Month: June 2017

The “Dark Ink” Connection Between The T206 Sweet Caporal Factory 649 Subset, 150-350 Old Mill Subset, and the Elite Eleven: Part Two

A normal looking Sovereign 150 Gilbert on the left, and a “dark ink” Old Mill on the left

In the first part of this series, I introduced the three distinct print qualities that can be found on poses from the 150-350 Series with Old Mill backs.  The Gilbert above is a good example of a “dark ink” Old Mill.  This “dark ink” phenomenon is not exclusive to Old Mills.  It can be observed on the following 150-350 Series backs:

1.  Old Mill

2.  Piedmont 350

3.  Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25

“Dark Ink” Manning Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 25. Sorry about the blurry scan. It was hard to find a scan with this back.

4.  Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 30

You’ll notice that the following 150-350 series backs are not a part of the above list:

  • El Principe de Gales
  • Sovereign 350 Forest Green

EPDG was the first back printed in the 350 portion of the 150-350 Series.  The fact that no EPDGs have been found with “dark ink” on the fronts is interesting, but not too surprising.  150-350 Series poses with EPDG backs look very similar to their 150 Series counterparts because they were printed soon after.

At this point, the jury is still out on whether there are any 150-350 Series Subjects out there with a “dark ink” front and a Sovereign 350 back.  I expect that there are, but I haven’t been able to find any scans to prove it.

Where the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 Subset Comes In:

The most hardcore T206 nerds among us may notice that the five poses pictured above all have something in common.  They are among the 34 poses that comprise the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 Subset.  The common theme with the majority of these “dark ink” cards is that they are poses that can be found with SC 150/649 backs.   So far, I have only found a few that feature players who are not a part of the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 Subset.  The Keeler Old Mill below is one example.

Two paragraphs ago I mentioned that I have yet to find a “Dark Ink” front with a 150-350 Series Sovereign 350 Forest Green back.  The pattern would dictate that they do exist, but there is a reason why they would be tougher to find than a copy with Old Mill, Piedmont 350 or Sweet Caporal 350.

The Old Mill, Piedmont 350 and Sweet Caporal 350 Subsets all contain the majority of poses that make up the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 Subset.  The Sovereign 350 Subset only contains 10 poses that are part of the SC 150/649 Subset.  Therefore, it is a lot tougher to find examples with Sovereign 350 backs to examine.  Here are the 10 poses that exist with both SC 150/649 and Sovereign 350 Forest Green:

  1. Bresnahan Portrait
  2. Davis, George
  3. Goode
  4. Griffith Portrait
  5. Johnson Portrait
  6. Killian Hands at Chest
  7. Liebhardt
  8. Manning Batting
  9. O’Leary Portrait
  10. Sheckard No Glove Showing

Of these 10, I have seen “Dark Ink” cards featuring only Killian, Liebhardt, and Manning.  I expect that one or all of those three poses will be found with a Dark Ink Sovereign 350.  If you have one or have a scan of one, please let me know.

In Part Three, I’ll explain what the Elite 11 and the “Washed Out” Old Mill, Piedmont 350, and Sweet Caporal 350s can teach us about the 350 portion of 150-350 Series Print Runs.

The “Dark Ink” Connection Between The T206 Sweet Caporal Factory 649 Subset, 150-350 Old Mill Subset, and the Elite Eleven: Part One

When you’ve handled enough T206s, certain patterns start to take shape.  It starts by noticing something small that seems a little odd on a certain card.  Most of the time these slight variations between cards are due to the inexact nature of the printing processes and don’t point us toward a larger pattern.  However, after you see the same oddities a few times with the same card, or a group of cards that can be linked together in some way, that’s when some interesting patterns can start to take shape.

Typically the articles that I write are completely researched before I publish them, but this group of articles will be a little different.  With this subject matter, it’s hard to “prove” anything, so I am content to just throw the idea out there for now.  One huge obstacle in trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle is that these 150-350 Series Old Mills are scarce.  Connecting the dots necessarily requires putting faith in the conclusions drawn from examining a small set of examples.  But, I figure I have handled more 150-350 Old Mills than just about anyone, so I feel qualified to throw out a new theory regarding them.  I’ll be interested to see what other people think, and I will continue to delve into the topic in the future.

This series of articles is going to take a look at the three backs noted above, but it feels natural to start with Old Mill, even though they were printed last.  I’ve studied T206s with Old Mill backs more extensively than any other back, and it was looking at Old Mills that lead me down this train of thought.

There are three distinct print qualities that I have observed on dozens of cards from the 150-350 Series Old Mill Subset:

1. Clean, crisp images that look more like 150 Series images than 350 Series
Sullivan Old Mill that is neither overly dark nor “washed out” in appearance
2. “Dark Ink” cards that are much darker and more heavily inked than other cards
Schlei Catching Old Mill with a noticeably darker appearance than a copy from the 150 Series
3. “Washed Out” images that lack the clarity of #1 and tend to be a bit lighter as well
Overall Portrait with Old Mill back and a “washed out” appearance

These three distinct “looks” of Old Mills from the 150-350 Series lead me to one obvious conclusion, and one that may not be so obvious.  First, because these Old Mills can be classified into three distinct groupings, clearly that means each group was printed separately.  What it doesn’t tell us is whether there is any pattern to be found.  It’s very possible that different runs on the press were just inked to varying degrees, which created the different results that we can see above.

