T206 Sweet Caporal Census Project

[53toppscollector]

Hello. Apologies for cluttering up the main board, but I wanted to start a new thread for this project, as I suspect it will require a lot of posts, and I want to keep it organized and in its own place, instead of lumping it into my other thread of stats and curiosities.

Judging from the thread title, you probably already know what this is going to be. I have only been on this board for a little over a year, so if something like this has been done before, you can blast this thread into the sun and I won't be offended.

I'm a curious person, and one thing that has always bothered me with the population reports for PSA and SGC is how poorly they handle the Sweet Cap factory numbers. If you are the type to care about such things, then you know that in the beginning of (graded card time), PSA did not adequately label their slabs with the requisite information. They only added "T206" and then eventually "T206 Sweet Caporal", before finally reaching an enlightened state and adding "T206 Sweet Caporal 350/25" to the labels. The result is that there are a lot of SweetCap PSA slabs out there with no identifying info on the flip to id which factory the card was from, and as a result, the population reports are not very accurate. SGC is actually worse, in that they do not catalog any of their SweetCap factory numbers. So, we have zero actual info from them. Not great!

Being the sicko that I am, I've decided I want to try and rectify this to a degree, so this project is born. I actually just did one card, it took some time, but it was actually kind of thrilling (again, I am a sicko) clicking through old scans and uncovering treasure (cardboard factory numbers). I am going to use this thread to catalog my research, devoting a new post to a new card and then cataloging the results in this main post.

Before I get into the data, I want to add some reminders and notes here so I don't have to repeat them every time I make an update. I'm big on explaining methodologies so others can crosscheck if they would like to.

Methodology

* VCP has sales data for T206s dating back to 2006, maybe even older. For each sale, they also include scans of the card. The quality of the scans varies. Some are crystal clear, others are blurry and hard to zoom in on. On the whole, I was pleasantly surprised how useful the images were.

* Older listings typically only have the front of the card image available. **Price Is Right Loser Horn Sound** For these, I did not include them in my census.

* VCP lumps in all of the SweetCap and Piedmont Sales together. I am also checking the Piedmont 350/460s (quickly) to see if they missed any Factory 42s on the labels

* If I cannot read the scan and determine the factory number, I am going to make a notation of ??? in the data. I don't want to just guess, that is the whole point of doing this census, to try and take away some of the guesswork. I will identify these cards separately.

* I am tracking the cert numbers from PSA and SGC, which helps identify cards sold more than once. In my tracking of the first card, I actually had the first instance where the scan was too blurry, but a second sale had a better quality scan, and I was able to accurately label it.

* When I show the charts with the population reports from SGC and PSA, I will include the total number graded by SGC, but obviously there is no factory number breakdown because SGC does not put that info on their flip. They group the Sweet Caps as 1909 Sweet Caporal (SC 150), 1910 Sweet Caporal (SC 350) and 1911 Sweet Caporal (SC 460) so we will only have their aggregate totals. I will include them just for reference.

* I'm going to go alphabetical through the set. I debated going by print groups, but, I'm just going to go alphabetical. Each player will get his own post with the stats.

* I reserve the right to give up on this fairly ridiculous journey at any point. Though I am genuinely curious about this, so I want to see it through. The pace of my updates will depend on other stuff that comes up.

Caveats

* This is only a look at graded cards, and only those cards in the VCP database. VCP collects data from ebay and other auction houses, so it is a good source, maybe the best source we have, especially since ebay sold listings vanish after 3 months. I have scans here on sales from like 2014. We all know that for a lot of these cards, there are a ton of raw copies floating around. This is meant to give us a decent sample that we can analyze and discuss

* Some of these cards may have been crossed over or reholdered. I can't do anything about that.

* Some cards get graded and never sold, so my census will not match up 1:1 with the population reports. Obviously.

Here is a quick visual of why the PSA pop report is tough, if you haven't ever looked at it:

https://i.ibb.co/Cwn170W/psaex.png

This will hopefully make more sense when I show the first card in the set and how I designed my chart.

Error Log:

Atz: SC 350/25 slab has an SC 350/30 back
Baker: An SC 460/42 slab has an SC 460/42OP back
Baker: An SC 350/30 slab has an SC 350/25 back
Baker: An SC 350/25 slab has an SC 460/25 back (PSA DNA card)

[53toppscollector]

1. Abbaticchio (Blue Sleeves) [Print Group 4]

https://i.ibb.co/7RZ9r7C/1-Abbaticchio-Blue-Sleeves-fixed.png

I tinkered with the layout a bit. My aim was to make it easily readable.

