Monthly Mailbag #2: How do Back and Grade Effect T206 Pricing?

A question I had on pricing is: How do you take backs into account for pricing?  I know there are multipliers out there for mid-tier and rare backs.  But, when a card has a low population (5 or less 10 or less ect.) How do you determine prices for those?  How do the prices move as grade goes up?

Im my opinion, there is no easy answer to this question.  While helpful, the back multipliers will almost always be off in one direction or the other in practice.  If you’re trying to price a mid-tier back in order to sell it and you use one of the back multipliers, typically one of two things will happen:  Either it will sell right away because you had it a little too low, or it will just sit there because the back multiplier estimate was too high.

Personally, I have never paid any attention to the multipliers that people have come up with.  Even years ago when I was just getting into buying the tougher backs, I always tried to base values/prices on actual sales.  These days I have seen so much price data over the years that I just kind of know values instinctively.  It took quite a lot of price research and buying/selling to get to where I am now, but anyone can do it.

If you want to get more precise with your value estimates for T206 mid-tier and rare backs, I have a couple of things I would recommend.  First, follow the tougher backs that get listed in auction format on eBay.  Make a guess as to what you think the card will sell for, and then when the auction ends, see how close you got.  I’d recommend keeping notes of all the cards you observe so that you can review them in the future.  You can do the same with any cards that sell via an Auction House.  The second bit of advice is a pay service.  You can pay $4 for 24 hours of access to vintagecardprices.com (VCP).  When I was learning this stuff, I would pay for the 24 hours of access a few times a year, and spend a few hours searching tons of data and taking notes.

Obviously, doing this type of price research is only appealing if you’re really passionate about the mid-tier and rare backs.  If you mainly just collect the T206 set based on fronts, but want a quick way to estimate values, I wish I could be more helpful.  If you find yourself in that situation, I do have a couple bits of advice.  First, you can always ask me for my opinion.  I can be reached here via the “Contact” button on the site, or via net54 (Luke) or Facebook.  Alternatively, it might be worth the $4 to log into vintagecardprices.com (VCP).

Let’s look at an example:  Let’s say you have a Ed Killian Portrait with Cycle 350 back in a PSA 3 holder, and you have no idea what it’s worth.  Here’s what I would suggest you do.  Look up the PSA and SGC Population Reports for Killian.  Then look up a few other players’ Cycle 350 Pop Reports.  This will give you an idea of the relative scarcity of Killian versus other poses in the Cycle 350 subset.  The more poses you can look up, the better.  Then, log on to VCP, and look up sales data on Killian, and all the other poses that you checked Pop Report data for.  While you’re there, I would also check sales data for all the other Cycle 350s.  You’ve already paid for 24 hours of access to VCP, so why not get your money’s worth?  While browsing VCP, make sure to make note of the date that cards sold for.  If you see a card that sold in 2009, I wouldn’t use that piece of data to help you price your card.  Sales from the past couple years will obviously be the most helpful.

One more bit of information to keep in mind is if you happen to be trying to buy or sell the highest graded copy of a given front/back combo, you can expect that card to command a premium.  There’s no magic formula to figuring out the value of the highest graded copy, but it’s something that can be learned in the same way you would learn the value of the Killian Cycle 350 in a PSA 3 holder.

Is Eddie Collins finally getting the respect he deserves from T206 collectors?

When I got into collecting T206s in 2010, I remember thinking Eddie Collins and Nap Lajoie were priced lower than I would have expected based on their status as all-time greats.  It didn’t take too long for me to get acclimated to “the way it is” in the T206 marketplace, and I kind of forgot about that notion for a number of years.

It seems something interesting is happening with Collins’ T206 lately, at least in higher grade.  Back in June, a PSA 5 Old Mill Eddie Collins sold for $1,302 in a PWCC auction.  It caught my attention because I owned the same card not too long ago.  I sold it back in December 2017, for $689.  That’s a pretty big price jump in just six months.  My price wasn’t crazy low either.  I think the card sat in my eBay store for three or four months before it sold.  A similar (and arguably nicer) PSA 5 Old Mill sold for $700 on eBay in February 2017.

A similar thing happened with a Collins Sovereign 350.  On August 12, 2018 a PSA 5 sold for $1,327, also via PWCC auction.  Back in November of 2016, Heritage sold a different PSA 5 Sovereign 350 for just $454.  In my opinion both cards are equally nice.

