Tag: that t206 life

T206 Piedmont Factory 42: Light Blue v.s. Dark Blue Backs

Charley O’Leary with dark blue Piedmont Factory 42 back

This is an article I’ve had in the works for quite a while.  Almost a year ago, I began writing and researching, but then ran into a bit of a snag.

If you look at enough Piedmont Factory 42 backs, you’ll notice that the blue ink tends to be either very light or very dark.  I’d read a few threads on the subject on net54, but beyond the observation that the ink level varied, I didn’t recall seeing any conclusions drawn.  It’s a minor variation, and maybe not worth spending too much time on.  But then again, at one point Sovereign 350 Green Apple backs were thought to be just a slight color variant of the Forest Green Subset.

So, a few months ago I decided to look into the Piedmont Factory 42 subset to see if I could find any patterns with regard to the dark ink v.s. light ink phenomenon.  I asked a couple friends to help me research.  Adam Goldenberg was nice enough to send me scans of his collection of Piedmont 42s, and Pat Romolo offered to dig through scans on Card Target for me.  Going into the research phase, I was hoping there might be some sort of pattern we’d be able to discern.  Specifically, I was wondering if certain players were printed with only one of the two back types.

The graphic below shows the difference between the light blue and dark blue backs.

The “research phase” was over almost before it started.  I got an email from Pat saying that he had begun to look at scans and he didn’t think there was a pattern.  I meant to take a look for myself, but never got around to it.  Some time passed, and I completely forgot I had started working on this article.  A few weeks back I found it while cleaning up the drafts on my site and decided I should finish it.  After all, even if there is no pattern, that still answers some questions.

So, I delved into the scans that Adam had sent me and past sales on cardtarget.com.  What I was looking for was simple.  I wanted to find one pose that was printed with both a light blue and dark blue back.  I did find that, but I found something else as well.  I went into the project thinking that the backs were almost always either dark blue or light blue.  However, after scrolling through dozens of these backs, I realized that the intensity of the blue actually varies quite a bit.

Below is the “smoking gun” of my research.  One Reulbach with a dark blue back and one with a light blue back (and another that’s somewhere in the middle).  This proves there is no easy pattern where one pose always has either a light blue or a dark blue back.

Reulbach PSA 5 with dark blue Piedmont Factory 42 back

After looking at a bunch of scans, I’m left with a couple thoughts.  First, the darkness v.s. lightness of ink varies quite a bit more than I expected (and more than you’d think from reading the net54 threads).  In my opinion, there are light blue Piedmont Factory 42 backs, dark blue backs, and every shade and variant of blue in between.  Secondly, the fact that I never found any consensus online about the dark blue backs v.s. light blue backs makes a lot of sense.  I’m sure other collectors have looked into this topic in the past, and just never posted anything about it, because they didn’t find any interesting patterns.

Reulbach PSA 5 (mk) with light blue Piedmont Factory 42 back
Ruelbach PSA 5 with a Piedmont Factory 42 back that is neither light blue nor dark blue, but rather somewhere in the middle

Despite the fact that I don’t have any exciting news to report, I figured this topic was still worth posting.  I’m sure I won’t be the last person to notice the differences between the light blue and dark blue backs and wonder if there is a pattern.  Hopefully, I can save some of those people some time.

Sources:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=137166
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=128227

George McBride’s Decade of Defensive Dominance

George McBride was the epitome of the “good-field, no-hit” shortstop.  In fact, he owns the record for lowest career Batting Average for an player with more than 5,000 At Bats (.218).  Because of his lack of hitting ability, it took a while for him to secure a starting job.  Once he did so, he took the job and ran with it.  From 1901 to 1907, he bounced around between 6 different Minor League teams, along with the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates.

In 1908 as a twenty-seven-year-old, McBride was finally given a chance to play full-time by the Washington Senators.  He played 155 games at shortstop and turned in a Defensive WAR of 2.6, which was good for 2nd in the American League.  Of course, WAR wasn’t a stat in use by any teams back then.  However, McBride’s defensive prowess was such that the team didn’t need stats to recognize it.  In 1909, he was named Captain of the Senators, a position he held for his entire tenure with the club*.

1908 was the beginning of a decade of unprecedented defensive wizardry from McBride.  From 1908 to 1916, there was only one season in which he wasn’t in the Top 3 on the American League Defensive WAR leaderboard**.  He placed 2nd in 1908 as well as 1910-11, then 1st in 1912-15.  In 1916, his last season as a full-time player, he finished 3rd in the A.L. in Defensive WAR.