The first section of the graphic shows the info from the PSA and SGC pop reports online. I included the SGC row only to show the total number they have graded, since we cannot break down their numbers by factory in their pop reports. For PSA, I included the total number of Sweet Caps graded in column B (155, in this case) and then on the far right column, I included the number graded broken down by factory number in the actual pop report (80, in this case). That essentially means there are 75 copies of this card graded that don't contain the factory number on the flip, or that were not properly added to the PSA pop report. The PSA Pop Report % is the percentage for each factory based on the number that were graded and include the factory number. So for that row for this example, the denominator is 80, as that is the number that were graded and labeled with factory numbers, not 155, which is the total number of SweetCaps that PSA has graded. The 155 column is included just to show the gap between the total graded and the total that were labeled with factory numbers.

The second section of the graphic shows my work cataloging the cards using the VCP website and their scanned images of cards based on sales. The first row is the raw number I found, and the row under it shows the percentage by factory of those that I was able to catalog. It is broken down by PSA, then SGC, and then total. "Not Cataloged" are the scans where I could not definitely tell what the factory number was.

The third section of the graphic shows the "quality control" stats for PSA cards only. I wanted to keep track of how many cards were labeled incompletely or incorrectly. Correct Label with Factory is self-explanatory. The label says SC 460/25 and the back is an SC 460/25. Incorrect PSA label, also self explanatory...the label says SC 460/25 but the back is an SC 460/42OP. T206 Sweet Caporal is a previous generation label where the factory number was not listed, so it was a mystery until I clicked the back. T206 was the original label, without the SweetCap designation at all. A few of those will end up being Piedmonts as well.

I added the date on the right side so I can remember when I collected the data, which will make it easy for me to go back and update, if need be.

And we are off and under way

[53toppscollector]

2. Abbaticchio (Brown Sleeves) [Print Group 1]

https://i.ibb.co/XVKLQVC/2-Abbaticchio-Brown-Sleeves.png

Note that on this chart for the SGC population at the top, I merged together the Fac 25/30 cells because SGC does not use factory numbers. So there are 56 cards labeled as 1909 Sweet Caporal, which means they are either 25 or 30. Same applies to the 350 section, and then those 2 numbers give you the 81 total graded copies.

[53toppscollector]

3. Abbott (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/BTXYfMH/3-Abbott.png

After going through 3 cards, I have been able to make the following ids:

Generic PSA T206 Labels > Factory numbers: 14 (with a whole bunch of Piedmonts mixed in)
Generic PSA Sweet Caporal Labels > Factory numbers: 60


When people get back into the hobby, a card collecting council should send them a pamphlet explaining the importance of flatbed scanners with CCD elements. So many blurry scans. Ugh.

[RCFire82]

James,
Quick rule of thumb I use when looking at psa's pop. report on Sweet Caporals is to use ratios. For example on the Abbaticchio (blue sleeves) above:
Let's say total Sweet Caporals graded is 160 (which is close) and 80 (or exactly half) have been identified with Factory numbers. I would say it's safe to say each Factory graded total, 460 25 (10 total), 460 30 (58 total), and 460 op (12 total) can be multiplied by 2. So one would expect to see an additional 10 460 fac 25's, 58 more 460 fac 30's, and 24 total 460 over prints when examining the 80 earlier non Factory labeled psa graded cards.

[Lobo Aullando]

That's my back-of-the-envelope rule of thumb in a nutshell. (Who doesn't love idioms?)

Also, one doesn't have to do a full census to get a good picture of the whole. A sample of 30 or so would get a pretty good estimate of what those ratios should be. (Picking every 17th card might be better than doing all the A name cards because it's less likely to encounter clustering.) It's even possible to get a good error range with that few.



James,
Quick rule of thumb I use when looking at psa's pop. report on Sweet Caporals is to use ratios. For example on the Abbaticchio (blue sleeves) above:
Let's say total Sweet Caporals graded is 160 (which is close) and 80 (or exactly half) have been identified with Factory numbers. I would say it's safe to say each Factory graded total, 460 25 (10 total), 460 30 (58 total), and 460 op (12 total) can be multiplied by 2. So one would expect to see an additional 10 460 fac 25's, 58 more 460 fac 30's, and 24 total 460 over prints when examining the 80 earlier non Factory labeled psa graded cards.


Edited to add:
https://i.postimg.cc/ZKYHxfHG/Powell-SC15030.jpg

Just following the rules, even though I love the pretty tables.

[53toppscollector]

4. Abstein (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/474zpzp/4-Abstein.png

An interesting note here, I found an Abstein with a "T206 Harris Collection" flip, hadn't seen that before. I think it was a PSA 8 of a Piedmont 350. Cool.