Obviously, two cards selling for surprisingly high prices doesn’t necessarily indicate a trend.  However, it does appear that some Piedmont and Sweet Caporal backed examples have followed, at least to some extent.  Back in April 2018, a PSA 5 Piedmont 350 sold via Buy It Now on eBay for $850, which is $183 more than the closest sale I could find on VCP.  A PSA 3.5 Piedmont 350 sold for $390 on eBay three weeks ago.  There’s no recorded sale on VCP that comes close.

So, is this a legitimate trend, or something else?  I’m skeptical of the recent PSA 5 Sovereign 350 and Old Mill sale prices, but I do think we’re seeing an increase in value that is long overdue and likely to become the new “way it is” for Collins.

 

Will Christy Mathewson be the Next Hot T206 Hall of Famer?

2 Comments on Will Christy Mathewson be the Next Hot T206 Hall of Famer?

In the last two or three years, we’ve seen some crazy price increases on a group of key T206 Hall of Famers.  Ty Cobb’s Green Background Portrait was the first to move, followed soon after by Cy Young’s Portrait.  Cobb’s other T206s began to see an increase as well.  I was a little slow to recognize the pattern, but when the Walter Johnson Portrait began to appreciate in value, it was hard to ignore.  There has also been a spike in the value of all three Nap Lajoie poses, as well as Tris Speaker.

So, who’s next?

I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb by suggesting Christy Mathewson.  The three biggest stars in the T206 set (Cobb, Johnson and Young) have already seen an uptick in value, and I think most people would agree that Mathewson is the fourth biggest star.

Which pose?

One thing all these run-ups have in common in that one pose was the first to move.  For Cobb, the Green Portrait was essentially anointed as his most desirable card.  In my opinion, the Green Portrait isn’t any more beautiful than the Bat Off Shoulder or Red Portrait poses.  However, what it has going for it is relative scarcity.  There are far fewer Green Portraits in circulation than Bat Off Shoulder or Red Portraits.

It’s much easier to pick a favorite pose for Cy Young and Walter Johnson.  To me, Young’s Portrait is the clear standout among his three poses, and choosing the Johnson Portrait over the Hands at Chest is the biggest no-brainer of all time.

For Mathewson, I think it’s a pretty tough call.  His Dark Cap pose is arguably the best looking of the three, but the Portrait is also a beautiful card, and there are fewer Portraits out there.  Obviously the White Cap pose is also a great card.  However, in my opinion, the fact that it’s so visually similar to the Dark Cap makes it hard to imagine it as the next hot card.

I’m hedging a little, but I can see both the Dark Cap and Portrait getting hot in the coming months.  Of course there’s always the chance it never happens.  After all, it’s pretty obvious at this point that Mathewson is the last remaining huge star who hasn’t seen a price spike.  All things considered, I think betting on Mathewson to get hot is a pretty safe move.

Undervalued Front/Back Combos and What it Means for the Market

Lately I’ve been thinking about why we see certain cards, or certain groups of cards come up for sale more often than others.  I think the tendency is to assume that the cards you see more often are more plentiful than the ones you don’t see as often.  In most cases, that is a pretty safe assumption.  However, sometimes there is more going on than meets the eye.

The perceived market price of a card often has a lot to do with whether that card is offered for sale or not.  There are some  obvious exceptions.  Dealers (who are not also collectors), and anyone liquidating a collection, are not going to take the market for a certain card into consideration when making their decision to sell.  However, when a collector feels the need to sell a card (or a few cards), they are more likely to choose a card they feel is either valued correctly by the market or overvalued rather than one they feel is undervalued.  Multiplied by hundreds of collectors over time, you can imagine the impact this has on the cards we see hit the open market.

Essentially this is just a discussion about supply and demand, so I realize I’m not breaking any new ground here.  I felt like it was worth a post, though, as it isn’t something I have seen discussed anywhere that I can recall.  A few weeks back, a tough American Beauty 460 showed up on eBay as an auction.  That listing was the impetus for this article.  It occurred to me you just don’t see them for sale often at all.  Obviously, they are quite scarce, but so are Piedmont Factory 42s, and there is never a shortage of those on the market.  My conjecture is collectors value their American Beauty 460s more than the price they would expect them to sell for, and therefore they stay in collections.