McBride’s glove was so valuable that it catapulted him into the Top Ten in WAR for Position Players in the A.L. twice, in spite of his bat.  In 1908, his 4.5 WAR was good for 8th in the A.L. despite his paltry .232 Batting Average and .566 OPS.  In 1910, his 4.9 WAR placed 7th in the A.L.  His offensive output was similarly uninspiring in that season, a .230 Batting Average to go with a .609 OPS.

In 1917, he was replaced at shortstop by Howard Shanks and skipper Clark Griffith began to groom McBride as his successor.  McBride played 50 games in 1917, and then less than 20 in 1918-20.  In 1921, Griffith stepped away from his on-field duties and named McBride the new manager of the Washington Senators.

Sadly, he only managed one season (1921).  He was injured when a baseball thrown by Earl Smith hit him in the head during pre-game warmups on July 27th.  He wasn’t able to leave his bed for a week and continued to feel the effects of the injury.  At the time, it wasn’t diagnosed as such, but he likely suffered a severe concussion.  On December 6th 1921, he resigned as manager.  Griffith offered him a job as a scout, but McBride turned it down for health reasons.

In 1925, he returned to baseball and served as Ty Cobb’s bench coach with the Detroit Tigers.  In 1929, he retired from baseball at the relatively young age of 48.  He made a complete recovery from the head injury and eventually passed away at the age of 92 in 1973.

*McBride played his final game with the Senators in 1920

**1909 was a bit of down year defensively for McBride.  He didn’t even crack the Top 10 of Defensive WAR.

Sources:
-https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bb22ca0e
-https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcbrige01.shtml

Both graphics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

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

Pat Romolo’s research on the Piedmont 150 Plate Scratches has produced a number of interesting findings.  It’s really cool to be able to look at a recreated sheet and see how the cards were laid out when printed.  Pat’s initial goal was to put the cards together like a puzzle, but in doing so, he unearthed numerous nuggets of information.

I believe some of the questions I have about the set have been answered by Pat’s work.  In this four-part series, we’ll take a look at a few of the head-scratchers I have noticed over the years and how they can be explained by Pat’s research:

Why were a number of the “150 Only” players pulled from production before being printed with 350 backs, only to be featured on a new pose in the 350-460 Series or 460 Only Series?

This is a question I didn’t ever expect to be answered to my satisfaction.  There are 14 poses from the 150 series that were discontinued prior to printing of 350 backs.  Among them are Honus Wagner and the Sherry Magie error.  These two were pulled from production early on and exist in very small numbers.  The remaining 12 are generally referred to as “The 150-Only Subjects”.  They are as follows:

  • Ames, Red (Hands At Chest)
  • Brown, Mordecai (Cubs On Shirt)
  • Browne, George (Chicago)
  • Burch, Al (Batting)
  • Donlin, Mike (Fielding)
  • Doyle, Larry (Throwing)
  • Evers, Johnny (Cubs On Shirt – Blue Sky)
  • Pattee, Harry
  • Pelty, Barney (Horizontal)
  • Powers, Mike*
  • Reulbach, Ed (Glove Showing)
  • Schulte, Wildfire (Front View)

You’ll notice I have decided to include Schulte (Front View) in the 150 Only group.  There have long been discussions among collectors as to whether Schulte belongs in this group.  He would be a shoe-in if not for the find of a single Piedmont 350-backed specimen.  To read more about that find, check out the article I wrote about it here.

There are obvious reasons why some of the above players were pulled from production, but most didn’t make much sense.  George Browne was selected off waivers by Washington on April 21, 1909.  Donlin left baseball for Vaudeville following the 1908 season and didn’t return until 1911.  On one hand, that might seem like a good reason for his card to be pulled.  On the other hand, his other 150-350 Series pose, Donlin (Seated) was not pulled from production.  It can be found with EPDG, Old Mill and the entire slate of 350 backs.  Harry Pattee played his final game in the Majors in 1908, so it makes sense that he was pulled from future printings.  Mike Powers passed away two weeks into the 1909 season.  His sad and untimely death was likely the reason he was removed from the set early.

There are rational explanations for why Browne, Pattee and Powers were pulled from production.  The same can’t be said of the remaining nine players (although we have a possible rationale for Donlin).  Each of those nine players were pulled, only to be released again with a new pose later in T206 production.  I have read the theory that perhaps a number of the Cubs players were pulled because ATC wanted to quit using “Cubs” on the players’ jerseys, instead replacing it with the “Chicago” that we see on subsequent poses.  That seemed as good a guess as any but didn’t necessarily make complete sense.

