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).
