Month: August 2017

A Twist on the Back Run: Player Runs

Like any other T206 collector, I love a good back run.  They’re a fun, challenging way to add some variety to a collection.  However, there are a few aspects of working on a back run that can be make it tough to see the project through to completion:  Collectors with large budgets will often target a very tough 350-460 Series or Super Print subject as their pose of choice.  Money won’t be an object, but availability certainly will.  Waiting over a decade for your specific pose to show up with Drum or Broad Leaf 460 back seems like it would really put the damper on the fun of working on a back run.

For a smaller budget collector like myself, there are other potential roadblocks to consider.  First, tying up a significant amount of money into multiple cards of one player can be hard to justify at times when other desirable cards come to market.  I’ve started a few back runs that never reached completion because I sold one or more of the cards in order to pay for a different T206 that I wanted more.  The longer it takes to complete the back run, the more chances you’ll have to decide you might rather have something else than complete the project.

The other problem has to do with the project itself.  A smaller budget collector is probably going to choose a 150-350 Series subject for their back run simply as a matter of finances.  You could also target a 350 Series player who doesn’t have a Drum, but then you’re still going to need a Carolina Brights and/or a Broad Leaf 350 which are not cheap.  A 150-350 Series back run makes the most sense, but it can be a little mundane.  I recently abandoned a Dode Criss back run while lacking only the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 25 because I had just lost interest.  Granted, Criss is one of the easiest 150-350 back runs because their is no Hindu or EPDG to track down.  However the largest back runs from the 150-350 Series (Bresnahan Portrait or Johnson Portrait for example) only have 12 front/back combos, and 7 of them are either Piedmont or Sweet Caporal backs.  Needing that many common backs* can get boring, at least it has to me on a few occasions.  I’m sure there are plenty of people who have completed such a project without giving up at some point, but I know of many such back runs that have never been seen through to completion.

Once I realized that I wasn’t likely to complete a back run anytime soon, I came up with a different way of looking at back collecting.  I would much rather have 12 different mid-tier front/back combos than 12 different backs of the same pose.  With that in mind, I started to try to acquire the scarcest back (or the scarcest back I could afford) or each pose for a certain player.  Obviously this only makes sense for players who have multiple poses in the T206 set, but thankfully there are plenty of them.

The Bender run below features his toughest Portrait, second scarcest With Trees (Broad Leaf 350 is harder to find), and the tough Cycle 460 No Trees (there are a few tougher front/back combos with for this pose, but I can’t afford most of them).

The Bender run was on the expensive side, but this can also be a fun way to collect on a budget.  This Mullin run below cost me around $400 to complete.  None of these are the very scarcest back for the pose, but the Cycles are pretty hard to find.

Gallery:

*Not all Sweet Caporal backs are easy to find, but it can be hard to know which ones are tougher to find because most collectors aren’t interested in the  different Factory Numbers, and Pop Report numbers are not helpful.

Lionel Carter’s T206 Eddie Plank

In 2007, hobby legend Lionel Carter sold a number of cards from his expansive collection.  Among them was his T206 Plank.  This is one of my favorite T206s that I don’t own.  Beyond the fact that its a T206 Plank, there are a couple things which make this card extra special, in my eyes.  Most of the highest profile cards in the hobby quietly change hands behind closed doors.  However, if you were a net54baseball.com member in 2012 and 2013, you probably remember reading along as this particular card was purchased by a board member, only to be put back on the market shortly thereafter.   For this Plank card, the story of its ownership and how it was acquired adds to its appeal, at least to me.  Another endearing aspect of this card is how “well-loved” it is.  The vast majority of Mr. Carter’s baseball cards were in very nice shape, and this one obviously stands out like a sore thumb.  Including Mr. Carter, there have been only four owners since 1957:

TIMELINE:

1957:  Lionel Carter acquires the Plank in a cigar box full of cigarette cards from a Charles Bray auction.

In a telephone conversation recorded in 2008, Mr. Carter recalled his first thoughts when discovering the Plank among the other cards in the cigar box:

“I bought it in a box of cigarette cards for $5.  I was quite young at the time, probably going to high school.  I took it up to my room and dumped them out.  And I was going through them, and I said, “Well what’s this crappy card doing in here?”  And I was going to throw it out, but I said, “I’ll keep it until I find a better one.  But I never did find a better one.”

Aug. 27, 2007: Lionel Carter’s T206 Eddie Plank comes to market for the first time. Sold by Legendary Auctions for $16,474.

