Tag: Brown Hindu

If You’re Into T206 Backs, Here’s What You Need to Know About Brown Hindu and Red Hindu Backs

If you’re new to back collecting (or if you don’t really care about the tougher backs, and haven’t paid much attention to them) the Hindu backs can be a little confusing.  I get a lot of questions about the Hindu backs from hobby friends, so I figured an article on the topic might be in order.  Like many T206 topics, this one may seem complex on the surface.  Luckily, it’s actually pretty simple.  You just need to understand two simple rules, and know where to go to jog your memory if you forget them.

In order to get the most out of this article, I recommend opening the two checklists below (courtesy of t206resource.com) in another tab so that you can refer to them as we go:

Brown Hindu Checklist

Red Hindu Checklist

Mutual Exclusivity

Brown Hindu and Red Hindu backs are mutually exclusive.  This means that if a pose exists with a Brown Hindu back, it does not exist with a Red Hindu back, and vice versa.

The two backs were printed at completely separate times.  Brown Hindu backs were printed very early in T206 production, in 1909.  Red Hindu backs were printed in the latter part of 1910 and/or early part of 1911.

Understanding the Print Groups is Key to Understanding the Hindu Backs

If you collect backs, or are considering it, I highly recommend setting aside some time to read and digest the Print Group checklists that are posted over at T206resource.com.  I’ll also be writing more about the Print Groups in a the coming months.

Brown Hindu backs are found on:
  • 102 of the 159 Print Group #1 poses (T206resource.com refers to the 150-350 Series as Print Group #1)
  •  34 of the 48 Southern Leaguers (T206resource.com refers to the Southern Leaguers as Print Group #6)

Print Group #1 Checklist (the 150-350 Series)
Print Group #6 Checklist (the Southern Leaguers)

Red Hindu backs are found on:
  • 26 of the 63 Print Group #3 poses (T206resource.com refers to the 350-460 Series as Print Group #3)
  • 12 of the 46 Print Group #4 poses (T206resource.com refers to the 460 Only Series as Print Group #4)
  • 5 of the 6 Print Group #5 poses (T206resource.com refers to the “Super Prints” as Print Group #5)

Print Group #3 Checklist (the 350-460 Series)
Print Group #4 Checklist (the 460 Only Series)
Print Group #5 Checklist (the “Super Prints”)

Currently t206resource.com lists 43 confirmed poses with Red Hindu backs.  The reason that only 5 of the 6 “Super Prints” are listed in the Red Hindu checklist is that Mathewson (Dark Cap) has not yet been found with a Red Hindu back, though it seems likely that it was a part of the print run.  In addition to Mathewson, t206resource expects that McIntyre (Brooklyn and Chicago) and Reulbach (No Glove Showing) were also printed with Red Hindu backs.  That brings the expected checklist up to a total of 46 poses.

Red Hindu backs are exponentially scarcer than Brown Hindu backs.  There is a decent chance that an unconfirmed Red Hindu pose could show up in the future.  Conversely, it would be very surprising if a new player was found with a Brown Hindu back.  It’s possible, but very unlikely.

 

Hindu Newspaper Advertisement “No Prints”

Note:  Much of the background detail in this story is stuff I learned from reading T206resource.com.  Most of my readers will probably be familiar with the site, but if not, make sure to check it out. 

In August 1909, Hindu Cigarettes ads featuring T206 images began appearing in the Times-Picayune Daily and Evening newspapers in New Orleans*.  The ads ran for six weeks from August 2nd to September 10th.  There were 12 ads in total.

The first five ads featured only major-leaguers.  The sixth ad featured both Major Leaguers and Southern Leaguers.  The final six ads featured only Southern Leaguers.

If you collect T206 cards with Hindu backs, you may notice something odd about the ads above and below.  The following four poses appear in the advertisements, but were not actually printed with Brown Hindu backs:

  • Dooin
  • Lobert
  • Nicholls (Hands on Knees)
  • Waddell (Throwing)

It’s not known why these players were advertised but then omitted from the print run.  A similar omission occurred with the Southern Leaguers.  The ad below features Southern Leaguers Breitenstein, Hickman and Jordan, who were all printed with Brown Hindu backs.  The text in the box at the bottom of the ad reads, “This collection consists of a large assortment of colored lithographs of baseball players in the Southern, South Atlantic, Texas, and Virginia Leagues.”

Players from the Southern, South Atlantic, and Virginia Leagues were indeed printed with Hindu backs, but none of the Texas Leaguers were.

*It is believed that the T206 Hindu Ads were published exclusively in the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Sources:
http://t206resource.com/Hindu%20Ads.html
-All images are courtesy of t206resource.com

What I Have Learned from Pat Romolo’s Piedmont 150 Plate Scratch Research: Part Two

Why was Wilbur Goode printed with Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 back, but Ty Cobb and Cy Young were not?