Discoveries within the Abstein scans:

T206 > Factory numbers: 4 (13 Piedmont 350s)
T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory numbers: 11 (1 that was not readable)

[53toppscollector]

James,
Quick rule of thumb I use when looking at psa's pop. report on Sweet Caporals is to use ratios. For example on the Abbaticchio (blue sleeves) above:
Let's say total Sweet Caporals graded is 160 (which is close) and 80 (or exactly half) have been identified with Factory numbers. I would say it's safe to say each Factory graded total, 460 25 (10 total), 460 30 (58 total), and 460 op (12 total) can be multiplied by 2. So one would expect to see an additional 10 460 fac 25's, 58 more 460 fac 30's, and 24 total 460 over prints when examining the 80 earlier non Factory labeled psa graded cards.

Yeah, this is kind of how I think about it in my head, but I think the reason I wanted to do this project was just to see if my assumptions generally track across the board, or if there are weird outliers that may not really be known just be using the ratios/estimates. Plus, looking through old scans is actually kind of fun, to be honest.

Also, one doesn't have to do a full census to get a good picture of the whole. A sample of 30 or so would get a pretty good estimate of what those ratios should be. (Picking every 17th card might be better than doing all the A name cards because it's less likely to encounter clustering.) It's even possible to get a good error range with that few.

Sure, that is fine for estimates. And ballpark estimates are fine for most. I just really want to dig in here and see what kind of things I can uncover by methodically going through everything available. I do understand it is a bit insane :cool:

[Prof]

I can't really offer any help. But, I love the undertaking of ideas like this.

It's really cool to see the passion, fun to follow along, and it can produce valuable information for collectors.

Good luck.

[53toppscollector]

5. Adkins (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/PZ4ZLQs/5-Adkins.png

Discoveries:

T206 label > Factory number: 1
T206 Sweet Caporal label > Factory number: 10

Of the 35 Adkins PSA scans I looked at, 12 of them had the old "T206" label, and most of them were Piedmont 350s.

We all know the good doctor is one of those cards that was/is hoarded, so I wasn't shocked to find a limited sampling of cards to look at.

[53toppscollector]

6. Alperman (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/0rnnqMz/6-Alperman.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 15 (5 not cataloged due to blurriness)
T206 > Factory: 11 (6 Piedmonts, 2 were too blurry to read)

Lots of 649 Overprints here.

The PSA population report shows 21 copies (which we know is incomplete), but I found 22 alone in the 70 PSA slabs I looked at. Some of the 649OPs look to be a lot more populous than others, will be interesting to see if that plays out as I go through all 34 cards in the sub-set

[53toppscollector]

7. Ames Hands At Chest (Print Group 1 // 150 Only)

https://i.ibb.co/H2ZXdHJ/7-Ames-Hands-At-Chest.png

Ames Hands At Chest only comes in 150 series backs, so no SC 350/25 or SC 350/30.

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 11 (5 not cataloged due to blurriness)
T206 > Factory: 3 (plus 9 Piedmont 150s and 3 that were SCs but too blurry to ID the factory number)


From what I've noticed anecdotally when doing my every 6 months pop report update in Excel, there are basically 2 groups of Sweet Cap 150s in terms of population between the two factories....those in the 2:1 ratio of 30s to 25s, and those closer to 4:1 or 5:1 in terms of 30s to 25s. I will have more on this in a few months when I do a comprehensive population report update. Based on this census, Ames falls sort of in between, but is definitely not in "rare" bucket for Factory 25s in the 150 series.

[steve B]

When I looked at overall populations of the 150 only and a few others a few years ago the Hof cards seemed to be about double the number of the commons.

I put that down to higher demand and grading returns.

Have you noticed the same thing?


I didn't look at factory differences, it may be long enough ago that PSA wasn't doing them then.

I think this sort of deeper look at what data we can get is going to eventually be a key to sheet composition. For example, backing out from High demand/low demand, and getting approximate numbers can show that the 2:1 and 4-5:1 were not on the same sheets.
It would be interesting to compare this data to the Plate scratch reconstruction Pat has done. That might answer if production was done as generic fronts that got specific backs to fill orders, or if each brand got their own.

[53toppscollector]

Thanks Steve, yeah that was one of the things I was thinking about when I started this. Obviously I have a long way to go, but I am hoping that once I've gone through 100-150 cards I will start to see a few patterns that might be interesting.

One of the challenging things here, as you know, is figuring out what is a low population card/subset because it was truly rare, and what is/was a low population subset because there is less demand to have it graded. If you find a Cobb T206, that card is way more likely to get graded than a Fromme or Nattress, for example.