The new owner reached out to Mr. Carter to ask him a few questions about the card.  In a 2008 letter written to the owner, Mr. Carter wrote:

As for Mr. Plank, I purchased him in Charles Bray sale of 440 lots in the Card Collector’s Bulletin of May 10, 1957 listed as a cigar box full of baseball cigarette cards for $5.00! Figured I had nothing to lose and bid $5.00 and was surprised to get them. All fair or good condition except Plank. Nearly threw him away. Glad he has a nice home!

March 28, 2012: In a private transaction, the buyer of the Plank in the Legendary auction sells it for $29,000.

The winning bidder in the Legendary Auction was approached by a fellow member of the net54baseball.com forum, and a deal was struck.  However, it wasn’t long before the new owner was on the hunt for another high profile card.  In May of 2012, he posted that he was looking for a 1933 Goudey Nap Lajoie and that he was willing to trade the Plank.

August 2013: In a private transaction, Plank is traded to collector Rob Dewolf for a 1933 Goudey Lajoie in an SGC 40/3 holder. The Plank has remained in Dewolf’s possession since then.

This has to be one of the biggest trades in the history of the hobby, but it wasn’t easy.  In April 2013, Dewolf reached out the owner of the Plank about a possible trade, but the two parties didn’t gain any traction right away.  Talks stalled in April only to be re-opened in August.  The owner of the Plank lived in Canada, which added an extra wrinkle to the negotiations.  The owner of the Plank didn’t want to pay for shipping and insurance on the Plank and customs fees for the Lajoie, so they had to come up with a creative solution.  In the end, a straight-up swap of the two iconic cards was agreed to when Rob commissioned a trusted third party to travel to the border with the Lajoie and complete the trade for him.

Unfortunately for us, there’s no way to know the history of this card prior to its arrival in Mr. Carter’s collection.  If it could talk, I’m sure it would have some tales to tell.  I can only imagine how it came to look the way it does.  And, being in that condition, I’m amazed it survived all these years.  Back when tobacco cards had no monetary value, I would think a severely worn card like this would find its way into the trash more often than not.  Heck, even Lionel Carter considered throwing it out.

 

-Thanks to t206collector.com for the excerpts from both the written letter and telephone conversation

A Look at the “Mid-Tier” T206 Backs: Tiers 2 & 3

This is a continuation of Part 1, which can be found here.

Tier 2:

American Beauty 350 no frame

There are only 37 poses in this subset, all of which are from the 350-460 Series.  Because of the small number of poses, this back was printed in smaller quantities than all the backs in Tier 3.  However, individual Populations of each card in the subset are usually higher than individual cards in the American Beauty 350 With Frame and Cycle 350 to name a couple.  The distribution appears to be normal.  In other words, there don’t appear to be any short-prints.  On average, cards with American Beauty 350 No Frame backs sell for more than all other backs in Tiers 2 and 3 other than Brown Hindu.

Brown Hindu

There are 136 poses in the Brown Hindu subset.  34 of these poses are Southern Leaguers and 102 are Major Leaguers from the 150-350 Series.  Some collectors have advanced the theory that 150-Only Poses are tougher-to-find with Hindu backs than other poses, but I don’t really think the Pop Report data corroborates this.  T206s with Brown Hindu backs sell for more than any other Tier 2 or Tier 3 back on average.  They also sell for more than Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42 examples.  Brown Hindu backs and Cycle 460 backs tend to sell for very similar prices.

Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 25

This back flies under the radar.  Most experienced collectors realize that you don’t see examples with this back often, but the truth is very few people seem to care.  SC 350-460 Factory 25 backs are certainly the most undervalued of all the Mid-Tier backs.  Because the grading companies have not kept records of the different Sweet Caporal backs (PSA recently started differentiating between the different series and factory numbers, but as of right now there is not nearly enough data for it to be useful for research) it is pretty much impossible to do any meaningful research on this back.  Just going off memory and experience, I know this back is scarce.  I think it belongs here in Tier 2, but others with similar experience might slot it higher or lower.  Cards with this back can be found for only a slight premium over other Sweet Caporal backs.  There are 69 poses in this subset, originating from the 350-460 Series, 460 Only Series, and the “Super Prints.”

