Tag: T206

The Nuns’ T206 Honus Wagner

In 2009, the School Sisters of Notre Dame received a most unexpected donation.  The School Sisters are a worldwide religious institute of Roman Catholic Sisters.  On February 3rd, 2009, a man (who’s name the nuns have decided to keep confidential) with close ties to the organization passed away at the age of  85 and bequeathed his estate to the order.  The nuns were not surprised to be benefactors of the man’s will.  His sister had belonged to the order, and he had never married or had children.  Besides leaving his home to the nuns, he also willed the contents of his safe deposit box.

When the nuns opened the box, they were surprised to find this T206 Wagner with an attached typewritten note that said,

“Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!”

After picking up the baseball card, Sister Virginia Muller, the order’s former treasurer, searched the Internet to determine its worth. When she saw the value of other Wagner cards, her jaw dropped.

“I very carefully put it into the back of my files,” she said, laughing. “Then quickly insured it.”

-New York Times January 31, 2011

All of the news stories written about the card at the time have noted that the man acquired the card in 1936, though there is no mention of how that was ascertained.  There is also no mention of him owning any other sports cards or collectibles.

“I wish I knew more of the story, like where he got the card or why he kept it, But I guess it will remain a mystery.”

-Sister Virginia Muller in the January 31st 2011 issue of the New York Times

When the nuns were ready to sell the Wagner, they chose Heritage Auctions to handle the sale.  The card was featured in Heritage’s “November 2010 Signature Collectibles Auction” which closed over a two-day period on November 4th and 5th.  When the auction clocked ticked down the zero, the winning bid (including the juice) was $262,900.  Unfortunately, the winning bidder never paid for the card.

Heritage reached out to collector Dr. Nicholas DePace, who agreed to buy the card for $220,000.  According to the New York Times story, Heritage declined to take a commission on the sale, sending all $220,000 to the School Sisters of Notre Dame.  I don’t know whether or not Heritage was able to collect a full or partial commission from the winning bidder, but regardless it was a really classy move by Heritage to send the full $220,000 to the charitable group.

Dr. DePace

The story doesn’t quite end there.  Two days later, Dr. DePace received a call from someone at Heritage asking him if he’d like to make a quick $60,000 profit by selling the card to another interested party.

“I said, ‘What’s the matter with you guys?  It’s no longer just a baseball card; it’s become a religious relic, a St. Jude of memorabilia. I’m keeping it.”

-Dr. Nichlas DePace in the January 31st 2011 issue of the New York Times

Dr. DePace said he intended to feature the card in a non-profit sports museum he planned to open in Collingwood, New Jersey.

Sources:

He Played 3 Games in the Majors in 1891 and Somehow Managed to Appear on a T206 card?

In 1891 a 17 year-old Bill Clymer appeared in 3 games for the Philadelphia Athletics.  He made 13 Plate Appearances but was not able to record a hit.  He did however walk once and steal a base before being sent back to the Minors.  I’m sure many people around the game expected him to be back in the Majors at some point, but it never happened.

You may be thinking: How is he in the T206 set if he only played in 3 games in the Majors in 1891?  His T206 card was released 29 years later, in 1910.  Good question.

In 1892, the speedy shortstop returned to the Minor Leagues, playing for Portland of the New England League.  No stats have survived from that season, but we do have stats from 5 of his next 6 seasons in the Minors.  Clymer played in Portland again in 1893.  He hit .310 and slugged .504 as a 20 year-old.  Not bad for a 155 pound speedster.  He also stole 42 bags that year.

In 1893, he signed with the Buffalo Bisons of the Eastern League who made him an outfielder.  He continued to rake, hitting .337 and stealing 36 bags.  Looking at his stats, it’s incredibly tough to believe he was never given another shot in the big leagues.