The converse seems to hold for the “Elite Eleven” Piedmont 350s.  With only around 100-150 of these known to exist, they are pretty scarce as a group.  However, in the last year, I think I’ve seen around 10-15 of them for sale.  The same phenomenon occurred when Ty Cobb’s Green Background Portrait began to rise in value a couple years ago.  Right before the run-up, it was tough to find one for sale.  Once the prices began to skyrocket, they started coming out of the woodwork.  Every auction had three of four copies.  Collectors clearly felt the return they expected to get would meet or exceed the value they placed on the card.

What does this mean for the market going forward?  I think it means that, until the market corrects for some of the currently undervalued backs, we’ll continue to see a dearth of them available for sale.  I don’t know how often other collectors use this rationale in deciding which cards to keep or sell, but it factors prominently in my decisions.  Obviously each collector is going to have their own ideas of what is overvalued or undervalued.  After all, if everyone agreed, the market as a whole would likely reflect this.

Monthly Mailbag #1: Aggregate Scarcity v.s. Relative Scarcity

This is a topic that I have touched on in the past, but never dedicated an entire article to.  I actually intended to write a post about this over a year ago, but it took a conversation with a new friend to jog my memory.

Q:  Regarding back scarcity and pricing/value.  I would think supply and demand would dictate pricing more than the perceived scarcity of a particular back, but it doesn’t seem to be the case? 

A couple of examples – You have a Carolina Brights Dots Miller PSA 1 priced at $769.  I understand the Carolina Brights back is the 11th most difficult.  But that specific card has a graded population of 15 – higher than the Clarke batting Sov 150 (25th in back difficulty) I am getting from you (I just have the PSA pop of 2) for $235.  Does the relative scarcity of a particular front-back combination have a greater affect on the cards value than the perceived scarcity of the back in general?  Thanks.

This is a topic that I could talk about for hours.  Ever since I got into T206 back collecting, I have been interested in why the market values scarcity the way it does.  Before I get into it, I think I should explain what I mean by aggregate scarcity and relative scarcity.

“Aggregate scarcity” is my definition for the overall scarcity of each back.  When you look at a back scarcity ranking list, such as this one at T206resource.com, you are looking strictly at aggregate scarcity.  Aggregate scarcity focuses only on the back.  The back scarcity rankings on T206resource.com tell you that there are fewer Broad Leaf 460s in existence than Drums, and fewer Drums than Uzits.

I use the term “Relative scarcity” to help me dive a little deeper.  It takes a couple new bits of information into consideration.  First, the number of poses within a given subset.  For example, the American Beauty 350 No Frame subset consists of 37 different poses.  The Cycle 460 subset consists of 109 different poses.  According to the back scarcity rankings, American Beauty 350 No Frame is the rarer back of the two.  So overall, there are less AB350nf backs in existence than Cycle 460 backs.  If you just want one copy of each back, that back scarcity list is really all the info you need.  However, if you take a deeper look into things, you may start to see inefficiencies in the market.  Although the AB350nf back is scarcer in an aggregate sense, every single AB350nf pose is more plentiful than the Highest Pop Cycle 460 pose.

For instance, there are 15 copies of Nap Rucker (Throwing) with an American Beauty 350 no frame back in the combined PSA and SGC Pop Reports.  His teammate Kaiser Wilhelm’s Cycle 460 only has 4 graded copies between PSA and SGC.  In terms of relative scarcity, the Wilhelm is in a completely different stratosphere.

The second application of the term “relative scarcity” is when dealing with a certain front/back combo that is rare in comparison to other poses with the same back.  To illustrate, let’s look at Kaiser Wilhelm again.  His (With Bat) poses is fairly plentiful with Old Mill back.  Between PSA and SGC, there are 37 copies graded.  In contrast, Wilhelm’s (Hands at Chest) pose is one of the scarcer Old Mills, with just 6 copies graded between PSA and SGC.

