Month: September 2017

Cycle 460: Overlooked and Undervalued (Part Four): Cycle 460 v.s. American Beauty 460

For the last installment of this series, we’re going to take a look at how the the Cycle 460 Subset compares to the American Beauty 460 Subset in terms of scarcity.  There are 75* poses in the American Beauty 460 Subset and 109 in the Cycle 460 Subset.  All 75* poses in the American Beauty 460 Subset were also printed with Cycle 460 backs.  Because of this, we have a nice large sample of poses to use for comparison.

Checklists for each back, courtesy of T206resource.com:

Cycle 460

American Beauty 460

My Hypothesis:

Before beginning to research the Pop Reports, I had the following expectation:  I thought that overall, there would be more American Beauty 460s in the PSA Pop Report than Cycle 460s.  The main reason for this is the “Exclusive 12”.  These 12 poses are quite plentiful with American Beauty 460, in stark contrast to the other poses in the subset.  Part of the reason I wanted to publish this series of articles was to show people how Cycle 460s are definitively scarcer than American Beauty 460 in an aggregate sense.  However, I knew certain American Beauty 460 poses are near impossible to find, while the average Cycle 460 pose is scarce, but not bordering on unique.  I was expecting to find if I removed the Exclusive 12 poses from the data, the remaining American Beauty 460s would have a lower Pop than the Cycle 460s.  Let’s take a look at the data I compiled below.

Explanation of Research**:

19 of the 75 poses in the American Beauty 460 Subset were also printed with an American Beauty 350 No Frame back.  Because PSA used a generic “American Beauty” label for a number of years, there’s no way to differentiate between American Beauty 350 No Frame and American Beauty 460 for those 19 poses.  Which that left me with 56 poses to research.  I began by creating a table with all 56 poses, located below.  The “Exclusive 12” poses are highlighted in yellow.

As you can see, American Beauty 460 backs outnumber Cycle 460s by a fairly large margin.  But take a look at the highlighted entries.  The “Exclusive 12” have skewed the data so much that it looks like Cycle 460 is the scarcer back.  And it doesn’t look close.  In an aggregate sense, Cycle 460 is the scarcer back.  Cycle 460 should be ranked above American Beauty 460 on a Back Scarcity Ranking list.  But, if we remove the outliers (the Exclusive 12 poses) from the data, is Cycle 460 still the scarcer back?

This table consists of 44 poses (the 56 poses above, minus the Exclusive 12 poses).  It gives us a much clearer picture of the situation.  It appears from this set of data that the remaining American Beauty 460 poses are scarcer than the remaining Cycle 460 poses.  Because the totals are so close, these results don’t necessarily prove anything.  However, I think it’s safe to conclude that Exclusive 12 poses aside, American Beauty 460 and Cycle 460 poses exist in very similar quantities.

*At the moment, there is some question as to whether Ames Hands Above Head actually exists with American Beauty 460 back.  For now, it is in the checklist, and I included the pose in the research.  In the future I could see it being removed from the checklist if no collectors are able to find one.

**Throughout this series of articles, I have used only the PSA Pop Reports to test the hypothesis.  I chose to do this for a couple different reasons.  First, the PSA Pop Report is a little easier (and quicker) to use when checking a number of different players with the same back.  Secondly, there can be some confusion on the SGC Pop Reports when a player has one pose that was printed with a Brown Hindu back and another pose that was printed with a Red Hindu back.  The same holds true for American Beauty 350 With Frame & American Beauty 350 No Frame.  I wanted to have data that was completely uniform and I didn’t want to use any entry that included any ambiguity.

Cycle 460: Overlooked and Undervalued (Part Three): Cycle 460 v.s. American Beauty 350 No Frame

This week I’m going to be taking a look at how the Cycle 460 subset compares to the American Beauty 350 No Frame subset.  T206resource.com has American Beauty 350 No Frame as the 15th scarcest back in the T206 set, and Cycle 460 as the 17th.  It’s important to remember that back scarcity lists such as the one posted on T206resource.com are an attempt to list the backs in order of aggregate scarcity.  In other words, this list is simply saying less American Beauty 350 No Frame backs exist than Cycle 460 backs.