In the five seasons following his cup-of-coffee in the Big Leagues, Clymer’s average season looks like this:

  • 116.8 Games
  • .298 Batting Average
  • 27 Doubles
  • 31.6 Stolen Bases

I have to imagine some of the clubs in the Majors at time could’ve used some help at the plate from their middle infielders.  But, for whatever reason, he was never given another shot.  During the last of the five seasons mentioned above, Clymer played for the Rochester Patriots/Ottawa Wanderers of the Eastern League (the team left Rochester in July and re-located to Ottawa.  During this season, he was given his first shot as a player/manager.  Though he only managed for two weeks in 1898, he must have made an impression because he went on to manage the Wilkes-Barre Coal Barons of the Atlantic League in 1900 (though the league disbanded on June 12th).  His promotion to manager coincided with a precipitous decline in production on the field, but he proved to be an excellent skipper.

In 1902, Clymer was named the new skipper of the Louisville Colonels of the American Association.  They finished 2nd in the AA that year, and they duplicated that feat the following season.  With Louisville he bounced back at the plate.  After a handful of disappointing offensive seasons, he hit .290 in 1902 and an astonishing .351 in 1903.

In 1904, “Derby Day Bill” became the manager of the Columbus Senators, also of the American Association.  His club finished in 2nd place in the league.  1904 was his last full season as a player.  He played in 139 games, but hit just .224.  In 1905, Clymer lead his first squad to a league pennant, and followed up with a repeat in 1906 and a three-peat in 1907.  In 1905, he appeared in only 47 games as a player, and that number dropped to 15 in 1906.  In 1907 he was strictly the manager of the club.

In 1907, Sporting Life magazine predicted that Bill Clymer would be named the new Boston Red Sox manager for the 1908 season.  However, the prediction never came to fruition.  Clymer never managed in the Major Leagues, although he did serve as a coach on the 1925 Cinicinnati Reds staff.  1909 was his last season managing in Columbus.  In 1910, he was featured as the Columbus skipper on his T206 card.

He would go on to manage for approximately 29 years in the Minor Leagues.  He returned to Wilkes-Barre, Buffalo, Columbus, and Louisville along with one-year tours in Tulsa, Toronto and Seattle.  His teams went 2,122-1,762 over that span, winning an impressive seven pennants.  Baseball Reference shows that he appeared in one game as a player in 1922 for the Newark Bears of the International League, although he didn’t record any stats.

In 1989, Bill Clymer was inducted into the Buffalo Bisons Hall of Fame in recognition of his 11 years of service to the ball club (see the HOF plaque below).

I’d like to thank Baseball Reference, Baseball History Daily, and the Buffalo Bisons.  Baseball Reference for the use of their stats, biographical information, and the cartoon that appears above.  The picture at the top of this article is courtesy of Baseball History Daily.  The Buffalo Bisons Hall of Fame plaque is courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons.

 

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.

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.

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.

Why Do You Collect Backs?

Recently, a net54 member posed the question “Why do you collect backs?”.  A very simple question on its face, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized answer wasn’t so simple.  Like most other back collectors, I didn’t begin collecting pre-war baseball cards with the intention of collecting the tobacco advertisements on the back.  The question made me stop and think about my motivations.

The Thrill of the Hunt

My main reason for collecting backs is I find it exciting.  When I am searching for a new T206 to buy, I find it much more fun to find a scarce front/back combo than if I find a common backed card in really nice shape for a great price.  The reason is simple.  You can always buy a common back in nice shape as long as you have the money.  However, it takes more than just having money to acquire a scarce combo.  You still need to have the money, but now being the first person to find it is much more important.  This aspect of collecting backs is really fun for me.

Scarcity Within a Very Common Set

While somewhat related to the previous topic, this is a bit different.  With T206 more than any other set, you can get “scan overload” if you spend too much time searching eBay for new cards.  If you looked at every new listing for a year, you would probably see a few hundred copies of Dode Criss with a Piedmont back.  In that same time frame, you might not see a single Criss with Old Mill or Sovereign 150 back.  If you did find either, it would likely just be one or two over the span of a year of searching.  The upshot is the more you search for T206s, the more appealing the tougher backs become.  Seeing how many common backs are out there makes me appreciate how comparatively scarce the mid-tier and rare backs are.

