Question on the E98 Background Color Variations

[VoodooChild]

I just purchased my first E98 and do not know a whole lot about the set. Is there any information out there that talks about what colored backgrounds are more "rare"? I found an old Net54 thread from 2007 by googling that seems to talk about the red background being the most rare, however, when doing an ebay search, it seems that the red background is the most "common". Did the Black Swamp find change that thinking?

If anybody has a ranking by rarity of the background colors, I would appreciate the help.

Thanks

[ullmandds]

The majority of the BSF cards had red background...additionally I'd say it's a case by case scenario(player by player) as to which background colors are tougher. No generalizations can be made in my opinion.

[Tim Kindler]

Jason,
Congratulations on your 1st E98. I have always loved the set and for 13 years, it has been my collecting passion. Pete is correct in saying that it is mostly by a player to color basis on scarcity now. There are 4 or 5 collectors in our community whom really know their stuff when it comes to E98s. For my two cents worth, it was once thought of as Red as the most difficult, but even before the BSF, I always thought of Blue as the most scarce myself. At least that has been my experience, but for every collector, their experience of difficulty has been different. One thing now is for certain: with the BSF find, red is certainly not considered the scarcest. I have my entire Master Set: All 30 players in all 4 colors on display on the SGC registry or it can also be viewed currently on page 32 of these threads. There are certain player/color combinations that personally I have only seen once or twice. These include: Green/Mathewson (twice), Blue/Jennings(twice), Orange/ Jennings (twice), Blue/Young (twice), Green Young (twice), Blue/Bridwell (twice), Red/Bridwell (once), Blue/Brown(once), Green/Vaughn(twice), Blue /Tenney(once), Red/Lajoie(three), Blue/Tinker(once), Blue/Mack(twice), and a Blue Coombs(once). These have been my observations anyway.
Anyway, best wishes if you go after a set of 30, or just enjoy a few. Chase, Cobb, Tenney, Jennings, and Kling are probably my favorite poses.

Jason, What is your first E98 and in what color?

Take Care, Tim Kindler

[VoodooChild]

Pete and Tim....thanks so much for the info.

Tim, I just checked out you master set and it is truly stunning! The collections I have seen since joining The Board are just incredible.

I will not be going after anything like a master set. I won the orange Fred Clarke at the last Sterling auction and am considering going after all four colors. You answered one of my questions that I was going to follow up with in that now that I've seen your set I know that all 30 subjects are available in all 4 colors. Now it will remain to be seen if I have to pay any sort of premium for the other 3 Clarke colors.

Thanks again for the info, I really appreciate it.

[E93]

In my experience none of the colors is particularly tougher than any other, though as Tim mentioned, if you are looking for a particular player in a particular color, some may prove to be more challenging.
JimB

[Tim Kindler]

Jason,
Nice pickup on that Clarke. Thanks for the compliment on my Master Set and I hope you and others can use it for a reference in the future. Some came really easy while other player/color combos were much more difficult for me. As you can see, the green Clarke in better condition has eluded me, but I hope to find it and many other e98s in the future as I upgrade my set. As for Clarke, in my experience, the red, orange, and blue are pretty easy to find, while the green will be more difficult. Anyway, enjoy the hunt, because that is what makes collecting e98s fun for me. I'm still hunting too, for upgrades!
Tim

[Leon]

and when you run out of players and colors you can start on your E98 Old Put run....(and here is a Clarke in blue :))

[VoodooChild]

Sweet cards as usual Leon! I saw one of those on eBay too and was wondering what they were. Then I remembered a thread about them posted back when I first joined. Now that I'm learning about all these different types, I'll have to search for that thread and re-read it.

[ullmandds]

It took me 3-4 yrs to find all 4 colors of jennings...the blue was the 1st I acquired!

[pcoz]

Guys, I agree with everyone's thoughts so far, and take it from Tim, the E98 king! I need 13 more for my Master set, and I thought blue to be marginally scarcer than the others before the BSF, and for sure now after. But without a doubt in my opinion, blue has always been the most condition sensitive. The player/color combos are the key here, with so many only showing up through the years once or twice. I've seen a bunch of blue Matty's, but only 2 green & 2 orange's, 1 green Clarke, 1 blue Walsh, 2 blue Tenney's, 1 orange Bender, and I have the only blue Tinker I've ever seen for sale. Toughest HOF'ers imo are Walsh, Lajoie & Jennings, and commons are Coombs, Bridwell & Vaughn.