This is what my friend was talking about when he referenced the Sovereign 150 Fred Clarke (With Bat) he bought from me.  Earlier this year, Pat Romolo and I published some pretty compelling evidence that Clarke (With Bat) was on a sheet that was short-printed with Sovereign 150 backs.  That article can be read here.  As far as Sovereign 150s go, Clarke (With Bat) is scarce.  However, when one does come to market, it probably won’t sell for much a premium.  This is due more to incomplete information than anything else however.  Very few collectors realize that front/back combo is scarce, and even fewer have seen the research that Pat and I published.

On the other hand, many more collectors are aware that Carolina Brights is a rare back, and prices tend to remain strong despite the fact that some poses (like Dots Miller) have populations in the teens.   Though prices don’t seem to be depressed for higher pop cards like Miller, I think you do sometimes see those cards take longer to sell because some of your prospective buyers already have a copy.

The “relatively scarce” front/back combos may fall through the cracks and sell for a depressed price if sold by someone who doesn’t realize what they have.  However, once they are in the hands of a collector who recognizes their significance, they often stay there, or require an “above market” price in order to change hands.

My 2019 National Trip Report: Day 3 and Final Thoughts About the Show

Friday was my last day at the show before flying back home to Seattle.  We got another amazing breakfast at the Root before heading over to the IX Center.  On Thursday, I went into the day under the false impression that I had seen pretty much everything on the show floor.  So on Friday, I reversed that thinking, instead figuring that there were still some cards that would interest me that I hadn’t yet seen.

Ironically, Friday ended up being the best day of the show for me, in terms of finding cards to buy.  It was also the most fun because I had met some new (and old) friends the previous night, who I ran into at various times on the show floor Friday.  In terms of new cards, I added two cards to my 1917 Collins McCarthy set, and bought a couple 1906 Fan Craze PSA 8s that I thought were priced very fairly.  I also returned to a booth I had visited on Wednesday and bought a PSA 5 T205 Miller Huggins with American Beauty back that I had been thinking about since seeing it on Wednesday.  With just a few minutes left, a friend told me that he had seen a stack of Elite 11 Piedmont 350s at a booth near the back of the show.  I knew I hadn’t seen that table, so I took off in search of it.  I found it, and as the show was closing at 6:00pm, I finalized a deal to pick up Cycle 460, Tolstoi, American Beauty 350 no frame, and an American Beauty 350 with frame backs.

Later that night, I went back to the hotel bar for another evening of hanging out with new friends.  As I arrived, I almost bumped into Henry Winkler, who I guess was in Cleveland to sign autographs at the show.  Later that night, I walked out to the pool area just in time to see Jose Rijo saying goodnight to three of my friends.  Turns out they had about an hour-long conversation with him, and he couldn’t have been a nicer or cooler guy.

Overall, the trip was a blast.  Walking the floor and taking in the atmosphere was an experience I’ll never forget.  I added a nice stack of cards to the collection, and got to see some incredible cards I’ll only dream of owning.  However, the best parts of the trip were the new friends and connections that I made throughout the three days.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s National in Chicago.  I imagine it will be even more fun because I’ll be going into it with a bunch more friends than I had prior to this one.

Thoughts about the show as a whole:

This was my first National, so I can’t offer any comparisons to other years, but I was able to get a pretty good sense of what the market was like for the cards that I was looking to buy.  As you can imagine, that mainly means T206s, and the rare and mid-tier backs in particular.

I went into the show expecting to see a lot more mid-tier and rare backs than I actually saw.  In hindsight, it really isn’t too shocking that there weren’t more of them in the room.  Mid-tier backs, when priced fairly, will sell very quickly.  It probably wasn’t reasonable to expect the show to be some magical mecca of rare backs.  Most of these dealers probably sell online and/or in other venues, and unless their prices are crazy high, collectors will snap up the rare stuff.  What this tells me is that the market for mid-tier and rare backs is very strong.  There is more demand than supply for sure.  Collectors are still price sensitive up to a certain point, but if a tough back is priced somewhere in a reasonable range, it’s not going to last long.

From what I saw, the rare backs were priced at “museum prices”.  I only saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 rare backs* on the entire show floor, and I don’t think any of the sellers felt much pressure to sell them.  Not that I blame them.  If you sell a nice looking card with a rare back, good luck ever getting it back if you change your mind.