Variety

Even before I made the plunge into full blown back collecting, I enjoyed the variety that the different backs can bring to a collection.  I love a good front as much as anyone, but there’s no doubt that a stack of T206s with a bunch of different backs is more interesting than if they all had Piedmont backs.  I know there are plenty of T206 collectors who don’t care about backs and just go with the most affordable card they can find in their desired grade.  That being said, I have to imagine the majority of collectors do have some interest in the backs.  Even if that just means keeping an eye out and snagging a few mid-tier backs when the opportunity to get them at good prices presents itself.  Another cool thing about the various T206 backs is that often your non-collector friends and family will be more interested in the tobacco ads than the fronts of the cards.  A lot of people that aren’t sports fans will still appreciate the ornate back designs and seeing the logos of these long forgotten brands.

Value

In my opinion, the mid-tier T206 backs are very undervalued.  I realize that the market prices for mid-tier backs are arrived at through supply and demand dynamics, but it still doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.  Not too long ago I paid $50 for this McElveen Tolstoi.  I’ve probably seen scans of 200 or 300 different Piedmont 350 McElveens, but this is the only Tolstoi I’ve ever seen.  A Piedmont 350 in the same shape would probably run you about $12-$13 or so.  So, I essentially paid a 3x premium above what the Piedmont would cost for a card that is 200-300x (a ballpark estimate) scarcer.  This kind of goes back to my first reason.  Finding cards like this is fun and exciting, and it’s why I enjoy collecting T206 so much.

The Most Obscure Major Leaguer in the T206 Set

In 1910, 31 year-old John Frill made his Major League debut with the New York Highlanders.  He appeared in 10 games, starting 5 of them.  He went 2-2 with an ERA of 4.47 over a total of 48 innings pitched.  Nothing too interesting about any of that.  Just a career Minor Leaguer getting a cup of coffee and eating some inning for the big league club.  Only July 13th 1910, Frill was back in the Minors, his contract having been purchased by Eastern League club Jersey City.  In 1911, he turned in a 16-17 record with a 3.78 ERA for the Jersey City club .  That same year, American Tobacco Company made a curious decision when they included Frill in the 460-Only portion of the T206 set.

There is no shortage of obscure players in the T206 set, but Frill may be the most extreme example, at least among Major Leaguers.  He was a bit of a late-bloomer in baseball terms.  His first taste of professional ball came as a 27 year-old in the Connecticut State League, where he pitched parts of the 1906 Season with Bridgeport and Springfield starting 29 games and going 11-15.  In 1907 he started 6 games for Newark of the Eastern League, before joining East Liverpool of the Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland League.  He appeared in 30 games for East Liverpool, but no other stats were kept.  In 1908, Frill re-joined Newark, where he turned in solid seasons in both 1908 and 1909.  In 1908 he went 13-10 with a 2.39 Run Average (the ERA stat was not kept, presumably because errors were not recorded).  In 1909 he was 16-13 with a 3.34 Run Average.

A mysterious figure, this little black and white thumbnail is the only picture I could find of John Frill

Including Frill in the set as a member of Newark in 1910 would have made a lot of sense.  Including him as a member of the New York Highlanders in 1911 is a real head-scratcher however.  My best guess as to why Frill was chosen for inclusion in the set is that he may have been a relatively well known player at the time as a result of his 1908 and 1909 campaigns in Newark.  This still doesn’t make a lot of sense, as most fringy Major Leaguers in the set either had a long Major League career, or a short and notable one.

Whatever the reason, Frill’s T206 card is one of my favorite of the 460-Only Series.  Though there are a number of cards with green grass and blue sky backgrounds, the colors on this one have always stood out to me.

In 1912, John Frill returned to big leagues for another cup of coffee.  He appeared in 3 games with the St. Louis Browns before being selected off waivers by the Cincinnati Reds.  He pitched in 3 games for the Reds, and then returned to the Minor Leagues for good.  In 1915 he pitched for Albany and Syracuse of the New York State League before hanging up the spikes at 35 years of age.  In 1918 he passed away far too young in Rhode Island at the age of 38.

John Frill’s T206 can be found with Uzit, Lenox, American Beauty 460 and Cycle 460 backs.  The Uzit was recently discovered and is the only copy known as of this writing.