Tag: article

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

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 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.

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.

Why Aren’t T206 with Two Different Names on Top and Bottom More Popular with Collectors?

Beaumont with Seymour batting on top

As you know if you’ve been reading my stuff for awhile, I love to delve into the minutiae and oddities of the T206 set.  T206 collectors love print goofs and errors, but for some reason, cards with two different names on top and bottom (let’s call them “two namers” from here on out for the sake of brevity) have been given the cold shoulder by collectors.

Walsh with Seymour batting on top

In my opinion, these cards are incredibly cool.  They offer insight into how the cards were laid out on the sheets when they were printed.  To date, no complete uncut T206 sheets have ever been found.  As a result, it’s been left up to T206 researchers to try and figure out how those sheets may have looked.

McGraw with Chesbro on top

One thing we know is that cards with the same name on top and bottom (we’ll call these “double namers” are much, much more common than two namers.  What this tells us is that the sheets were printed with multiple copies of the same card stacked vertically.  To be totally honest, I can’t remember what the general consensus is on how many of the same card were stacked vertically.

Snodgrass with Maddox on top

It has been awhile since I have seen anyone debate it.  As is often the case, this article may lead me to research that topic and write an article on that subject.  It is important enough to be worthy of it’s own article in my opinion.  I seem to remember people talking about there possibly being nine of the same pose printed in a row vertically.  This makes sense when you look at the ratio of DOUBLE NAMER : TWO NAMERS.  I’ve also read the theory that some cards which seem to be short-printed may have just been printed in quantities smaller than nine.  To me this theory has always made a lot of sense.  I would think that ATC and the printers would want to have more copies of the popular players than the lesser known players.

Lundgren with Ball New York on top
Bergen with Dooin on top

As you can see with these scans, the degree to which the second name shows varies widely.  The few copies that look like the Beaumont at the top of this article tend sell for strong prices, while the examples with only part of the second name showing do not fetch nearly the same premium.  In many cases, collectors won’t pay any premium at all for one of these cards.  This baffles me honestly.

 

 

Rossman with McBride on top
Hinchman with Stovall portrait on top

I understand why collectors prefer examples with the full name on top, but I think even the ones with just a sliver of a second name are cool.  Just personal preference, but I’d much rather have a two namer with just a bit of the second name than a card with a mis-aligned back, even though the “back mis-cuts” sell for a much larger premium.

Spade / Cicotte    &    Lindaman / Bresnahan portrait
McGinley with Speaker on top

There are collectors who will pay a few thousand dollars for a T206 Murr’y, simply because a bit of the brown ink for the name was not applied, but two namers get no love.  To me, the two namers are a much more interesting anomaly.  This Chance with Fiene on top recently sold at auction for the minimum bid of $200.  In this condition, I’d imagine the card would be worth right about $200 without the second name.

Chance with Fiene on top

I know of only a few guys who have been collecting two namers over the years.  I expect that some day these cards will get more respect, and when they do, people will realize just how few of them are out there.  And, the guys who have been hoarding them will be rewarded.  Time will tell of course.  As we know, rarity doesn’t equal value.  In my humble opinion, it’s hard to understand why these cards aren’t in higher demand.

Powell with O’Leary on top

Auction Report: Love of the Game Spring Premier Auction 2017

2 Comments on Auction Report: Love of the Game Spring Premier Auction 2017

 

It’s been a couple weeks since the most recent Love of the Game Auction came to a close.  In the future I’ll try to be a little more prompt with my auction summaries, but better late than never I figure.  As always, Al had a little something for everyone.

Red Hindu John McGraw PSA 3mc sells for $1,560
Two things stood out to me about this McGraw Red Hindu.  First, it has a crazy, somewhat distracting diamond-cut.  Second, it has one of the deepest red backs I’ve ever seen.  The back is just incredible.  I thought this went for a very reasonable price, and I bet the new owner is stoked to own it.

Carolina Brights Bill Abstein SGC 40 sells for $1,599
Continuing the recent upward trend for the higher tier backs, this Abstein achieved a strong hammer price.  Like the McGraw, the back on this one is exquisite.  The card is also very nice for the grade, without any signs of a crease or wrinkle.

Ty Cobb Green Background Portrait SGC 20 sells for $2,160
Green Cobbies continue to be red hot.  This one has solid eye appeal for the grade and sold for a strong price.