But my hope is that when we have better factory counts for all 520 subjects (technically 518 subjects) we can draw some conclusions.

[53toppscollector]

8. Ames Hands Above Head (Print Group 3)

https://i.ibb.co/JqtPg5W/8-Ames-Hands-Above-Head.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 14 (3 were too blurry to read)
T206 > Factory: 5 (7 Piedmonts, 2 Sweet Caps that were too blurry to read)

I also found one SGC slab that had 1910 Piedmont on the flip, and the scan of the back was a SC 460/30 back, which is an error I believe since Ames doesn't have a SC 460/30 back as far as I can tell. Likely a user error when scanning the card.

[53toppscollector]

9. Ames Portrait (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/Csc1dWx/9-Ames-Portrait.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 8 (3 were too blurry to read)
T206 > Factory: 7 (plus 9 Piedmont 150s and 350s)

[53toppscollector]

10. Anderson (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/KFLSGBz/10-Anderson.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 9 (plus 3 that were too blurry to distinguish)
T206 > Factory: 3 (plus 1 that was too blurry and 11 Piedmont 350s)

Anderson has a low Sweet Caporal count overall.

In Print Group 2, the average number of Sweet Caps per subject is around 150 (it was 147 last time I updated), Anderson has only 119. He isn't as rare as Barry (MIL) or Bescher portrait, which each have fewer than 100 SweetCaps combined between SGC and PSA, but still on the lower side.

[53toppscollector]

11. Arellanes (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/Kxy30d6/11-Arellanes.png

Arellanes was pretty much spot on based on the PSA factory numbers vs the actual survey

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 17 (plus 4 that were too blurry to read)
T206 > Factory: 4 (plus 1 too blurry, plus 10 Piedmont 350s)

[Ronnie73]

8. Ames Hands Above Head (Print Group 3) does have a Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 30 back. They fall into the Scrap category. This scrap card is almost always found with missing colors and are usually black, brown, yellow and red.

https://www.net54baseball.com/picture.php?albumid=1483&pictureid=34288
NOT MY CARD

There are 57 cards that are in this same group. One group almost always has missing colors and the other group look like normal full color cards. The two lists are below.

29 Black, Brown, Yellow (And Sometimes Red) Scraps (tedzan's Group A)

Ames, Red (Hands Above Head)
Baker, Frank
Bender, Chief (No Trees)
Brown, Mordecai (Chicago On Shirt)
Davis, Harry (Davis On Front)
Donlin, Mike (With Bat)
Doolan, Mickey (Batting)
Dougherty, Patsy (Arm In Air)
Downey, Tom (Batting)
Doyle, Larry (With Bat)
Elberfeld, Kid (Fielding)
Griffith, Clark (Batting)
Johnson, Walter (Glove At Chest)
Joss, Addie (Hands At Chest)
Kleinow, Red (Boston - Catching)
Konetchy, Ed (Glove Near Ground)
Magee, Sherry (With Bat)
McIntyre, Harry (Brooklyn & Chicago)
Murphy, Danny (Batting)
O'Leary, Charley (Hands On Knees)
Reulbach, Ed (No Glove Showing)
Rucker, Nap (Throwing)
Seymour, Cy (Throwing)
Snodgrass, Fred (Catching)
Stahl, Jake (Glove Shows)
Street, Gabby (Catching)
Sweeney, Jeff
Willis, Vic (Throwing)
Young, Cy (With Glove)

28 Full Color Scraps (tedzan's Group B)

Berger, Heinie
Bradley, Bill (With Bat)
Burch, Al (Fielding)
Cobb, Ty (Bat Off Shoulder)
Conroy, Wid (With Bat)
Crawford, Sam (With Bat)
Jennings, Hughie (One Hand Showing)
Jennings, Hughie (Two Hands Showing)
Jordan, Tim (Batting)
Lajoie, Nap (With Bat)
Lake, Joe (St. Louis - No Ball)
Leach, Tommy (Bending Over)
Leifield, Lefty (Batting)
Manning, Rube (Pitching)
McQuillan, George (With Bat)
Mullin, George (With Bat)
Overall, Orval (Hand At Face Level)
Pelty, Barney (Vertical)
Pfeister, Jake (Throwing)
Smith, Frank (Chicago & Boston)
Steinfeldt, Harry (With Bat)
Tinker, Joe (Bat Off Shoulder)
Wagner, Heinie (Bat On Right Shoulder)
White, Doc (Pitching)
Wilhelm, Kaiser (With Bat)
Willetts, Ed
Willis, Vic (Batting)
Wiltse, Hooks (Pitching)

https://www.net54baseball.com/picture.php?albumid=1484&pictureid=34286

[53toppscollector]

Thanks Ron, I knew of the no prints, but wasn't really counting them in this project because I have no way of tracking them accurately in terms of populations, and PSA/SGC do not include them in their pop reports (at least as far as I know)

[steve B]

Are the VCP numbers representing unique serial numbers? Or jut total sales?