Attempting to compare the overall populations of these two backs is a little bit tricky because the checklists are of such dissimliar size.  As mentioned in Part Two of this series, the Cycle 460 Subset consists of 109 different poses, while there are only 37 poses in the American Beauty 350 No Frame checklist.  What this means is that there are 2.95 times (but I’ll round it up to 3x for simplicity’s sake) more poses in the Cycle 460 subset than in the American Beauty 350 No Frame Subset.  So, in order for these two backs to have a similar total population, the average individual American Beauty 350 No Frame pose would have to be about 3 times as plentiful as the average Cycle 460 pose.

My Hypothesis:

That 3:1 ratio actually sounded about right to me before I began to research the Pop Report.  I expecting to find a ratio at or around 3:1 and it wouldn’t have surprised me to find that it was even higher (meaning that Cycle 460 backs are scarcer than American Beauty 350 No Frame).  Let’s take a look at the table below to see what the actual results look like.

Links to checklists, courtesy of t206resource.com:

Cycle 460

American Beauty 350 No Frame

Explanation of Research*:

In Part Two of this series, when comparing Brown Hindu Populations to Cycle 460 Populations, I had to use two different poses of the same player.  This is because there is no crossover between poses in the Brown Hindu and Cycle 460 subsets.  Brown Hindu backs were printed exclusively on 150-350 Series subjects in 1909 while Cycle 460 backs were printed in 1911 and feature only poses from the 350-460 Series, 460 Only Series, and the Super Prints.

The research for this article is a bit more straightforward, because we can look at a single pose rather than two different poses featuring the same player.  36 of the 37 poses in the American Beauty 350 No Frame Subset were also printed with a Cycle 460 back**.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to use PSA Pop Report data for all 36 poses.  Most of the poses that were printed with an American Beauty 350 No Frame back were also printed with an American Beauty 460 back.  Because PSA used a generic “American Beauty” label for a number of years, it’s impossible to get reliable Pop Report data for the players who were printed with both backs***.  This meant I had to use just the poses in the American Beauty 350 No Frame Subset that were not also printed with an American Beauty 460 back.  That left me with the 15 poses in the table below.

As you can see, the PSA Population of American Beauty 350 No Frames outnumber Cycle 460s 148 to 65, for a ratio of 2.28:1.  This falls short of the 3:1 ratio required for the total Populations of each back to be roughly equal.  I was expecting to find the Cycle 460 Population marginally scarcer than American Beauty 350 No Frame. However, the results strongly indicate that American Beauty 350 No Frame backs are indeed scarcer than Cycle 460 backs.

*Throughout this series of articles, I have used only the PSA Pop Reports to test the hypothesis.  I chose to do this for a couple different reasons.  First, the PSA Pop Report is a little easier (and quicker) to use when checking a number of different players with the same back.  Secondly, there can be some confusion on the SGC Pop Reports when a player has one pose that was printed with a Brown Hindu back and another pose that was printed with a Red Hindu back.  The same holds true for American Beauty 350 With Frame & American Beauty 350 No Frame.  I wanted to have data that was completely uniform and I didn’t want to use any entry that included any ambiguity.

**The lone exception is Simon Nichols batting, which was pulled from production before Cycle 460 backs were printed.

***In a previous article entitled “Understanding the American Beauty backs: T206 American Beauty 350 no frame (Part 3/4)“, I used both the PSA and SGC Pop Reports in order to make an educated guess at the total graded population of each pose in the American Beauty 350 No Frame subset.

Cycle 460: Overlooked and Undervalued (Part Two): Cycle 460 v.s. Brown Hindu

The Brown Hindu subset holds a special place in the hearts of many T206 collectors.  Brown Hindu backs are always in high demand for a few reasons.  For one thing, they feature a very unique and visually appealing design.  In addition, they offer some back variety in the 150-350 Series, which does not offer many options for back collectors.  Brown Hindus are the most valuable of all 150-350 Series backs, and the same holds true with regard to Southern Leaguers.