[Tim Kindler]

Guys,
Seeing beautiful E98s on the board never gets old. Leon's Old Puts are awesome and I still drool over that Clarke......maybe someday Leon;)

Pete U., I love seeing those Jennings again. That card is so underestimated in this set in my opinion. It's by far, the lowest populated Hall of Famer in the set, and there are really very few higher graded examples in existence, and you have some real beauties there my friend!

Pete C., great seeing some of your beauties again. Your Tinker in Blue is absolutely stunning. I've only ever seen 2 in my life- yours and mine and yours is stunning and mine is in dog-chew-toy candition:p. Everyone be aware that when Pete finishes his E98 MAster Set , it will be absoultely fantastic with most of his cards far exceding the conditions of mine! I can't wait. Pete and I have traded, bought, & sold back and forth helping each other on our Master Set journeys over the years working within our respective budgets, needs, and wants. As I mentioned in my Master Set set thread, I really appreciate the friends I've met through the board like Pete while collecting E98s. Can't wait to see your finished project my friend!

[pcoz]

Thanks Tim! You'll always be the captain of the E98 team for sure, and I really appreciate all your input & friendship in catching up with you over the years on these. Jason have fun with the set, it is certainly Tim and my favorite set, but a truly beautiful & fun one to collect. Good luck with the Clarke's!

[caramelcard]

We've had many discussions about this over the years. Some collectors have found red to be the hardest, but everyone has a different experience. I've also collected the master set and green was a bit tougher for me. Even with a few of us accumulating a hundred and fifty to two hundred cards over the years, it's hard to do a study with a large enough sample size. Many of the same cards have been recycled into different collections.

I believe the the "Old Puts" (and the Black Swamp find) show that it's likely certain colors could be more difficult to find.

If only red (and a small smattering of blue) were included (given out) with that product, it's very likely that other colors were exclusive to one product. Or that, for example, red E98s were included with Old Put Cigars and 4 or 5 other products.

If it was a retailer who stamped the Old Put E98s, he probably chose the red background cards from a salesman. The Black Swamp find was mostly red, but it shows that whomever was selling those cards did have different colors with them.

If this is true that each color might be exclusive to a certain product, then the popularity of the product might determine how many survived. It seems likely that the same number of each were printed, but how many were actually purchased by retailers or shops and how many customers purchased them as a premium?

E98s might not be candy cards. There's really no proof, except for what appear to be orange stains on some of the cards. (By the way, I've seen more stains on green and orange cards) "Old Put" stamps seem to be something closer to proof that they're not candy cards, but again the cards were probably used to support different products. The Black Swamp find story mentioned that the family owned a meat market, not a candy store or cigar shop.


E98s are more common then E94s as we know. I would assume that E98 was a broader scheme that was fairly successful regionally and that E94 followed, but was on more of a local level.

E94s appear in my experience to show a much more unbalanced survival rate between the different colors.


Rob

[Tim Kindler]

Rob,
Great to hear your thoughts. Rob helped me alot with insight when I first started collecting E98s. He came just shy of a Master Set long before I ever came close. For those who are newer to the board, if anyone knows anyting from the earlier thoughts on E98s and information on E98s its Rob and Bob M. They are a huge wealth of knowledge to this board.

Yes, we don't know for sure if E98s are truly E or T cards. The Old Put cigar could simply be an overprint over an E card, but no one knows for sure. In my opinion, I have always concluded that they are an E card because the poses match others from E sets.

I never looked at the staining aspects on certain colors before, Rob, but now that you mentioned it about the greens and oranges, I'm going to have to do some research. Rob, Great to get your insights.
Tim

[pcoz]

Rob, great stuff. I do have more staining on my greens & oranges after looking at them. Far less on the reds & blues. My reds are in the nicest condition, with some of the lower grades I received from back paper loss, not staining. I think you're right and they were used in a wider distribution capacity. I've always considered them E cards because of the staining, and that you can make the case the mid-grade of the set is an SGC 40 or less, not including the BSF. Old Puts I would have in the T category for how they were distributed. E98's seem to have the tough player/color combos, with the E94's having certain colors showing up more often. Two great sets!