If they're unique serial numbers, what immediately strikes me is the very high turnover percentage. Like on Arellanes, where PSA shows 40 factory 30s, and VCP shows 31 sales.

That's amazing, and makes me wonder if a visual census of nearly all the graded examples might be possible.
I've done some work on it with a known "rare" card, and it's very interesting. And I got nowhere near getting every copy.

[53toppscollector]

Are the VCP numbers representing unique serial numbers? Or jut total sales?

If they're unique serial numbers, what immediately strikes me is the very high turnover percentage. Like on Arellanes, where PSA shows 40 factory 30s, and VCP shows 31 sales.

That's amazing, and makes me wonder if a visual census of nearly all the graded examples might be possible.
I've done some work on it with a known "rare" card, and it's very interesting. And I got nowhere near getting every copy.

I use the actual cert label number from PSA/SGC and have conditional formatting set so that if a duplicate label number appears, it does not get double counted. Here is an example of what my Excel file looks like

https://i.ibb.co/Sv93yXc/example.png

I only use the date column periodically so that if I accidentally close the window, I can get back to the last place I was without having to re-open 50 images to find my place.

I don't bother with the grade of the card, with the unique label number, I am able to weed out duplicates. Of course, if a card was originally in a T206 or T206 SweetCap holder and it was re-holdered into a factory specific slab, then I think the cert number changes. I expect those are very rare here, especially for the commons. The other benefit of using the cert number is that some of the very old scans available, say, from 2007 or 2008, may be too blurry to see the factory number, but I log the cert, and sometimes that card was re-sold years later, with a better scan, and I am able to identify it, which is oddly satisfying, lol.

[Pat R]

I use the actual cert label number from PSA/SGC and have conditional formatting set so that if a duplicate label number appears, it does not get double counted. Here is an example of what my Excel file looks like

https://i.ibb.co/Sv93yXc/example.png

I only use the date column periodically so that if I accidentally close the window, I can get back to the last place I was without having to re-open 50 images to find my place.

I don't bother with the grade of the card, with the unique label number, I am able to weed out duplicates. Of course, if a card was originally in a T206 or T206 SweetCap holder and it was re-holdered into a factory specific slab, then I think the cert number changes. I expect those are very rare here, especially for the commons. The other benefit of using the cert number is that some of the very old scans available, say, from 2007 or 2008, may be too blurry to see the factory number, but I log the cert, and sometimes that card was re-sold years later, with a better scan, and I am able to identify it, which is oddly satisfying, lol.



Hey James,

The Arellanes on your chart with the ??? on the back is a factory 25.

532658

[53toppscollector]

Awesome! I will update it in my spreadsheet. Thanks for that.

[Ronnie73]

I use the actual cert label number from PSA/SGC and have conditional formatting set so that if a duplicate label number appears, it does not get double counted. Here is an example of what my Excel file looks like

https://i.ibb.co/Sv93yXc/example.png

I only use the date column periodically so that if I accidentally close the window, I can get back to the last place I was without having to re-open 50 images to find my place.

I don't bother with the grade of the card, with the unique label number, I am able to weed out duplicates. Of course, if a card was originally in a T206 or T206 SweetCap holder and it was re-holdered into a factory specific slab, then I think the cert number changes. I expect those are very rare here, especially for the commons. The other benefit of using the cert number is that some of the very old scans available, say, from 2007 or 2008, may be too blurry to see the factory number, but I log the cert, and sometimes that card was re-sold years later, with a better scan, and I am able to identify it, which is oddly satisfying, lol.

I actually like looking at this info just as much as the one's you have been posting. I like the Cert info on each card mostly. I did that with David Hall's collection.

[Rhotchkiss]

Another great example of how/why pop reports should be used as guides and not gospel. Here, we can use them to extrapolate relative scarcity compared to other series/factory numbers; not so great when comparing to an entirely different back.

What is abundantly clear, and a major (largely) overlooked fact about t206 backs, is that SC Factory 25s are much rarer than factory 30s. This is especially true in the 350 series

[frankbmd]

Quite a project, but perhaps paralysis by analysis.

I reminded of launch angles and exit speed velocities.

Babe Ruth hit a lot of home runs without them and not a single home run has been attributed to them that hasn't gone over the fence.