This is where the Plate Scratch research comes in.  Pat wrote the following on net54baseball.com on September 9, 2017 (to read the thread, click the link below under Sources:

Another interesting thing about this sheet is most of the 150 only subjects are all together in a horizontal row, they include Evers(Cubs), Doyle (Throwing), Donlin (Fielding), M.Brown (Cubs), Pattee, Reulbach, Burch, Ames, and Schulte who I consider a 150 only subject.

The other 150 only subjects that don’t have confirmed scratches on this sheet are Wagner, Magie (fixed name), G.Browne (team change) and Powers who is the only 150 only subject in the SC150/649 subset and he has confirmed scratches on another plate scratch sheet (the A-B sheet).

The image above is too small to be viewed on most devices, so please click this link to see a larger, zoom-able image

This shows clearly that all of these poses were together on a sheet.  While this doesn’t prove anything with 100 percent certainty, I feel very comfortable drawing a conclusion based on this data.  To me, it seems likely that the printers at ALC wanted to remove Pattee from production, and in the name of convenience, chose to pull an entire row of cards rather than do the work it would have taken to replace Pattee with a different pose.  This is why stars such as Brown, Evers and Reulbach were pulled from production: because it was the easiest way to pull Pattee from production.  If you think about it, it makes sense that the reason would be something like this.  It clearly wasn’t a conscious decision.  There’s just no reason to pull Ames (Hands at Chest) but not Ames (Portrait) and likewise Donlin (Fielding) but not Donlin (Seated).  There’s also no apparent reason to have pulled Brown, Doyle, Evers, Reulbach and Schulte, stars who were soon chosen to be featured again.

*Powers is the only member of the “150-Only” group who does not reside on Sheet 2a2b.  Powers is on Sheet 1a/1b with the other poses that were printed with Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 backs.

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:

Why was George Mullin (Throwing) Pulled From T206 Production Early?

We know that George Mullin’s horizontal (or throwing) pose was pulled early in the Piedmont 350 print run and subsequently left off the print runs of Sovereign 350 and Old Mill entirely.  What we don’t know is why.  Mullin Throwing is a member of the “Elite 11” subset.  The Poses in this subset share the same characteristics:

  • They were printed with El Principe de Gales backs.  In my opinion it is likely that most, if not all of the Elite 11 poses were printed for the entire EPDG print run.  That is debatable though, and some collectors feel these poses were pulled early from the EPDG print run.
  • They were all certainly pulled early from Piedmont 350 production
  • None of the 11 poses were printed with Sovereign 350, Sweet Caporal 350, or Old Mill backs

Many T206 back collectors have memorized the list below.  Something I don’t think many people have considered is, “Why is Mullin included in this group?”  All the other poses make sense, but Mullin sticks out like a sore thumb.

The “Elite 11”
  • Dahlen (Boston)
  • Ewing
  • Ganley
  • Jones, Tom
  • Karger
  • Lindaman
  • Lundgren Chicago
  • Mullin horizontal
  • Schaefer (Detroit)
  • Shaw, Al
  • Spencer

I’ll give a quick rundown of the reasons American Tobacco Company would have had for pulling each of the other 10 members of the “Elite 11” from Piedmont 350 production early.  After that, we’ll take a look at why Mullin’s early exit from the Piedmont 350 print run is particularly curious.

Bill Dahlen 
Released by the Boston Doves on October 23, 1909 and joined Brooklyn the following year.  The artwork on his card was changed to reflect his new team and Dahlen (Brooklyn) took the place of Dahlen (Boston) for the remainder of the Piedmont 350 print run and SC 350 Sov350 and Old Mill print runs.

Bob Ewing
Traded from Cincinnati to the Philadelphia Phillies on January 20, 1910.

Bob Ganley
Selected off waivers by the Philadelphia Athletics on May 18, 1909.

Tom Jones
Traded to the Detroit Tigers on August 20, 1909.

Ed Karger
Purchased by St. Paul on June 9, 1909.  He was then traded to the Boston Red Sox on July 26, 1909.

Vive Lineman
Played his final game in the Major Leagues in 1909.

Carl Lundgren
Played his final game in the Majors in 1909.

Germany Schaefer
Traded from Detroit to Washington on August 13, 1909.

Al Shaw
Played his last Major League game in 1909.

Tubby Spencer
Played just 28 games with the Boston Red Sox in 1909 and did not play in the Majors in 1910.