An unexpected result of Pat’s research is that he was able to recreate the Piedmont 150 sheets that were later used to print Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 backs.  I always wondered how the players were chosen to be printed with this back.  Logically, if I were going to print a subset made up of just 34 cards, I would pack it with stars.  So what was Wilbur Goode doing there?  Well, now we know.  ALC simply took two plates it already had and printed them with Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 backs.  The printers had done their best to include a group of stars, or they might have just gone with pure convenience based on which plates they had handy.  Despite missing Cobb and Young, those two plates include Bresnahan, Davis, Griffith, Johnson, Lajoie, and Mathewson, so it was by no means devoid of stars.

The image below shows Piedmont 150-backed examples of the poses in the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 subset.  To see a larger image, please click the link below.

https://photos.imageevent.com/patrickr/updatedplatescratchsheets/Sheet%201A-1B.jpg

Why wasn’t Ty Cobb printed with a Brown Hindu back?

Brown Hindu was the first of the tougher backs that I studied and began to collect when I got interested in back collecting.  The first thing I did was to make sure I had a complete checklist of which cards were printed with Brown Hindu backs.  It struck me immediately that neither Ty Cobb pose from the 150-350 Series was printed with a Brown Hindu back.  I wondered why.

The plate scratches answer this question as well.  If you take a look at the Plate Scratch collages below, you’ll notice that all of these players who appear together on a sheet were left off the Brown Hindu print run.  Much like the SC 150/649 subset, the poses that were printed with Brown Hindu backs were likely chosen primarily for convenience on the part of the printers.  In other words, they didn’t pick and choose individual players.  They just took existing sheets and printed them with Brown Hindu backs.  They simply chose not to use a sheet with Cobb on it for the Brown Hindu print run.

The partially recreated sheet below shows us that almost this entire section consists of poses that were not printed with Brown Hindu backs.  Curiously, there is a section right in the middle (the cards inside the red rectangle) with four poses that were all printed with Brown Hindu backs.  That is an odd wrinkle, and likely something that will never be fully explained.

The image below is too small to see detail, so please click this link to take a look at the image in full detail:

https://photos.imageevent.com/patrickr/updatedplatescratchsheets/Sheet%203%20Full.jpg

I’d like to thank Pat Romolo for collaborating with me on this series of articles.  Thanks for answering all my questions, making sure I wasn’t missing anything, and for providing all the scans I kept asking for.

Sources:

T206 Brown Hindu Power Rankings (Top Ten)

Based on the feedback I’ve received from other Top Ten lists I’ve published, it seems like people enjoy them.  So, I decided to put one together for my favorite back.  Besides being one of the most aesthetically pleasing backs in the T206 set, Brown Hindu is notable for being the only back that is unique to the 150-350 Series*.  There are 136 poses in the Brown Hindu Subset.  Brown Hindu is the most valuable back for almost all of these 136 poses (with a handful of exceptions noted below)**.

I’ve attempted to list these these cards in terms of demand (current market value) from highest to lowest.  I started with 17 poses and worked it down to ten.  The other 7 are listed as honorable mentions below.  As always, this is a subjective list and some readers may disagree with an exclusion or two.  Overall, I think it’s about right though.

Without further ado:

1.  Walter Johnson (Portrait)

2.  Cy Young (Portrait)

3.  Christy Mathewson (Portrait)

4.  Christy Mathewson (White Cap)

5.  Nap Lajoie (Portrait)

6.  Joe Tinker (Portrait)

7.  Mordecai Brown (Portrait)

8.  Johnny Evers (Portrait)

9.  Ed Walsh

10.  Addie Joss (Portrait)

Honorable Mentions:

-Evers (Cubs on Shirt)
-Brown (Cubs on Shirt)
-Chance (Red Background Portrait)
-Lajoie (Throwing)
-McGraw (Portrait)
-Tinker (Hands on Knees)
-Waddell (Portrait)

*Sovereign 150 also technically falls into this category, but because Sovereign backs were printed throughout the set.  Therefore, I feel Sovereign 150 has more in common with Old Mill and EPDG than Brown Hindu.

**The exceptions to this rule include the following “Elite Eleven” poses:

  • Dahlen Boston Piedmont 350
  • Ewing Piedmont 350
  • Ganley Piedmont 350
  • Jones, Tom Piedmont 350
  • Lindaman Piedmont 350
  • Schulte Piedmont 350
  • Shaw, Al Piedmont 350
  • Spencer Piedmont 350

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.

T206 Brown Hindu: The Case of the Missing Red Ink

beaumont-hindu

If you’ve looked at enough T206 scans, you’ve probably come across some Hindus that look a little weird.  Many, like this Beaumont above, were printed with very faint red ink.  Others appear to be missing red altogether.  This phenomenon is most pronounced on cards with red backgrounds, though it does affect other cards as well.  If you take a look at my example scans, you can see that most of these cards appear to have an orange background.  Some have more red than others, but all of them are noticeably more orange than a typical example with a different back.  bradley-hindu-and-sovereign

If you take a close look at other cards with Hindu backs, you can see that red is missing, even when red didn’t figure prominently in the card’s design.  T206 Hindu ElberfeldThese two Bradley portraits have a subtle difference; the color of the lips.