Good luck and carry on.;)

[53toppscollector]

Another great example of how/why pop reports should be used as guides and not gospel. Here, we can use them to extrapolate relative scarcity compared to other series/factory numbers; not so great when comparing to an entirely different back.

What is abundantly clear, and a major (largely) overlooked fact about t206 backs, is that SC Factory 25s are much rarer than factory 30s. This is especially true in the 350 series

The most interesting thing to me is that most of the T206 rules are not universal, and there are outliers. For example, I was just looking at two different 350 series cards in the PSA pop report and they have very different Fac 25/30 splits:

Byrne has (14) Fac 25s and (18) Fac 30s....not a big split.

Butler has (4) Fac 25s and (32) Fac 30s...a huge split

Other than this random huge gap in their Sweet Cap factory distribution, there is nothing else really distinguishing them. They have an almost identical total number of Sweet Caps, Byrne has none of the rare backs while Butler has only a BL350.

You are right, the majority of the Factory 25s are much more rare, but not in all cases. Which makes you wonder why. These oddities pop up everywhere, like the Tannehill above, the fact that the Exclusive 12 are so abundant in AB460 backs, while the rest of the AB460s are extremely difficult and low population.

The journey continues.

[53toppscollector]

12. Armbruster (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/6n36qNV/12-Armbruster.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory number: 10 (plus 5 that were too blurry to see)
T206 > Factory number: 4 (plus 4 Piedmont 350s)

Armbruster is an interesting one. He is one of the nicest looking portraits, imo, with the lovely red background. But his card is pretty scarce overall. Based on total population numbers (which are a few months old), he was ranked 91st in terms of total population. He has only 102 total Sweet Caps graded between PSA and SGC. Based on the above numbers, his Factory 25 falls into the "very very rare" bucket. I saw only 3 graded copies total between PSA and SGC.

[Ronnie73]

12. Armbruster (Print Group 2)

Armbruster is an interesting one. He is one of the nicest looking portraits, imo, with the lovely red background. But his card is pretty scarce overall. Based on total population numbers (which are a few months old), he was ranked 91st in terms of total population. He has only 102 total Sweet Caps graded between PSA and SGC. Based on the above numbers, his Factory 25 falls into the "very very rare" bucket. I saw only 3 graded copies total between PSA and SGC.

I just checked, but my SC350/25 is ungraded.

[steve B]

The most interesting thing to me is that most of the T206 rules are not universal, and there are outliers. For example, I was just looking at two different 350 series cards in the PSA pop report and they have very different Fac 25/30 splits:

Byrne has (14) Fac 25s and (18) Fac 30s....not a big split.

Butler has (4) Fac 25s and (32) Fac 30s...a huge split

Other than this random huge gap in their Sweet Cap factory distribution, there is nothing else really distinguishing them. They have an almost identical total number of Sweet Caps, Byrne has none of the rare backs while Butler has only a BL350.

You are right, the majority of the Factory 25s are much more rare, but not in all cases. Which makes you wonder why. These oddities pop up everywhere, like the Tannehill above, the fact that the Exclusive 12 are so abundant in AB460 backs, while the rest of the AB460s are extremely difficult and low population.

The journey continues.

I'm thinking this has to do with what fronts were available in the printers at the time they filled the order. The ones with big splits are most likely either the end of a front run that was finished off using the 25 backs, OR fronts that were only available one particular time the 25s were finished.

The ones with more equal splits were probably available during different press runs.

That the data used weeds out duplicates is both proper and wonderful, as it makes the pop report data much more useful.

I think eventually we'll see groups of cards based on the splits between factories, and that will give a very approximate idea of what cards were on the same sheet.
One of the guys here did some work separating the 350-460s by group, and what he came up with was pretty impressive. Even more so when I looked up the pop report numbers, and all but two cards matched up nicely within those groups.

[53toppscollector]

13. Arndt (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/qyr0fX3/13-Arndt.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 7 (plus 3 cards that were too blurry to see)
T206 > Factory: 3 (plus 7 Piedmont 350s)

You can add Arndt into the very tough Sweet Caporal bucket. Less than 100 total Sweet Caps graded, and only 13% were Factory 25s in my census.

[53toppscollector]

14. Atz (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/tJ7r5N0/14-Atz.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 14 (plus 2 that were 2 blurry to read)
T206 > Factory: 4 (plus 8 Piedmont 350s)

Errors:

I discovered 1 error here, the first of the survey. There is a SC 350/25 slab that actually has a SC 350/30 back. The nice thing about the PSA slab is that the serial number shows up on the back too, so I double checked it, and sure enough, this is a mislabel. Our first of the survey, and honestly, this was one of the things I was most interested in, to see how many of these mislabels are really floating around out there.

