American Beauty 350 with frame
Cycle 350
El Principe de Gales
Old Mill (Base Ball Subjects)
Sovereign 150
Sovereign 350 Green Apple
Sovereign 460
Tolstoi
Tier 1:
American Beauty 460
There are either 74 or 75 cards in the American Beauty 460 Subset*. The subset is comprised of poses from the 350-460 Series as well as the 460 Only Series. In an aggregate sense, AB460 is one of the three scarcest Mid-Tier backs, but the individual distribution has an odd twist to it. 12 of the poses are pretty easy to find, while the others range from scarce to near impossible-to-find. These 12 poses are plentiful in comparison to the others:
-Crandall with cap
-Devore
-Duffy
-Ford
-Gandil
-Geyer
-Hummel
-McGraw glove at hip
-Pfeffer
-Sheckard glove showing
-Tannehill on front
-Wheat
These 12 poses tend to sell for less than other American Beauty 460 poses. There are some AB460 poses that haven’t come to market in a number of years, Prices can be very strong for the rarest front/back combos.
Cycle 460
There are 109 poses in the Cycle 460 Subset. This is in my opinion the scarcest of all the Mid-Tier backs. This article is meant to set the stage for a number of more research intensive pieces that will be published in the near future. Look for an in-depth series on Cycle 460s to come in the next few weeks, entitled “T206 Cycle 460 Backs: Overlooked and Undervalued”. In this series, I will show in detail, why I believe Cycle 460 to be the rarest of all Mid-Tier backs, slotting in just behind Carolina Brights on the overall Back Scarcity Rankings.
Cycle 460 backs appear to follow a normal distribution. That is, some poses are more plentiful than others, but it is likely just due to chance and the randomness of which cards survived all these years.
Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42
This is clearly one of the scarcest Mid-Tier backs, but it is hard to study them because the grading companies have not recorded them until recently. Someone who has been collecting backs and paying attention to the market for the last 20 years would have a much better idea of their aggregate scarcity than I do. My strengths lie in analyzing the data that is available to us, mainly in the form of Population Reports. I feel that Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42 backs are slightly scarcer than Brown Hindu, but it’s probably very close either way. Piedmont Factory 42 is the least scarce of the Tier 1 backs, and Brown Hindu is the scarcest back in Tier 2.
A big thanks to the guys at T206resource.com for the use of their invaluable checklists.
*There is a question of whether Ames Hands Above Head was actually printed with an American Beauty 460 back or not.