Tier 3:

American Beauty 350 with frame & Cycle 350

Both AB350wf and Cycle 350 boast a whopping 190 subjects in their checklist.  Each of these backs consist of poses from the 350 Only Series as well as the 6 “Super Prints”.  Because of how many players were printed with these backs, they fall fairly low on most Back Scarcity Rankings.  However, finding a specific player with AB350wf or Cycle 350 back can prove quite difficult.  Prices for cards with AB350wf backs tend to be on par with Cycle 350s.  These two backs sell for more on average than any other back in Tier 3.  Like most other backs, distribution appears normal.

El Principe de Gales

To the best of my knowledge, there are 281* known poses that exist with EPDG back*.  This back was printed throughout T206 production and includes poses from all Print Groups.  Some poses can be quite difficult to find with an EDPG back, while the majority are not too tough.  There does not appear to be any pattern, so you’ll just have to use the Pop Reports to find the relative scarcity of individual poses.  EPDG backs tend to sell for a bit less than Cycle 350 and AB350wf and slightly more than Old Mill, Sovereign 150, 350 Green Apple, and Sovereign 460.

Old Mill (Base Ball Subjects)

Like the EPDG subset, Old Mill backs were printed throughout T206 production and feature poses from all Print Groups.  To the best of my knowledge, there are 312 poses in the Old Mill Subset (excluding Southern Leaguers).  For the most part, specific poses with an Old Mill back are easy to find.  There are a couple exceptions.  150-350 Series subjects are usually pretty tough to come by, and the twelve 460 Only poses below (often called the Exclusive 12) are also very scarce.  You’ll notice these 12 poses appear in Part 1 of this article because they are fairly easy to find with American Beauty 460 backs.

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

Sovereign 150, Sovereign 350 Green Apple, & Sovereign 460

These three Sovereign backs are scarcer than Sovereign 350 Forest Green, which falls just outside the Mid-Tier backs in my opinion.  Sovereign 460 is probably the scarcest of the Sovereign backs, mainly owing to the fact that there are only 52 poses in the subset.  The Sovereign 350 Green Apple subset consists of 66 poses while Sovereign 150 has exactly 150 subjects.  Individual scarcity is similar between Sov150 and Sov460, but because the Sov150 checklist is so much larger, you’ll see Sov150 backs more often.

Like Old Mills and EPDGs, most poses can be found without too much difficulty with a Sovereign back.  As is the case with Old Mills, there are some exceptions.  The “150 Only” poses are exceedingly hard to find with Sovereign 150 backs.  Likewise, the “Super Prints” are tough to find with a Sovereign 460 back.  Cobb Red Portrait seems to be the scarcest of the Super Prints with Sovereign 460 back, while Mathewson Dark Cap is a good deal more plentiful.  The “Exclusive 12” which are listed above, are more readily available with Sovereign 460 backs than the other cards in the Sovereign 460 subset.

For the most part, Sovereign backs are a bit tougher to find for individual poses than Old Mill, and slightly easier to find than EPDG copies.  Of course, there are many anomalies and you should check the Pop Reports to be sure.

Tolstoi

To the best of my knowledge, the current count is 255 known cards with Tolstoi backs.  Of all the Mid-Tier backs, we know the least about the Tolstoi subset.  They seem to be pretty common at first glance, because many of the 350-460 Series and 460 Only Series poses are quite plentiful.  However, some players from the 350 Only Series can be downright impossible to find with a Tolstoi back.  Just this past year, two new poses were discovered and added the Tolstoi checklist**.  For Tolstoi, more than any other back, the Pop Reports are your friend.

Honorable Mentions

All backs not mentioned in Tiers 1 through 3 fall just below my “Mid-Tier” backs in terms of scarcity (or lack thereof).  These backs are:

-Old Mill Southern League
-Polar Bear
-Sovereign 350 Forest Green
-All Sweet Caporal backs other than SC 350-460 Factory 25 (which is mentioned above in Tier 2)

*The number could be 281-284.  There is a bit of confusion about the exact number of cards in the EPDG subset.  There are 3 players who either were not printed, or they haven’t been graded by either SGC or PSA yet (Pastorius, Hunky Shaw, and Ed Willett with bat).  It’s easy to imagine how Shaw may have been mistakenly confirmed by someone who had an Al Shaw EPDG, and same with Willetts/Willett.  Pastorius doesn’t have an easy rationale however.  It’s also very possible that another EPDG could show up and need to be added to the checklist.  But for now, these are the numbers we are working with.

**Stephens and Danny Hoffman were found this year and added to the “confirmed list” of Tolstoi backs

A Look at the “Mid-Tier” T206 Backs: Tier 1

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.