I have never heard any theory about why so many Hindus are missing red ink.  It would stand to reason that quality control was not a huge concern at American Lithographic Co. where the cards where produced.  After all, the cards were to be given away for free as advertising.  That said, the overall quality of production across the entire set is quite high in my opinion.  Most cards are well-centered with nicely aligned fronts and backs.  Colors and shading can vary a bit from one example of a card to another, but rarely to the level we are looking at here.

Here’s my theory: Hindu backs were produced early in the T206 production run.  My guess is that at the beginning, quality control was a little bit lax.  Most of the Hindus were probably printed, even though the red was not as dark as they wanted.  Once the cards were released they became a cultural sensation.  People loved them, and as a result the American Tobacco Company may have wanted to ensure that subsequent printings would be of higher quality.  It’s also possible that the printers didn’t realize that the design called for more red, because they hadn’t seen enough copies of the cards to be able to tell what they were meant to look like.

T206 Hindu Missing Red

Back Scarcity in the T206 150-350 series Part Two: Brown Hindu

2 Comments on Back Scarcity in the T206 150-350 series Part Two: Brown Hindu

1909t206hinduadvertisement3 In Part One of this series, I took a look at the checklist of the 150-350 series.   We’ve seen that not all poses were printed with the same backs.  The Piedmont, Sovereign 150 and Sweet Caporal print runs used the majority of the 159 player checklist.  The other backs that comprise the 150-350 series did not.  In the next few posts of this series, I’m going to take a closer look at the individual backs, beginning with Brown Hindu.

Brown Hindu backs were printed in 1909 at the beginning of T206 production.  102 Major Leaguers were printed with Brown Hindu backs.  This is a bit odd because the Sovereign 150 backs were printed right about the same time.  It begs the question, “If ATC had access to all 150 subjects that were used to create the Sovereign 150 print run, why did they choose not to print 48 of them with Hindu backs?”  It likely has something to do with the inclusion of 34 Southern Leaguers into the Brown Hindu print run.  We’re not likely to know the exact reason, but it seems likely that they wanted to include the Southern Leaguers and just removed some Major Leaguers from the print run to make it possible.  To make things more murky, one of the Hindu Cigarettes newspaper advertisements (the one at the top of this post) included pictures of 3 cards that were not actually printed with a Hindu back.  Along the bottom of the ad, you can see Waddell throwing, Lobert and Dooin at about 4 o’clock.T206 Blog Hindu Schulte SGC 40

You might expect that the biggest stars would be included and the more obscure players would be omitted.  That doesn’t seem to be the case.  Stars such as Ty Cobb and Hal Chase were omitted from the print run while fringe players such as Wilbur Good and Al Shaw were included.

 

This is the list of the 48 Brown Hindu “no prints” from the 150-350 series

Abbaticchio, Ed (Brown Sleeves)
Ball, Neal (New York)
Bender, Chief (Portrait)
Camnitz, Howie (Arms Folded)
Chase, Hal (Portrait – Pink)
Chase, Hal (White Cap)
Chesbro, Jack
Cicotte, Ed
Cobb, Ty (Portrait – Green)
Cobb, Ty (Bat On Shoulder)
Conroy, Wid (Fielding)
Covaleski, Harry
Crandall, Doc (Portrait No Cap)
Criger, Lou
Criss, Dode
Donlin, Mike (Seated)
Donohue, Jiggs
Dooin, Red
Doolin, Mickey
Durham, Bull
Hahn, Ed
Hemphill, Charlie
Jacklitsch, Fred
Jordan, Tim (Portrait)
Karger, Ed
Keeler, Willie (Portrait)
Keeler, Willie (With Bat)
Kleinow, Red (New York – With Bat)
Lobert, Hans
Lundgren, Carl (Chicago)
McGraw, John (Finger In Air)
Mullin, George (Throwing)
Murphy, Danny (Throwing)
Nicholls, Simon (Hands On Knees)
Niles, Harry
Oldring, Rube (Fielding)
Rucker, Nap (Portrait)
Schaefer, Germany (Detroit)
Seymour, Cy (Batting)
Shipke, Bill
Smith, Frank (F. Smith)
Stovall, George (Portrait)
Tannehill, Lee (L. Tannehill On Front)
Turner, Terry
Waddell, Rube (Throwing)
Weimer, Jake
Williams, Jimmy
Young, Cy (Bare Hand)

1909t206hinduadvertisementAs you can see, level of stardom doesn’t seem to have been taken into consideration.  Likewise, geographic location of the teams doesn’t seem to have been a factor.  14 of the 16 Major League teams were included in the omissions and the distribution appears normal.  Overall, it doesn’t seem that the omissions fit any kind of pattern.

Scarcity and Value

Hindu backs consistently sell for the highest prices of any 150-350 series back.  In a general sense, Hindu backs are more scarce than any of the other backs that comprise the 150-350 series.  This is because Hindu was only printed in the 150T206 Hindu Advertisement series, while Old Mill and El Principe de Gales were printed on the backs of cards in the 350 and 460 series, making those backs more plentiful overall.  In most cases, Hindu is the second or third toughest back to find for a given player, with Old Mill being the toughest.  For players that were printed with both Hindu and EPDG backs, scarcity will be about the same for both.

Thanks to Mark at rustywilly.com for allowing me to use the newspaper advertisements.