[Leon]

Anyone see many misprints and freaks in E98? Here are a few, the Bridwell with the split back, Walsh with a pretty cool sunburn and Evers with fading or something?...

[brianp-beme]

Great insider info on this set Tim and Pete...I always dig what long time, focused collectors can bring forward to the collecting community. Here are the ones I own that Tim (and Pete on the Tinker) noted as being difficult. Notice that they are all blue in color. And marvel at how they are artfully arrayed so as to almost disguise missing portions on Tinker and Brown. These have never seen the light of my scanner, though the Tinker and Brown have been picked up within the last five years, so were at some point on the tanning bed, but perhaps not noticed because of their sour condition. I have had the Coombs forever, so he probably doesn't even know what a scanner is.

Brian

[Tim Kindler]

Brian,
Thanks for sharing your scans. Those are some toughies and ones I have rarely seen. My Brown, an SGC 10 isn't much better, just completely there:). I agree with Pete. Not only do I think Blues are tougher to find, they are tougher to find in better condition.

Leon,
Here are a few odd/ball E98s. The Green McGraw has a white face with no skin coloring like the other color background McGraws. My Blue McGraw and my Blue Meyers have a split back of two cards with one card on front.

Staining- I definately see Rob's point on the staining of Green and Orange backgrounds. Many of my oranges and greens have staining, but so do many of my Blues. Maybe the Reds were given out as promotional pieces and not included in candy/caramel wrapped candies like the other colors????? This is a theory behind why how the family got all their Reds which were then placed up in that attic without being distributed and were left in incredible condition. It would also help explain why the majority of Old Put Backs (I've only seen 4 Blues stamped with an Old Put- Leon's Clarke, My Dooin, and 2 from a private collector) are on Red cards. The store owner might have gotten them as a promotion and decided to make his own advertising pieces??
Tim Kindler

[caramelcard]

Tim,

Great points. And thanks for checking on the blues for stains. Now, I remember that many of my blues had staining as well. Not to say that we won't find some red E98s with caramel/candy stains, but I don't think they're as common if there are any. I think you're onto something with the reds possibly not going into packaging. But, it's possible that other colors (sometimes) didn't go in either. Even before the B.S find (:p), I'm sure you remember Scott M's green set. Nearly flawless and all of them found together.

Anyone still have the green E98s with the "paid" stamp?

Rob

[Tim Kindler]

Rob,
I don't know about the PAID stamp ones, but I remember a few years ago when some bum tried to sell a green background card with a fake Old Put Stamp.
Yes, Scott's set is still the most amazing thing on the SGC registry.

[pcoz]

Since we were talking about OP's, here's my blue one. After checking some of the OP's, it seems a few have staining as well, which brings into question whether some were distributed, picked up, stamped and redistributed by the Old Put Cigar Company. Rob, Scott M's set furthers your point about different ways they came to the market, as they are stunning cards and couldn't have been in a candy wrapper. I think I remember him saying he got all of them together in an estate sale. Brian, love the blues!

[caramelcard]

Wow. Great card Pete.

There was only one blue OP until I found one on ebay in horrible shape that Tim has now.

How many blue are there now?


Rob

[Tim Kindler]

Pete,
Sorry. How could I forget about that beauty of a Chance that you have.

Rob, I believe there are 5 in existence that we know of: mine from you, Leon's, Pete's, and two others from a collector who wishes to remain private.(maybe 3from him,can't remember)

On the staining thing, it would be interesting to get Brian's take on the cards in his all commons master set. Brian, you out there?
Tim

[bn2cardz]

Anyone see many misprints and freaks in E98? Here are a few, the Bridwell with the split back, Walsh with a pretty cool sunburn and Evers with fading or something?...

There was a Mack Black Swamp Miscut showing three cards on the front (Ford's name on top and a slight card on the right) and a split back. I am glad it is miscut because to get a post factory problem free card that was centered would have cost me at least 10x as much (based off the lowest Mack BSF).

http://dyn2.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F0%2F8%2F6%2F7%2F10867395%5D%2Csi zedata%5B220x350%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5Dhttp://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F0%2F8%2F6%2F7%2F10867400%5D%2Csi zedata%5B220x350%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D

[peterose4hof]

Great thread guys! I had the pleasure of seeing Tim's "book" of E98s that he brought to the National a couple years ago. Truly an impressive collection.