[53toppscollector]

Before diving into the Bs, I wanted to share the summary of what I have so far.

https://i.ibb.co/60HCGDM/summary1.png

Note that I am splitting out the 34 subjects that have the SC 150/649 OP back into their own row here. That is more about my own curiosity at this point.

We only have 14 subjects so far, so I don't think it is worth drawing any conclusions yet. Actually, I know it isn't worth it. But, I think it would be interesting to see how the numbers change as we add more cards to the sample. So far, the key takeaways are:

* SC 150/25 vs SC 150/30 split is 52/112, or slightly more than 2:1 Factory 30s to 25s

* SC 350/25 vs SC 350/30 split is 85/342, or a slightly more than 4:1 Factory 30 to 25 split.

* We only have one card with a 649OP so far (Alperman), but his card had 28 copies with the 649OP factory, compared to just 18 150/25s and 16 150/30s. That is moderately interesting to me.

[53toppscollector]

15. Baker (Print Group 3)

https://i.ibb.co/q9tGBNX/15-Baker.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 25 (plus 8 that were too blurry)
T206 > Factory: 15 (plus 1 too blurry, 6 P350s, 3 P460/25s, 1 P460/42)

Errors:

I found 3 errors in the scans:

* One SC 460/42 that was actually a 460/42OP
* One SC 350/30 that was actually a 350/25
* One SC 350/25 that was actually a 460/25 (this is a PSA DNA card)

The Baker SC 460/42OP had only 12 copies in the PSA pop report, but I found 19 of them in total just with PSA, and another 7 at SGC. Of the 19 in PSA slabs, only 5 of them actually had SC 460/42OP on the label, the rest were Sweet Caporal or T206 labels.

I also found my first hidden Piedmont 460/42, which was quite exciting. It was in a T206 labeled slab.

[53toppscollector]

16. Ball - New York (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/zbp1L2F/16-Ball-NY.png

Discoveries:

T206 Sweet Caporal > Factory: 16 (plus 3 that were too blurry to read)
T206 > Factory: 4 (plus 7 Piedmont 150s)

So....I might go ahead and double check the numbers tomorrow just to make sure I wasn't too tired while doing this one, but the numbers here are surprising. Ball NY does not have many SC 350s...only 12 with factory numbers from PSA (based on the pop report), and only 14 total from SGC. But of the 9 SC 350s I found, 7 of them were Factory 25 and only 2 were Factory 30, which is a pretty big shock to me. For the SC 150s, I found a 10% difference in Factory 25 to 30 compared to the online PSA pop report.

I am going to double check this one tomorrow just to be safe.

Update --> I checked the Ball numbers and they are correct.

[53toppscollector]

17. Ball Cleveland (Print Group 4)

https://i.ibb.co/bdtMB3t/17-Ball-CLE.png

We continue the trend here where the 42OPs and 649OPs seem to be underreported in the population reports.

I looked at 38 of the 120 PSA graded Sweet Caps and found 6 SC 460/42OPs compared to the 4 listed in the population report.

[53toppscollector]

18. Barbeau (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/x7rnD1P/18-Barbeau.png

We can add Barbeau to the "Factory 25s are extremely hard to find" bucket for the 350 only guys.

A fun oddity here: I checked 39 PSA slabs and found only 2 Fac 25s, but saw only 13 total SGC slabs and found 3 Fac 25s

[sreader3]

Hi James, You remind me of a younger me. I don’t think you are a “sicko.”

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=76172&page=3

Good luck!

Scot

[53toppscollector]

Hi James, You remind me of a younger me. I don’t think you are a “sicko.”

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=76172&page=3

Good luck!

Scot

Ha, I appreciate the compliment. Your work was the first stuff I read that got me into T206, and I frequently go back and re-read Inside T206, it is an invaluable resource.

[53toppscollector]

19. Barger (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/RHcbbV1/19-Barger.png

Barger is a very low pop Sweet Caporal, and his Fac 25 back is extremely tough. The low pop count is visible in the number of cards I was actually able to find, with a huge majority of the sales being Piedmont 350s.

[53toppscollector]

20. Barry, Jack (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/C7mNWRj/20-Barry-Jack.png

Jack Barry has even fewer total Sweet Caps than Barger right before him, but his Factory 25 is not as rare. Interestingly, using the 29 graded PSAs with factory numbers, the Factory 25 looks more common (24%), but in my survey of 31 PSA slabs, only 16% were Factory 25s. I found only 6 SGC graded slabs, and 2 of the 6 were Factory 25s.

[53toppscollector]

21. Barry, Shad (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/ynBB5hN/21-Barry-Shad.png

Another lower pop Sweet Cap here, just 83 combined graded copies. Do we know why?