The Cycle 460 subset, on the other hand, tends to fly under the radar, despite a similar level of scarcity.  A couple of possible reasons for this come to mind.  First, the Cycle back is not unique to the 460 Series.  Cycle 350 backs are one of the more plentiful “Mid-Tier” backs, and this may contribute to the lukewarm demand for Cycle 460 backs.  Collectors may think to themselves something along the lines of, “I already have a Cycle 350, so I’m not in any hurry to get a Cycle 460 back.”  Secondly, Cycle 460 is a scarce back, but it is never the most valuable back for a given pose like Brown Hindu is.  If you want the most valuable back for the Mordecai Brown Portrait, you know you need to get a copy with a Brown Hindu back.  The same can’t be said for Cycle 460.  If you want the scarcest back for Mordecai Brown’s Chicago on shirt pose, you are going to want a Broad Leaf 460, Red Hindu, or Lenox.  A Cycle 460 might be a nice alternative as those other three backs would be near impossible to track down, but it wouldn’t be your first choice.

The Cycle 460 checklist features 109 Major Leaguers from Print Groups 3, 4 & 5 (350-460, 460 Only, Super Prints).  The Brown Hindu subset features a total of 136 poses, 102 of which are Major Leaguers from Print Group 1 (the 150-350 Series) The other 34 poses are Southern Leaguers.  For the purposes of this article, I’ll be focusing on just the Major Leaguers.  Because the two checklists have a very similar number of Major Leaguers, these two backs lend themselves to comparison quite well.

Checklists for each back, courtesy of the fine folks at T206resource.com:

Brown Hindu
Cycle 460

My Hypothesis:

These two backs tend to sell for very similar prices.  However, it is my contention that Cycle 460s are undervalued relative to Brown Hindu because Cycle 460s are much scarcer.  I conducted the research below to see if the reality matched my hypothesis.

Explanation of Research:

In an attempt to compare two similar sets of data, I began by finding all of the players in the T206 set who have a pose in both the Brown Hindu subset and the Cycle 460 subset.

Throughout this series of articles, I have used only the PSA Pop Reports to test the hypothesis.  I chose to do this for a couple different reasons.  First, the PSA Pop Report is a little easier (and quicker) to use when checking a number of different players with the same back.  Secondly, there can be some confusion on the SGC Pop Reports when a player has one pose that was printed with a Brown Hindu back and another pose that was printed with a Red Hindu back.  The same holds true for American Beauty 350 With Frame & American Beauty 350 No Frame.  I wanted to have data that was completely uniform and I didn’t want to use any entry that included any ambiguity.

There are 44 players who have at least one pose in both the Brown Hindu and Cycle 460 subsets.  Tinker has two poses in each subset.  This brings us to a total of 45 pairs of front/back combos.  However, there are two pairs we won’t be able to use.  Both Evers Yellow Sky and Mathewson Dark Cap were printed with both a Cycle 350 and a Cycle 460 back.  Because PSA used a generic “Cycle” label for a few years, the Pop Report data for these two cards is not as accurate as the other Cycle 460s in this group.  Which leaves us with a total of 43 players with matched Brown Hindu and Cycle 460 poses.  Check out the table below to see how much scarcer Cycle 460s are than their Brown Hindu counterparts.

As you can see, there is quite a significant gap is Population between the two samples.  Granted there will be a certain margin of error for this sample since it does not include the entire Population of graded Brown Hindu and Cycle 460 backs from both PSA and SGC.  However, it is a pretty significant sample size, and the results don’t leave much question of which back is scarcer.

In addition, my research doesn’t include the 34 Southern Leaguers who were printed with Brown Hindu backs.  When you add those in, it’s likely that Brown Hindu backs actually outnumber Cycle 460 backs by a 3:1 ratio.

In conclusion, Brown Hindu and Cycle 460 backs may sell for very similar prices, but it is clear Cycle 460 backs are by far the scarcer back.

Cycle 460: Overlooked and Undervalued (Part One)

It seems to me that Cycle 460s don’t get the respect they deserve.  Over the last few years, I’ve felt that I was seeing Cycle 460s less often than the other “mid-tier” backs such as Hindu, Piedmont Factory 42, and American Beauty 350 No Frame.  So I decided to do some research to see if my observations were supported by the Pop Reports.