Broad Leaf 350 Tris Speaker PSA A sells for $615
I remember seeing the title of this listing and getting really excited.  But, then I saw the card.  I can’t help but feel a little sad when I see a rare and significant front/back combo like this that is so badly mangled.  On the bright side, I’m definitely happy that it survived all these years.

Cycle 460 Cy Young SGC A sells for $510
I thought this card went for a reasonable price.  Cycle 460s are under-appreciated in my opinion, and the premium paid for this one was only about 2x the price of a similar condition common back.

Brown Hindu Nap Lajoie portrait goes for $400
Another rare back with back issues, this one is a bit different than the Speaker above.  The buyer no doubt thought that most of the paper loss/addition was the latter and that the card’s appearance could be much improved by a soak.  I had this thought and was actually in on the bidding early but dropped out without making a serious run at it.  For the condition this one is in, I feel $400 is a strong price that the consignor should be pleased with.

Piedmont Factory 42 Admiral Schlei batting sells for $366
Keeping with the theme of this auction, the back on this card is amazing.  It’s a deep, bold blue, probably the nicest Piedmont 42 back I have ever seen.  The slight mis-cut probably kept the price down because people who prefer PSA know that the card won’t cross over with the MC qualifier.  Still, an incredible card and a nice deal for the buyer.

T206 Donie Bush With Interesting Print Mark – But Only On the Rarest Backs?

High resolution scan of the Broad Leaf 350

Monday 4/17/2017:

Continuing with the recent theme of examining print oddities and errors, here is a Donie Bush with rare Broad Leaf 350 back that has a unique print error.  The area directly to the left of his glove appears to be missing the gray ink for his uniform, and as a result it looks pink to the naked eye.  As of now, this is the only known copy of Bush with a Broad Leaf 350 back, so there aren’t any others to compare this one to.

However, I was chatting with a friend about this card, and he sent me this scan, of a Donie Bush Carolina Brights that he once owned.  Note the the print defect in exactly the same spot.  I had examined a high resolution scan of the Broad Leaf and was convinced that the spot was missing ink, rather than altered in some way.  Often, when you see mark that looks like this, it will have been created by a eraser.  This Carolina Brights scan serves as a nice confirmation that both cards were printed with the pink spot at the factory.

Upon being alerted as to the existence of this Carolina Brights card, I began to scour the internet looking for other examples with the same “pink spot”.  What I found was quite surprising.  So far, I have not found a single copy of Bush with a common back that exhibits the flaw.  No Piedmont, Sweet Caporal, Polar Bear, Old Mill, or Sovereign backs that I found had the “pink spot”.  However, the lone Cycle 350 that I found did have it:

Wednesday 4/19/2017:

After finding the Cycle 350 scan, I spent the next couple days looking for other examples of the “pink spot”.  I posted a thread on net54 asking for scans and reached out to a few friends.  The net54 query paid off immediately when long-time back collector Brian Weisner reached out to me with scans of the Carolina Brights above, and an American Beauty below, which does not have the print flaw.  Brian told me that the “pink spot” appears on 2 of the 5 Donie Bush Carolina Brights that are known to exist.

This American Beauty does not exhibit the “pink spot” print anomaly

At that point, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t find any common backs with the print flaw, but that changed when Pat Romolo joined the search.  Pat is the foremost expert in T206 Print Oddities/Anomalies.  Many of you are probably familiar with Pat’s Piedmont 150 Plate Scratch Project (ironically the thread was started by Steve Birmingham, who is the foremost expert on the printing process(es) used to create T206s) .  If not, you should definitely check it out.

Pat noted that Bush shares the same back profile as George McBride.  McBride has a print anomaly that Pat has been following, which he he has dubbed the “blue flame”.  McBride’s print anomaly has been found on the following backs:

So, theoretically with enough searching we may be able to find the “pink spot” anomaly on these same five backs above.  Later in the afternoon, Pat emailed me with the following scan:

At that point, my theory that the “pink spot” would only be found with the rarest backs was proven incorrect.  I’ll keep my eye out for more copies with this anomaly, and possibly post an update sometime in the future.  As of now, I have not seen a scan of a Piedmont 350 with the “pink spot” but based on the existence of the SC 350/30 above, I imagine there are some out there.