I saw quite a few reasonable prices on commons throughout the show.  One table had close to 100 PSA 5 graded commons all priced from $125 to $160.  Another thing that stood out to me was how many bargains I saw on raw, lower grade T206s.  If I had been trying to build a raw set from scratch, I bet I would have found 50-100 cards that I would have wanted to buy because they were good deals.

The only regret I have from the trip is that I didn’t find out there were any Wagners in the room until after I had come home from the show.  I’m pretty sure I saw pictures of at least three different ones online after I had already left Cleveland.  There are so many dealer tables to look at that you can really spend the entire time just looking for stuff to buy.  That’s more or less what I did.  Next year, I’m definitely going to make time to look at the Auction House booths.  I’ve still never seen a Wagner in person, and I guess I’ll have to wait until next year to rectify that.

All in all, it was an incredible trip, and I am already looking forward to next year in Chicago.

*When I talk about rare T206 backs, I am referring to Carolina Brights, Broad Leaf 350, Blank Back, Lenox, Red Hindu, Uzit, Drum, and Broad Leaf 460.

My 2019 National Trip Report: Day 2

In what was becoming a theme of the trip, we got a late start on Thursday.  We had a great breakfast at The Root in downtown Lakewood.  My latte was amazing, and the breakfast sandwich was excellent as well.  By the time I got to the IX Center, it was around 11:00 AM, but I really didn’t mind being a little late.  After trying to see every booth in the entire show the previous night, I had a new plan for Thursday.  I was planning to slow down, enjoy the show, and hopefully start to make some connections.

The new approach worked great.  I took my time wandering the aisles and tried to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the day before.  As it turned out, I had missed a lot.  I stopped by the Love of the Game booth to chat with Jeff Prizner, a fellow Seattleite, and to finally meet Al Crisafulli in person.  I had done a lot of business with Al over the last few years and it was great to meet him in person.  Hidden right behind the Love of the Game booth was Dan McKee and his awe inspiring showcases.  His booth was one of the highlights of the show in my opinion.  He had rare cards from pretty much every pre-war set imaginable.  I didn’t end up buying anything, but I considered a T206 Blank Back Mullaney, Lenox Camnitz, as well as a T205 Drum Mordecai Brown, and a 1916 Altoona Tribune back.  We had some good banter while I was looking through his offerings, which was a lot of fun.  After checking out Dan’s cards, I went over to the Sterling Auction booth to introduce myself to Lee Behrens.  Lee runs one of my favorite auction houses, and I wanted to make sure to meet him before the show was over.

After doing a little socializing, I got back to wandering the aisles, looking for cards to buy.  On that front, Thursday went about as good as Wednesday had.  I found a tough Vic Willis Portrait with Old Mill back at a table that had a lot of T206s, but only a couple tougher backs.  It wasn’t a bargain by any means, but I wasn’t expecting to find too many bargains at this show.  I also circled back to a booth I had visited on Wednesday to buy a couple American Beauty backs.  This particular table was a highlight of the show for a few of the T206 back collectors I talked to.  They had around 50 freshly graded American Beauty backs.  The standouts among them were a couple Abbaticchio AB 460s, and a Heinie Wagner AB 460.  I ended up coming away with a Donie Bush PSA 2 that is perfectly centered and looks a lot nicer than a “2”.

A little bit later I found Richard Masson and Scott Brockelman’s booth.  In terms of non-Auction House eye candy, these guys took the cake.  Scott had an incredible SGC 50 Jeff Sweeney Broad Leaf 460 and a Lenox Walter Johnson SGC 40, among many other impressive cards.  Richard had a PSA 3 T206 Plank, and stacks of e107s.  While I was standing there trying not to drool on the showcase, I heard a couple people talking about a T214 Victory Cobb, which caught my attention.  I thought, I recognized one of the guys from a picture I had seen online years ago, and decided to take the chance and see if I was right.  I went over to him and said, “Hey, are you Jamie?”  It was Jamie Blundell!  Jamie and I have worked together on a couple articles about his collection for this site, and conversed over email many times over the years, but had never met in person.  I wasn’t even done feeling relieved that I hadn’t walked up to a random person and embarrassed myself when he said, “Do you want to see the Cobbs that you wrote about?”  Heck yeah, I did!  This was probably the highlight of the show for me.  It’s definitely not every day that you get to thumb through a Red Hindu Cobb, Drum Cobb, Broad Leaf 460 Cobb, and a Ty Cobb back!