I only collect Cincinnati Reds so McLean is the one that I am after from this set. I have the red version (below), but I still need the other 3. Any thoughts on if McLean is tougher to find in one color vs the others?

<a href="http://s1049.photobucket.com/user/peterose4hof/media/E98McLean.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s393/peterose4hof/E98McLean.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo E98McLean.jpg"/></a>

[caramelcard]

There was a Mack Black Swamp Miscut showing three cards on the front (Ford's name on top and a slight card on the right) and a split back. I am glad it is miscut because to get a post factory problem free card that was centered would have cost me at least 10x as much (based off the lowest Mack BSF).

http://dyn2.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F0%2F8%2F6%2F7%2F10867395%5D%2Csi zedata%5B220x350%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5Dhttp://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F0%2F8%2F6%2F7%2F10867400%5D%2Csi zedata%5B220x350%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D


Was bidding on this card too. It's very difficult to find an E98 with a name at the top.

[bn2cardz]

Was bidding on this card too. It's very difficult to find an E98 with a name at the top.

I really thought it was a beautiful card and felt the miscut added to the value. I really didn't think I would win it. I guess the grade helped me on that one.

[Tim Kindler]

Andy,
I love your unique Mack! Yes, I have only seen one other E98 with a name on the top before. As Rob said, that is a special one.

Chris,
Thanks for the compliment on my book of E98s. It's now complete!:D
As for the McLean, I have seen that particular player more often in Red and Green. Blue and orange, I have seen quite rarely. This is my experience with that particular card which might greatly differ with other collectors.
Best Wishes,
Tim Kindler

[pcoz]

Tim, I've had the same experience with McLean. The red & green backs show up more often(not that it's that often in general) & in much nicer shape. I've only seen a couple of blue & orange ever, and they were in poor/beater shape.

[caramelcard]

Me too. I think Mclean was kicked to the curb or tossed in the garbage a lot more often than other players in the set because he was less popular.

[Wildfireschulte]

I love these posts that educate us on these somewhat obscure a difficult sets. But it's always kind of tough to know what the value range is for them. So, I lobbed a couple of E98's in the BST auction with low mins, and lets find out what they bring.

[peterose4hof]

Andy,
I love your unique Mack! Yes, I have only seen one other E98 with a name on the top before. As Rob said, that is a special one.

Chris,
Thanks for the compliment on my book of E98s. It's now complete!:D
As for the McLean, I have seen that particular player more often in Red and Green. Blue and orange, I have seen quite rarely. This is my experience with that particular card which might greatly differ with other collectors.
Best Wishes,
Tim Kindler


Me too. I think Mclean was kicked to the curb or tossed in the garbage a lot more often than other players in the set because he was less popular.


Thanks for the replies gentlemen. Now I know if a blue or orange comes up not to pass on it.

[phlflyer1]

Rob, Scott M's set furthers your point about different ways they came to the market, as they are stunning cards and couldn't have been in a candy wrapper. I think I remember him saying he got all of them together in an estate sale. Brian, love the blues!

Hi Pete,

That is a really nice Old Put example! Thanks to you, and others, for your compliments on my E98 set.

I have nowhere near the knowledge on the E98 set that you and other collectors such as Tim and Rob have. The only thing that I can add to the discussion is that my E98s were obtained in the mid 1970s from the sister of the original collector who passed away. They were going to be thrown out before my father and I rescued them from the trash! :eek:

The collection "only" had the one complete set of all Green E98s (no doubles) and a single low-mid grade Orange E98 that I had the pleasure of trading or selling to Mike P. several years back.

If you look real closely there is a little bit of staining on one or two of my Green E98s but most of them do not have any staining at all.

I can't say exactly how the original collector obtained the cards, whether it was individually or as a group. I can tell you that they were kept stored in a Piedmont slide shell tobacco box along with other tobacco and candy cards that we found stored inside of other tobacco boxes which were kept inside cigar boxes from the period.

[pcoz]

Scott, thanks for the info, and again, the nicest set in existence! I remembered you mentioning you and your pop being together when you picked them up, but couldn't remember exactly where you did. Great story on where they were being held too.