In this series, I’ll be focusing on the scarcest of the “Mid-Tier Backs”, that is:

Tier 1 Backs:
  • American Beauty 460
  • Cycle 460
  • Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42*
Tier 2 Backs:
  • American Beauty 350 No Frame
  • Brown Hindu

In my opinion, there is a clear divide between these 5 backs** and the backs above and below them in terms of scarcity.  There is a large gap in scarcity and value between any of these 5 backs and Carolina Brights, which is significantly scarcer and more valuable.  Likewise, I feel there is a gap below these 5 backs before you get to Tolstoi and Sovereign 460.

A couple of weeks back, I published a two-part article which gave an overview of the “Mid-Tier” Backs, which can be read by clicking the links below:

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

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

Here are the back scarcity rankings from T206resource.com.  This is a really well put together list, and it’s a great place to start.  I think collectors as a whole have overlooked Cycle 460 and it’s my contention that it needs to move up four or five rungs on this list (and others like it).  I’d also move Sovereign 460 down a couple rungs, but I agree with the vast majority of this list.

Before I get into the research, there are a couple of points I want to address:

First, not all of the mid-tier backs are easy to analyze.  American Beauty 460 is an odd subset because there are 12 poses that are quite easy to find, while the rest of the poses range from tough-to-find to near impossible.  This makes is hard to compare American Beauty 460 to Cycle 460 backs, which have a much more even distribution.  American Beauty 350 No Frame offers a different challenge in terms of comparison.  The AB 350nf subset contains only 37 cards, which is 34% the size of the Cycle 460 checklist (109 cards).

In an aggregate sense, the two backs may have similar scarcity.   However, when looking at specific poses, there will typically be two or three times as many cards with AB350nf backs in the Pop Report than Cycle 460s of the same pose.  This makes it tough to compare Cycle 460 and AB350nf, but I tackle that challenge anyway in Part Three of this series.  In addition, Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42 backs have not been catalogued very well by PSA or SGC over the years, so neither Pop Report is of much use in researching this back.

Secondly, the way the PSA and SGC Pop Reports are set up makes it easy to research certain things but difficult to research others.  For instance it’s difficult to get accurate PSA Pop numbers for a Cycle 460 Chance Yellow Portrait, because PSA used a generic “Cycle” label for a few years, so it’s impossible to know which of those are Cycle 350 and which are Cycle 460.  You run into the same problem for all the poses that have both AB350nf and AB460 backs.  The SGC Pop Report presents a different challenge.  It is easy to tell an AB350nf from an AB460 because the former will be labeled “1910” and the latter “1911”.  However, if a player has two different poses and one was printed with American Beauty 350 With Frame and the other was printed with American Beauty 350 No Frame, it will often be impossible to differentiate between the two in the SGC Pop Report.

Using Pop Reports in an attempt to prove hypotheses can be a little problematic because not all cards in existence have been slabbed, and not all slabbed cards correctly indicate the back.  However, I feel that if you compare two like subject groups and the sample size is large enough, Pop Report data can be very accurate and useful.  You’ll see in Part Two of this series how I use just PSA Pop Report Data and I am able to prove my hypothesis without any doubt due to the sample size and the results of my research.

In this series, I am attempting to answer the following questions:

  • “Which of the Mid-Tier backs is the scarcest?”
  • “What is the order of scarcity for these 5 Mid-Tier backs we are looking at?”

Please stay tuned for the rest of this series:

  • Part Two:  Cycle 460 v.s. Brown Hindu
  • Part Three:  Cycle 460 v.s. American Beauty 350 no frame
  • Part Four:  Cycle 460 v.s. American Beauty 460

*Ideally there would be a Part Five, where I compare Cycle 460 to Piedmont Factory 42, but the lack of Pop Report Data available for Piedmont Factory 42 means I have no way to present any meaningful findings with regard to that back.

**I also think Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 25 belongs somewhere in this conversation, but the lack of data available makes that impossible.  Additionally, the fact that collectors don’t care too much about this back makes them fly under the radar even more.