As you can see, there is a clear reason behind the early exit of each of the other 10 members of the “Elite 11” from the Piedmont 350 print run.  But what about Mullin?  He doesn’t share any characteristics with the 10 players above.

In 1909, he was at the top of his game.  He appeared in 40 games, compiling a record of 29-8 to go with a 2.22 ERA.  He led the American League in both Wins and Win Percentage.  In the 1909 World Series, he appeared in four  games, posting a record of 2-1 to go with a 2.25 ERA.

In 1910, he turned in another strong campaign, appearing in 38 games with a record of 21-12 and an ERA of 2.87.

Unlike the other 10 players, there is no obvious reason why ATC would have pulled Mullin’s (Throwing) pose from production.  In fact, shortly after pulling this pose, they began printing his (Portrait) in the 350 Only Series and followed that with his (With Bat) pose soon after as part of the 350-460 Series.

Mullin’s (Portrait) features his name spelled as “Mullen”.  One possible explanation for the early exit of his (Throwing) pose is ALC thought it had spelled his name wrong on the (Throwing) pose.  This scenario makes some sense, as ALC spelled his name “Mullen” just months after pulling the (Throwing) pose from production prematurely.  Not too long after that, they began producing his (With Bat) pose and again spelled his name “Mullin”, so I’m not sure we can say anything definitively about ALC’s thoughts with regard to the spelling of his name.  In addition, there is precedent for ALC making a minor name change when dealing with a star player’s card (Sherry Magee’s “Magie” card).  I would think George Mullin would have qualified as a star in the same way Magee did in 1910.

When I first got the idea to write this article, I hoped that Pat Romolo’s Piedmont 150 Plate Scratch research would shed some light on the topic.  The Plate Scratch sheets that Pat recreated explain why the “150 Only” subjects were pulled from production early.  I hoped I’d find something similar when I looked for Mullin (Throwing) on Pat’s Plate Scratch sheets.  Unfortunately, the recreated sheet doesn’t offer any clues.  Mullin (Throwing) is located in the top left corner of the sheet above.  The image above is too small to show detail, so please click on the link below:

Piedmont 150 Plate Scratch “Sheet 3” featuring Mullin (Throwing)

The graphic below shows a small section of the sheet where Mullin is located.  As you can see, Schaefer (Detroit) is located two to the left of Mullin.  When I first saw Schaefer, I thought there might be a pattern.  However, those hopes were quickly dashed by Mullin’s proximity to Donlin (Seated) and L. Tannehill, which were not pulled from production.

We may never know the exact reason for Mullin’s early exit, but like so many pieces of the T206 puzzle, it’s fun to try and piece it together.

Pulled From T206 Production Early: Mike “Doc” Powers

In this series of articles, I’ll take a look at the poses that were pulled early from T206 production and the reasons behind their early exits.  Most poses were pulled early either due to a trade, demotion to the Minors, or retirement.  Sadly, the reason Powers was removed from further production is more tragic.

On Opening Day of the 1909 season (April 12th), Powers was injured when he crashed into a wall while chasing a foul pop up. In the 7th inning, he collapsed but recovered enough to stay in the game until it was finished.  As soon as the game ended, Powers was taken to the hospital.  The initial prognosis was optimistic.

The only thing that occurred to cast a shadow over the joy of the fans was the seizure of “Doc” Powers with acute gastritis in the seventh inning. The redoubtable catcher, however, refused to abandon his post behind the plate and though suffering intense agony, pluckily stuck to it until the end of the game. On the verge of collapse, he was taken to Northwest General Hospital where last night it was stated by the physicians attending him that he would probably be able to don a uniform again in a few days.
–Philadelphia Inquirer April 13, 1909

Unfortunately, things soon took a turn for the worse.  It was discovered that Powers was suffering from a rare medical condition called intussusception.  Intussusception is a disorder in which a part of the intestine slides telescopically into an adjacent part.  It results in a blockage that can prevent food and fluids from passing through.  Worse still, it cuts off the flow of blood to the blocked part of the intestine.  In Powers’ case, over a foot of his intestine had become gangrenous due to lack of blood flow.  Surgeons removed the gangrenous section and for about a week, it looked like he might fully recover.  Unfortunately, a new blockage was soon discovered, leading to another -this time more intrusive- operation which was performed on April 20, 1909.  For a few days, the outlook was again positive, but on April 25th it was decided that a third surgery was necessary.  This surgery revealed that Powers was suffering from acute dilation of the heart.  Though he was given blood transfusions and oxygen, there wasn’t anything the doctors could do to save him.  On the morning of April 26, 1909 Mike Powers passed away.

The popular version of the story depicts Powers as the first Major League Ballplayer to die from injuries sustained during a game.  There is even a story that Powers himself posited a bad cheese sandwich he had eaten before the game was to blame for his intestinal problems.  Though being a doctor himself, I’m sure he understood what had in fact happened once he was in the hospital receiving treatment and undergoing surgery.

The “romantic” notion that he died as a result of an on-field injury dominates the stories written about him, even to this day.  The truth is the injury merely brought his pre-existing condition to the attention of the doctors and surgeons at the hospital.  Wikipedia still lists the cause of death as complications following the on-field injury.

In an attempt to clear up misconceptions and set the record straight about what really killed Mike Powers, the Philadelphia Inquirer published the following on April 28, 1909:

At the conclusion of the ball game on Monday, April 12, Powers was found to be suffering from interssusseption [sic]39 of the bowel, which can probably be better described in homely language as like the tuck put in a man’s shirt sleeve to shorten it when it is too long.

Interssusseption is a condition found most frequently in children and in individuals who have more or less gaseous intestinal distension, and can occur while peacefully lying in bed as readily as while strenuously exercising. The mortality is usually very high; it being regarded as a generally fatal condition.

The need for an operation on Powers was manifested by the fact that he had a mass in the right lower portion of his abdomen, giving excruciating pain, and the opening made into the abdomen over the site of the mass revealed the fact that the lower end of the small intestine had slipped into the colcum [sic] or upper end of the large intestine, rendering about fifteen inches of intestine devoid of blood supply by pressure, and consequent gangrene of this portion of the intestine.

Efforts to reduce this interssusseption or, in plainer language, to restore the intestine to its normal condition, were unavailing, and the fifteen inches of intestine involved were cut out and the ends of the severed intestine were united, with the result that the obstruction was removed and the patient’s symptoms for a week were such as to lead all to believe in his ultimate recovery. At this time, however, symptoms of obstruction recurred and it was found necessary to perform a second operation. An artificial anus was then established in the abdominal walls at the seat of the original operation, when the obstruction completely disappeared and the patient improved and partook of nourishment satisfactorily until Sunday morning, the 25th instant, when suddenly he developed acute dilatation of the heart with collapse. During the day a considerable quantity of liquid was introduced into his circulation directly through openings in his veins; oxygen was administered continuously, but under neither did he respond and death resulted at 9:14 a.m. Monday.

Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 1909.

The funeral was held at St. Elizabeth’s Roman Catholic Church on April 29, 1909.  Doc Powers was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky shortly thereafter.

The Athletics and Major League Baseball in general were stunned and saddened by Powers’ passing.  Connie Mack called Powers the “most popular man of the Athletics”.  Mack soon asked American League President Ban Johnson for permission to stage a benefit for Powers’ family.  Johnson agreed, and the Athletics began preparations for “Doc Powers Day”, which was held on June 30, 1910 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.  Doc Powers Day consisted of a skills competition followed by an exhibition game between the Philadelphia Athletics and an All Star team made up of players from other MLB clubs. Tickets cost between 10 cents and a dollar.  Tris Speaker, Hal Chase, Jimmy Austin, Harry Hooper, Jake Stahl, Hippo Vaughn, and Germany Schaefer played for the All Star team.

The event was a huge success.  When all was said and done, Doc Powers Day had raised approximately $8,000 for his widow and family.

SABR produced an excellent biography of Powers which tells the real story in it’s entirety.  They go into much more detail than I do here.  I highly recommend checking it out:

A Ballpark Opens and A Ballplayer Dies: The Converging Fates of Shibe Park and “Doc” Powers

Footnotes:

39. The disorder was spelled differently in 1909 (“Interssusseption”) than it is today (“Intussusception”). The original spelling as it appeared in the surgeon’s report is used in the quotation as extracted from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Sources:

http://sabr.org/research/ballpark-opens-and-ballplayer-dies-converging-fates-shibe-park-and-doc-powers

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Doc_Powers

“Fully 35,000 Fans See Athletics Beat Boston in First Game of Season,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1909.

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 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.

The T206 Eddie Collins With Bat Proof

The Collins Proof above is probably my favorite T206.  This unique card walked into a card show in New York in the 1970’s.  It was brought to the show by a relative of someone who worked directly with proof production for the T206 and T3 sets.  No one knows why this pose didn’t make it into T206 production.  The Portrait is an iconic pose, but this With Bat pose would have been a great complement to it.