If you haven’t read it already, now would be a good time to check out the article featuring Jamie’s Ty Cobb Red Background Portrait back run:

The Greatest T206 Back Run Ever Assembled: Ty Cobb Red Background Portrait

Jamie’s collection is incredible, and it was a ton of fun to look through it in person.  In addition to his Cobb back run, he also brought a few of his Printer’s Scraps.  I got to see his Lake/Pastorius front mis-cut, in addition to his Merritt with Sam Crawford ghost.  Last but not least, I got to look at one of my favorite T206s in existence, the “Rosetta Stone”.  There is so much going on with that card, that seeing it person really gives you an even greater appreciation for how cool it is.  I’ve also written an article about the “Rosetta Stone”, which can be read by clicking the link below:

The “Rosetta Stone” T206 Printer’s Scrap

Later that evening, I headed over to the hotel bar at Sheraton, where I met a bunch of collectors, some of whom I knew (or knew of) from net54 or elsewhere, and some others I didn’t know at all previously.  This was a blast, and definitely a highlight of the trip for me.  I didn’t stay too long, as I wanted to try and get up a decent hour the next morning, as that would be final day at the National this year.

My 2019 National Trip Report: Day 1

I attended my first National Sports Collector’s Convention last week in Cleveland, Ohio.  I had an amazing time.  I came away with some new friends, some great stories, and a nice stack of new cards.  I also learned a lot about how to approach the show, both in terms of enjoying the spectacle, as well as navigating the show floor as a buyer.    Although I am very pleased with how the show went overall, I will definitely do some things differently next year in Chicago.  I hope this trip report will be both entertaining, and helpful to those of you haven’t been to a National yet, but plan to go in the future.

We arrived in Cleveland late on Tuesday night and checked into our airBNB in Lakewood, Ohio.  We were still on Seattle time, so it took a little while to fall asleep, despite being worn out from the long day of travel.  We spent Wednesday morning and afternoon checking out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and after a late lunch, headed over to the IX Center for the show.  The show was only open to the public from 4pm to 8pm on Wednesday.

This Doyle Sovereign 150 was my best T206 pickup on Wednesday

My main motivation for wanting to attend the National was social.  I wanted to meet some online friends in person, do some networking, and make some new friends.  That being said, I was also really excited to be there as a collector.  On the first day, my plan was to try and see as many booths as possible.  The idea was I wanted to do my best to find the tough T206 backs (and other tougher issues on my want-list) before everybody else saw them.  In hindsight, this wasn’t really the best idea.  I did end up canvassing the show floor from one end to the other (hitting the last booth a few minutes before 8pm), but I won’t approach future Nationals in the same way for a few reasons.  For one thing, though I thought I was visiting every booth, I realized over the next two days that I had actually missed quite a few tables (and possibly even entire aisles).  Secondly, I wish I had slowed down and taken in the spectacle a little more.  Because I was just looking to buy cards, I whizzed right on past the Auction House booths, which have the best eye candy on the entire show floor.  More than anything, I regret it because I burned myself out a bit, and I got the false impression that I had seen everything, when I really hadn’t.

Not a T206, but picking up this high grade 1916 Globe Stores back was a highlight from Wednesday

All that being said, I still had a blast the first day.  It was pretty overwhelming to be somewhere in the middle of show floor,  just surrounded by seemingly endless tables in every direction.  In a typical local card show, it’s pretty cool to a couple of tables with pre-war.  It was pretty incredible to get to browse through hundreds of such tables at the National.

Overall my first day was not super eventful.  Of the three days that I attended, I actually bought the fewest cards on Day 1, despite seeing the most tables.  Going into the show, the thought of doing a trip report hadn’t crossed my mind.  I wish it had, as I would have taken a bunch more pictures.  As I was making my way through the aisles, at about the halfway point, I look up and realize there’s a Ferris Wheel in the center of the IX Center!

After the show closed, and they herded us out the exits, I did my only bit of socializing that day.  I had made a trade with a friend a couple weeks prior to the National, and we decided that rather than mailing the cards to each other, we’d just meet up at the show and make the swap.  It was great meeting him in person, and the card I traded for was my favorite pickup from the show.  Opinions are pretty well split on whether this card is a T206 or not, but in my humble opinion, it should be considered one.

After meeting up to trade, my wife and I had an amazing dinner at a Mexican place called Momacho.  Highly recommended if you are ever in the area.  After that excellent meal, it was back to the airBNB to get some shut-eye before getting back at it on Thursday morning.

If you consider a Coupon Type 1 a T206, then this was the best T206 pickup of the day

Jimmy Williams: The Most Overlooked Player in the 150-350 Series?

Despite being an excellent ballplayer, Jimmy Williams is one of the most overlooked players in the 150-350 Series by T206 collectors.  Not too long ago, I was talking with my friend Scott Gross, and shared a scan of a new Jimmy Williams card I had added to my collection.  Scott mentioned that he considered Williams’ T206 card to be one of the most ignored/forgotten cards in the set.  I had to agree.  Once he mentioned it, I realized that I was guilty of it myself.  It’s obviously debatable whether he is in fact the most overlooked player in the 150-350 Series, or just one of the most.  But when you take into consideration how good he was, it makes our collective oversight of him all the more egregious.

Let’s take a look at why Williams has been so overlooked by collectors.  For one thing, the pose used for his card is not particularly exciting.  I happen to find the artwork and colors extremely appealing, but the same can be said for just about any other card in the 150-350 Series.  Aesthetically, Williams’ card just doesn’t stand out.

Another contributing factor is that Williams was not printed with some of the more desirable 150-350 Series backs.  Williams was printed with the following 8 backs:

  • Old Mill
  • Piedmont 150
  • Piedmont 350
  • Sovereign 150
  • Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 25
  • Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 30
  • Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 25
  • Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 30

He was not printed with these 4 backs:

  • Brown Hindu
  • El Principe de Gales
  • Sovereign 350
  • Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649

Most 150-350 Series poses* were printed with 9 or more of the possible 12 backs.  A few poses, such as Bresnahan (Portrait),  Griffith (Portrait), and Johnson (Portrait) were printed with all 12 backs.  In fact, Williams’ 8 backs is the lowest of any 150-350 Series pose that was printed for the entire production run*.

To the best of my knowledge, there are only three other poses in the 150-350 Series that were printed with just 8 different backs**.  Wid Conroy (Fielding) and Ed Hahn were printed with the exact same 8 backs that Williams was printed with.  Jiggs Donahue was also printed with 8 different backs, but with a slightly different mix.  Rather than an Old Mill back, Donahue was printed with a Sovereign 350 back.

On the field, Williams was a stud.  Three of his first four seasons were nothing short of incredible, and the other seven seasons were very solid.  In 1899, as a 22 year-old rookie for Pittsburgh, he had his best season.  In 153 games, he had 220 hits, a .354 Batting Average, and a .946 OPS.  He led the league in Triples with 27, and placed 3rd in the National League in WAR for Position Players with a 6.9 mark.

Limited to just 106 games in his second Major League season due to an ankle injury, Williams had a disappointing season.  He hit just .264 with an OPS of .712.

In 1901, he was back to full strength and put together another tremendous season.  This was his first season with the Baltimore Orioles.  He played in 130 games and had 159 hits.  21 of those hits were triples, which led the American League.  He hit .317 with a .883 OPS, which ranked 5th in the American League.

In 1902, he put up a remarkably similar season to his 1901 output.  For the third time, Williams led his league in triples, again hitting 21 of them.  In 125 games, he hit .313 to go with an OPS of .861, which was good for 6th in the A.L.

After those first four seasons, Williams came down to earth.  He played seven more years in the bigs, but never again hit .300.  He did however, continue to produce at a very high level.  Throughout his short 11-year career, he was extremely consistent.  If you ignore his second season (1900), in which he played only 106 games, and his final season (1909) when he played just 110 games,  that leaves nine seasons in which he played more or less full-time.  In seven of those nine seasons, he finished in the Top Ten in RBI for his league.  That’s pretty incredible!

In addition to being a very productive hitter, Williams provided value at a premium defensive position.  Williams spent his first three seasons at third base and shortstop.  In sharp contrast to his offensive statistics, he began his career as a subpar defensive player.  He made 67 errors as a rookie in 1899 and followed it up with 54 in just 104 games in 1900.  In 1901, his first season as a full-time second baseman, he committed another 52 errors, this time in 130 games.  He settled in a second baseman and his defense steadily improved.  From 1903 to 1909, his fielding percentage was never below .951.