The T206 George Gibson with Ghost Image That Sold Last Weekend

This little gem was sold last weekend via PWCC Auctions.  The auction boasted an impressive array of T206s, and this one was kind of buried among the offerings.  It was listed as “Ghost Image” due to the dark rectangle that appears over the front of the bottom 90% of the card.  When I first saw it, I was pretty sure I knew what the faint lighter image on the on the ghost overprint was, but I needed to verify.  I am not particularly good with Photo Shop, but I thought it might be fun to show the process I used to figure out who the ghost was anyway

I thought it looked like the ghost overprint was upside down, so first I turned the image upside down:

In this particular case, I had a hunch of who the ghost might be right when I first saw the card.  However, there have been plenty of times when I haven’t been so sure when looking at a T206 with a ghost image.  In those cases, the first step in the sleuthing process is to identify any distinguishing marks (or in this case, the spots on the ghost overprint which are lighter than the rest of the ghost).

Once you’ve found some spots to look for, you need to go through other cards that were printed in the same series.  In this case, Gibson is a 150-350 subject and this card has a Piedmont 150 back.  So, if the ghost overprint features another T206 pose, it will be one of the other 155 poses from the Piedmont 150 checklist.  When I am searching for a possible match, I like to use the checklists at T206resource.com and click on the scan links at the right side of the page.  You can scroll through the entire 150-350 Series checklist on this page.

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a hunch right away.  I pulled up this pose, and found an immediate match:

I wish I had the Photo Shop skills of Chris Browne or Erick Summers, but unfortunately this is the best I can do.  If you look closely, you can see that the previously identified lighter spots on Gibson line up perfectly with Eddie Cicotte’s right arm and the creases in his pants.  How this card might have come to exist is a mystery to me.  I suppose the lighter ghost print could have come first, with the printer’s realizing that the sheet was placed upside down and then turning it around and printing the entire card again.  This fun error card sold for $249.83.  I imagine most bidders were not sure what they were looking at, but the winner most likely knew that the ghost was Cicotte.

Does the Huge Price Tag for the T206 Magie Error Make Sense?

This copy sold via Love of the Game Auctions for $15, 340 in 2013

As a T206 back collector, I tend to think about cards in terms of value.  Which backs are over-valued?  Which are under-valued?  Which cards are over-rated, and which are under-appreciated?  My favorite part of collecting this set is searching for value and scarcity, especially when it is hiding in plain sight.

It can be hard to impress T206 collectors.  There are hundreds of specific front/back combos that exist in quantities of less than 10 and are met with a collective yawn from collectors when they hit the market.  If a Cycle 350 Shad Barry SGC 30 goes to auction, it’s likely to sell for less than $100.  If a Demmitt Polar Bear SGC 30 goes to auction, it will probably sell for around $1,000.  PSA and SGC have combined to grade 4 copies of the Barry Cycle 350 and 278 copies of Demmitt Polar Bear.  Pretty crazy when you really look at the numbers.

Obviously the Demmitt, O’Hara, and Magie cards are more highly sought after than a random Cycle 350 with a low population.  The main reason is that many set collectors feel the need to own a Magie, O’Hara and Demmitt for their sets.  However, there are plenty of T206 collectors who are not necessarily attempting to complete the set.  For those people, I really wonder if the massive price tags for these 3 cards makes sense.

PSA has graded 118 copies of the Magie error (which only exists with a Piedmont 150 back).  SGC has graded 62 of them.  So, according to the Pop Reports, there are 180 Magie errors out there.  Of course there have probably been some crossovers, but there are probably some raw copies out there too.

Sold for $1,028 via PWCC Auctions over the weekend

A few days ago, this PSA 4 Sherry Magee portrait with El Principe de Gales back sold for $1,028 via PWCC Auctions.  PSA and SGC have combined to grade only 11 copies of this card.

Sold for $2,022 via Goodwin & Co. Auctions in 2016

Earlier in the year, Goodwin and Co. auctioned off the above Old Mill Magee portrait in an SGC 40 holder.  It sold for $2,022.  PSA and SGC have graded a combined 4 copies of this card.

The Pop Report Numbers for Magee Portrait with Hindu and Sovereign 150 backs are similarly low in comparison to the iconic Magie Error:

The Old Mill above is so rare that it’s almost non-existent, and yet it sold for just 13% of the $15,340 that the PSA 3 Magie pictured at the top of this article went for.  We know that there is more to value than the supply side of the equation, but I can’t help but come to the conclusion that the Magie Error is over-valued.  As long as collectors continue to covet the Magie Error to the extent they have historically, prices will remain high.  With more information available to us via the Pop Reports, it’s possible that prices will adjust over time to be more in line with actual scarcity (or the lack thereof).