[shammus]

Guys, I apologize - I'm waaay late on contributing to this thread. I completed my Master Set run of the common cards and the entire group went away to the vault. It just took a while for me to remember to grab them so I could participate in this thread :)

On the whole e98s are in my top 3-4 favorite sets of all time. The challenges I faced when putting this group together rank up there with any collecting project I've ever undertaken. There's such a wide variety of difficulty with collecting all variations like this. Some player/color combos seemingly pop up all over. Others seem to take years to find. This particular project likely would have to rank up there as my very favorite set-collecting endeavor that I've undertaken yet. In fact, I'd say it's inspired a couple of my current projects as I also am after a commons set-run for both the t204 and the e107 set (haha, yeah right!)

Some of my thoughts based on questions asked in this thread -

Toughest background color -- I think the toughest color I've stumbled across was green. When I was starting to inch my way towards "shouting distance" of completing my set of commons, I looked at which cards I still needed and it seemed that I was short all the toughies in green. My favorite color would be orange. That's the most vibrant color in my opinion and maybe the color I had the best of luck finding examples of...lol.

Toughest cards -- I'm one of those that believes that the HOFers in this set are pretty easy to come by when compared to the commons. With the exception of a few tough player/color combinations of course. But interestingly enough, with this set, the HOFers actually outnumber the commons and it's the commons that generally don't turn up to often. The commons themselves have a wide variety of difficulty to them in finding specific ones. Specific color combinations then, get especially grueling. The toughest commons for me were Tenney (who gives me fits in most sets I collect), Coombs and Vaughn.

McLean in blue and orange -- My blue is a PSA 2 and my orange is an SGC 20. I don't really remember any difficulty with either card, but I do recall orange being kind of tricky for me at the very end of the project. For some reason the final 3 cards I needed were all orange and they were all cards that SHOULD have been amongst the easiest player/color combos to find. Cards like the orange Ford and orange Meyers were making themselves difficult to find for some odd reason. No idea why, but I think the orange Mclean was in that group too.

Misprints/Oddities -- Ahh my favorite part of collecting e98s! You run into a lot of Caramel issues that just flat seem to have no misprints/printing goofs show up EVER! Sets like e95/e96, e102, e103, etc... just never seem to have anything unique show up. e98s are a little different. While the set isn't riddled with errors or anything like that, I have noticed a few goofs --

- oversized handcut cards - Only seen very very few of these and they're my favorite e98 "oddity". I have an oversized orange Coombs and Ford in my collection
- blank backed examples such as Steve Falleti's Bresnahan and a Tinker in my collection
- “old put” overprint on back - several red and blue cards
- several e98s with miscut backs (left to right).
- Orange Walsh with red "ghost" layer that Leon posted earlier. I believe that finding an e98 that is "off" in terms of it's registration is insanely rare. Leon's example involves a printing pass that just happened to be off by a tiny bit.
- “almost B&W" cards - these may have been soaked though. I have a couple though that are void of any color altogether.

I'll get a few scans up in a little bit....

[shammus]

Here's a few scans that I promised. I had such a tough time with Coombs, Tenney and Vaughn that I thought I'd show my "foursome" of each player...heh...

The other scans show a few of the "oddities" I mentioned. The oversized Ford and Coombs that are amongst my favorite cards in my entire collection. Also a couple of the black and white cards. I have no idea of these cards are scrap that simply didn't hit all of their color passes during the original print run or if they were soaked. The cards have extremely crude cuts which seem to support the "scrap" theory where they were perhaps pulled off the print run and then manually cut up later on.



138075

138076

138077

138074

138078

[shammus]

I also wanted to take a second and thank Tim K, Pete C, Rob A and all the others that helping me along in completing this project. I got very lucky at times and just happened to catch people either parting with dupes or otherwise shedding some cards at certain points. Thanks guys, I couldn't have completed this without you all :)

My future with this set? Well, as you can see, some of my cards fall into the beater catagory.... Ok, ok, I'll tell the truth - MOST of my cards fall into the beater catagory...lol. I've been thinking about doing some upgrading. Now that I have the cards finally pulled out, maybe I can take a look and see what I'm needing :)

[caramelcard]

Congrats Brian! Tough project to say the least. And, you have some really interesting cards in the group. Green was the toughest color for me as well.

Rob