I think there were three or more different print runs for 150-350 Series Old Mills.  I also think the different print runs were made up of a different set of players/poses on the sheets.  There seem to be some players that were not printed on the “washed out” sheets, and likewise with the “dark ink” sheets.  In Part Two, I’ll delve into the “dark ink” 150-350 Series Old Mills and we’ll see what patterns and theories we can infer from them.

A Look at the T206 Red Hindu Subset: Part Two

In the first part of this two-part series (which can be read here), we looked at the Red Hindu checklist, as well as a little background on which print groups the poses come from.  We also identified the 12 Red Hindu poses which are more common than the other 34 poses.

For Part Two, I went through the SGC and PSA Population Reports and compiled all the data into a single table.  Unfortunately, the results aren’t as easy to digest as I would have liked.  The PSA Pop numbers are all very straight-forward, but the SGC results are sometimes ambiguous.  When a player is featured on a 150 series card with a Brown Hindu back and also a 350-460 series or 460 series card with a Red Hindu back, it can be impossible to read the SGC Pop Report with certainty.

The table below shows all of the Hindu entries for Mordecai Brown.  As you can see, the top listing is a generic “Hindu” listing which could really be any combination of his three poses that have Hindus backs (Portrait-Brown Hindu, Cubs on Shirt-Brown Hindu, & Chicago on Shirt-Red Hindu).  Since we have no way of knowing which poses are actually out there with the generic label, I just recorded the range of possibilities in my combined Population Report table.  We can see from the Brown Pop Report that 4 Red Hindus are listed.  Then there are the 5 Hindus listed under the generic heading.  It’s very unlikely that all 5 of those would be Red Hindus as they are rarer than the Brown Hindus.  So, even though we can’t be sure, it is safe to assume that of the possible 5, probably only 0, 1 or maybe 2 are Red Hindus.  So on the far right of my combine Pop Report Table, where it says “between 10 & 15” for the Mordecai Brown entry, it would be safe to assume that there are 10,11, or 12 graded Mordecai Brown Red Hindus out there, and likely not 14 or 15.

Without further ado, here is the combined Pop Report Table for Red Hindus.  You’ll notice that Mathewson, McIntyre and Reulbach each have a combined Pop of zero.  These are the 3 poses which should exist (or at least have been printed with) Red Hindu backs, but have not yet been confirmed per T206resource.com.  Elberfeld and Rucker also have combined Pops of zero.  These 2 poses must have been confirmed by T206resource in raw form at some point.  You’ll also notice that I have highlighted the Exclusive 12 poses in Purple.  Most of them would stick out anyway due to their high Pop Report numbers, but it makes it easier to identify them.

As evidence by the above table, there are some truly scarce Red Hindus.  It seems very likely that Mathewson, McIntyre, and Reulbach were printed with Red Hindu backs, but all copies have been discarded and lost to history.  On top of that Elberfeld and Rucker each have Pops of zero, and 5 other poses have Pops of exactly 1 each (Chase black cap, Doyle with bat, Murphy with bat, Street catching, and Willis throwing).

A Look at the T206 Red Hindu Subset: Part One

Red Hindu is the 7th Scarcest T206 back, slightly more plentiful than Uzit, and slightly scarcer than Black Lenox.  The Red Hindu subset is a small one, featuring only 43 known cards, although according to T206resource.com‘s checklist below, they believe that 3 additional cards should exist, which would bring the total to 46 cards.

The Red Hindu subset consists of players from three separate print groups:

  • The 350-460 series (also referred to as Print Group 3)
  • The 460 Only Series (also known as Print Group 4)
  • The “Super Prints” (aka Print Group 5)

Interestingly, all 34 poses that exist with Broad Leaf 460 backs also exist with Red Hindu backs (with the possible exception of Mathewson Dark Cap, McIntyre Brooklyn & Chicago, and Reulbach No Glove Showing – though all three were likely printed with Red Hindu backs).  You’ll notice that the Red Hindu Subset lists 46 poses.

Red Hindu shares an interesting phenomenon with the American Beauty 460 subset.  Most of the poses above are extremely scarce, but 12 of them are much more common.  This pattern was first written about by Ted Zanidakis who dubbed it “The Exclusive 12” in a post on net54baseball.com.

These twelve poses are significantly more plentiful than the others on the list above:

  • Crandall with cap
  • Devore
  • Duffy
  • Ford
  • Gandil
  • Geyer
  • Hummel
  • McGraw glove at hip
  • Pfeffer
  • Sheckard glove showing
  • Tannehill on front
  • Wheat

Finding one of these twelve Red Hindus is fairly easy, but if you are looking for a Red Hindu that is not a member of the “Exclusive 12” it could take years for a copy to come to market.  In Part Two, I’ll use the PSA and SGC Population Reports to show the disparity between Exclusive 12 populations and the rest of the Red Hindu subset.

Summer Programming Note

First off, I want to say thanks to everyone who has been stopping by the site and reading my work.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it!

With summer upon us, I have been having trouble finding time to put out two articles each week. I’ve rushed a few just to get something published, and that isn’t really the way I want to run this site.  So, for the next few months, I’m going to dial it back to just one new article per week.  I’ll publish the new articles on Sunday.

I may still write shorter blog entries that are less time consuming during the week if something interesting happens in the world of T206.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer!