American Beauty 460 backs were released in 1911, at the tail end of T206 production. Poses from Print Groups Three, Four, and Five are represented in the AB 460 subset. As you can see, they share the same design with American Beauty 350 no frame (which I discussed in Part 3 of this series).
American Beauty 460 is the scarcest American Beauty back in terms of overall population. It ranks 13th on the Back Scarcity Rankings at t206resource.com. American Beauty 350 no frame is 15th and American Beauty 350 with frame is 21st. Individual subjects with American Beauty 460 backs are also typically more scarce than a single pose with either AB350w/f or AB350nf. There are a few exceptions to this rule (12 to be exact) that I will discuss in a moment.
Here is the complete American Beauty 460 checklist:
Many of these cards are extremely scarce. However, there are a group of 12 poses which were printed in much greater quantities with American Beauty 460 backs than the other poses in the subset:
Crandall with cap
Devore
Duffy
Ford
Gandil
Geyer
Hummel
McGraw glove at hip
Pfeffer
Sheckard glove showing
Tannehill on front
Wheat
These 12 poses were dubbed “The Exclusive 12” in 2013 by collector Ted Zanidakis in a post on net54baseball.com (which you can read here). They probably are a subject for another post, but suffice it say they are relatively easy with American Beauty 460 and Tolstoi backs, but tougher than you would expect with EPDG and Polar Bear backs.
American Beauty 460 backs sell for more than any other American Beauty backs (with the exception of the 12 players listed above). Many of the subjects who are not part of the “Exclusive 12” have extremely low known populations. If you play with the PSA Pop Report, (which I explained how to use in this post) you will find many that have Pops of zero, one, or two.
Thank you as always to t206resource.com for the use of their checklists.