A copy of the 1994 REA catalog which featured the Collins Proof – The first time it had been offered publicly

The card speaks for itself, but the story of who has owned it over the years adds to its mystique.  Rob Lifson, who went on to run Robert Edwards Auctions (REA) purchased it and sold it soon after to Bill Mastro at a different show.  Mastro recognized that it was an unissued pose and jumped at the chance to buy it for $17.  He told Lifson that it was unissued only after he had bought it.  Realizing the significance of the card, Lifson decided to re-acquire it.  He had to give Mastro $2,000 in trade, but he left the show with it.  He then sold the proof to high profile collector Barry Halper for $2,500 when he got home.

In 1994, Halper consigned the Collins Proof to Lifson to sell in REA’s January Auction.  The minimum bid was set at $50,000 and the lot received just one bid, selling for a post-juice $56,000.  The new owner was none other than actor Charlie Sheen.

The two legendary baseball card collectors who have owned the Collins Proof

In 2000, Leland’s auctioned off the card, and it sold for $24,930.  This time, it was purchased by Keith Olbermann, and it resides in his collection to this day.  In 2011, Olbermann wrote the following in his MLB blog:

“I’d like to thank him (Charlie Sheen) belatedly for the T206 Collins Proof card, by the way.”

In the below issue of The Trader Speaks, the question of whether the Collins Proof was a more significant card that the T206 Honus Wagner was posed.  Today most collectors would opt for the Wagner if given the choice, but there are a few who would prefer the Collins.

There’s no way to know for sure what the Collins Proof would sell for in today’s market, but it would not shock me at all if it sold for low-to-mid six figures.

I’d like to thank Keith Olbermann and t206resource.com and for the use his/their scanas well as info used from the article entitled “The Olbermann Proofs” and Rob Lifson for his summary of the history of the Collins Proof, which can be read on the Full Count Vintage Baseball Card Forum here.

The “Dark Ink” Connection Between The T206 Sweet Caporal Factory 649 Subset, 150-350 Old Mill Subset, and the Elite Eleven: Part One

When you’ve handled enough T206s, certain patterns start to take shape.  It starts by noticing something small that seems a little odd on a certain card.  Most of the time these slight variations between cards are due to the inexact nature of the printing processes and don’t point us toward a larger pattern.  However, after you see the same oddities a few times with the same card, or a group of cards that can be linked together in some way, that’s when some interesting patterns can start to take shape.

Typically the articles that I write are completely researched before I publish them, but this group of articles will be a little different.  With this subject matter, it’s hard to “prove” anything, so I am content to just throw the idea out there for now.  One huge obstacle in trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle is that these 150-350 Series Old Mills are scarce.  Connecting the dots necessarily requires putting faith in the conclusions drawn from examining a small set of examples.  But, I figure I have handled more 150-350 Old Mills than just about anyone, so I feel qualified to throw out a new theory regarding them.  I’ll be interested to see what other people think, and I will continue to delve into the topic in the future.

This series of articles is going to take a look at the three backs noted above, but it feels natural to start with Old Mill, even though they were printed last.  I’ve studied T206s with Old Mill backs more extensively than any other back, and it was looking at Old Mills that lead me down this train of thought.

There are three distinct print qualities that I have observed on dozens of cards from the 150-350 Series Old Mill Subset:

1. Clean, crisp images that look more like 150 Series images than 350 Series
Sullivan Old Mill that is neither overly dark nor “washed out” in appearance
2. “Dark Ink” cards that are much darker and more heavily inked than other cards
Schlei Catching Old Mill with a noticeably darker appearance than a copy from the 150 Series
3. “Washed Out” images that lack the clarity of #1 and tend to be a bit lighter as well
Overall Portrait with Old Mill back and a “washed out” appearance

These three distinct “looks” of Old Mills from the 150-350 Series lead me to one obvious conclusion, and one that may not be so obvious.  First, because these Old Mills can be classified into three distinct groupings, clearly that means each group was printed separately.  What it doesn’t tell us is whether there is any pattern to be found.  It’s very possible that different runs on the press were just inked to varying degrees, which created the different results that we can see above.

I think there were three or more different print runs for 150-350 Series Old Mills.  I also think the different print runs were made up of a different set of players/poses on the sheets.  There seem to be some players that were not printed on the “washed out” sheets, and likewise with the “dark ink” sheets.  In Part Two, I’ll delve into the “dark ink” 150-350 Series Old Mills and we’ll see what patterns and theories we can infer from them.