As a testament to his improvement, in 1903, Williams was 4th in Defensive War in the A.L. with a mark of 1.7.  In 1904, he followed it up with a 1.2 dWar, which was good for 10th in the American League.  All in all, he had a fantastic career, albeit a short one.

One of my favorite things about collecting the T206 set is you can buy a card of an extremely good player like Jimmy Williams for the same price as a card of an obscure player who only played a few seasons in the minors.  If you’re the type of collector who likes to look for tough backs, you’ll want to find either an Old Mill, which is the toughest, or a Sovereign 150, which is also pretty hard-to-find.  If you don’t care too much about backs, a Piedmont or Sweet Caporal should be pretty easy to find.  Whatever you decide, you can’t go wrong.  I think an argument could be made that Jimmy Williams is the most underrated player in the entire set.

* Poses that were pulled from production early, or put into production late will be printed with less than 8 backs.  Examples of these poses are:  All of the 150 Only Subjects, All of the Elite 11 Subjects, as well as Crawford (Throwing) and Jennings (Portrait)

**I am pretty sure this group of 4 players is the full list, but it’s possible that I’m missing a player or two.  As far as I know, there aren’t any reliable checklists to look this up, so I had to go off the top of my head and check my memory against the individual back checklists on t206resource.com.  If I forgot any pose, please let me know in the comments section.

Group of 80 Hand-cut T206 Polar Bears Surface at Auction

Recently, a group of 80 hand-cut Polar Bear came to market via Weiss Auctions.  To my knowledge, this is the first time these cards have been known to the hobby.  When I first heard of Weiss Auctions, I assumed it was a small auction house, but upon checking out their website it looks like that is not the case at all.  It looks like they mostly deal in antiques, but they have sold some high profile baseball items in the past including a SGC 40 T206 Wagner (which sold for $791k).  I don’t think Weiss Auctions is on the radar of most T206 collectors, but it may be a good site to bookmark just in case they get some more cards in the future.

The cards were sold in two groups, one had 44 cards and the other had 36.  If my count is correct, there are 59 unique poses in the group, with 21 of them having a duplicate.  You’ll notice that all 80 cards feature poses from the 350 Only Series.  There are two Hall of Famers in the group, Joe McGinnity and Jake Beckley.  Unfortunately, neither of them is duplicated.

The quality control on Polar Bears was pretty good, so it’s rare to see a significant print flaw on a card with a Polar Bear back.  Prior to seeing this group, I had never seen or heard of a hand-cut T206 with a Polar Bear back.

When a friend of mine told me about these cards, I couple of questions came to my mind immediately:

  1. Did these cards all come from the same sheet(s)?
  2. I wonder if they can be lined up and put back together like a puzzle?

A friend of mine won the lot of 44 and sent them to me so that I could take a look at them.  I was excited to see if I’d be able to line them up and re-create a partial sheet (or even just connect a few of the cards).

When I received the cards in the mail, I realized pretty quickly that it was not going to be easy.  While all of the cards are clearly hand-cut, only a few of them have a really unique cut.  Ideally they’d all have some wacky cuts that would make it easier to figure out how they fit together.  When I sat down to work on the puzzle, I was hoping to make some cool discoveries about how the sheet may have looked.

I’m sad to say, I didn’t find any cards that I’m 100% sure were situated next to each other on a sheet.  The only possible match is these two Bugs Raymond cards below.  I’m not totally sure they are a match though, as I think the space between the to cards looks a little thin.

I still think these cards came from the same sheets, but unfortunately I was not able to prove it.  My hypothesis is that the cards were cut from a sheet by hand, but whoever cut them did a little extra trimming on some of the cards.  If that happened, it would explain the difficulty I had in trying to piece them back together like puzzle pieces.

I don’t know who won the other lot of 36 cards.  If you won it, please reach out to me and let me know.  There’s still a chance that some of the cards I have fit with some of the cards in the other group.  It would be pretty significant if we could re-created a partial 350 Series Polar Bear sheet.  Even if we’re not able to learn more from this group, it’s still pretty cool that there are now some Polar Bear backed examples of printer’s scrap in the hobby.