[fkm_bky]

8. Ames Hands Above Head (Print Group 3) does have a Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 30 back. They fall into the Scrap category. This scrap card is almost always found with missing colors and are usually black, brown, yellow and red.

https://www.net54baseball.com/picture.php?albumid=1483&pictureid=34288
NOT MY CARD

There are 57 cards that are in this same group. One group almost always has missing colors and the other group look like normal full color cards. The two lists are below.

29 Black, Brown, Yellow (And Sometimes Red) Scraps (tedzan's Group A)

Ames, Red (Hands Above Head)
Baker, Frank
Bender, Chief (No Trees)
Brown, Mordecai (Chicago On Shirt)
Davis, Harry (Davis On Front)
Donlin, Mike (With Bat)
Doolan, Mickey (Batting)
Dougherty, Patsy (Arm In Air)
Downey, Tom (Batting)
Doyle, Larry (With Bat)
Elberfeld, Kid (Fielding)
Griffith, Clark (Batting)
Johnson, Walter (Glove At Chest)
Joss, Addie (Hands At Chest)
Kleinow, Red (Boston - Catching)
Konetchy, Ed (Glove Near Ground)
Magee, Sherry (With Bat)
McIntyre, Harry (Brooklyn & Chicago)
Murphy, Danny (Batting)
O'Leary, Charley (Hands On Knees)
Reulbach, Ed (No Glove Showing)
Rucker, Nap (Throwing)
Seymour, Cy (Throwing)
Snodgrass, Fred (Catching)
Stahl, Jake (Glove Shows)
Street, Gabby (Catching)
Sweeney, Jeff
Willis, Vic (Throwing)
Young, Cy (With Glove)

28 Full Color Scraps (tedzan's Group B)

Berger, Heinie
Bradley, Bill (With Bat)
Burch, Al (Fielding)
Cobb, Ty (Bat Off Shoulder)
Conroy, Wid (With Bat)
Crawford, Sam (With Bat)
Jennings, Hughie (One Hand Showing)
Jennings, Hughie (Two Hands Showing)
Jordan, Tim (Batting)
Lajoie, Nap (With Bat)
Lake, Joe (St. Louis - No Ball)
Leach, Tommy (Bending Over)
Leifield, Lefty (Batting)
Manning, Rube (Pitching)
McQuillan, George (With Bat)
Mullin, George (With Bat)
Overall, Orval (Hand At Face Level)
Pelty, Barney (Vertical)
Pfeister, Jake (Throwing)
Smith, Frank (Chicago & Boston)
Steinfeldt, Harry (With Bat)
Tinker, Joe (Bat Off Shoulder)
Wagner, Heinie (Bat On Right Shoulder)
White, Doc (Pitching)
Wilhelm, Kaiser (With Bat)
Willetts, Ed
Willis, Vic (Batting)
Wiltse, Hooks (Pitching)

https://www.net54baseball.com/picture.php?albumid=1484&pictureid=34286

Here's another example not listed in the Full Color Group. This Herzog has every tell-tale sign that it was hand cut from a sheet.

Bill

[Ronnie73]

Here's another example not listed in the Full Color Group. This Herzog has every tell-tale sign that it was hand cut from a sheet.

Bill

Hi Bill, The two lists that I mentioned above were for cards that were never issued with the Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 30 back. Your card is still a scrap (hand cut) but is not as unique because the company issued that back for that card into packs. There was a large group of scrap cards that match your cards print group that were sold on eBay a few years ago. I bought around 12 of them but never mention them because they are not that special. Luke Lyon got a group of them too and listed them for sale a little over regular card price and he had them listed for a while. If they were missing a color pass or had a back that couldn't be found in tobacco packs, then things would be different. Thank you for sharing though.

[fkm_bky]

This is why I love this board! Thanks for the education on this, that makes sense to me now. Sorry for hi-jacking this thread a bit.

Bill

Hi Bill, The two lists that I mentioned above were for cards that were never issued with the Sweet Caporal 350-460 Factory 30 back. Your card is still a scrap (hand cut) but is not as unique because the company issued that back for that card into packs. There was a large group of scrap cards that match your cards print group that were sold on eBay a few years ago. I bought around 12 of them but never mention them because they are not that special. Luke Lyon got a group of them too and listed them for sale a little over regular card price and he had them listed for a while. If they were missing a color pass or had a back that couldn't be found in tobacco packs, then things would be different. Thank you for sharing though.

[Pat R]

21. Barry, Shad (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/ynBB5hN/21-Barry-Shad.png

Another lower pop Sweet Cap here, just 83 combined graded copies. Do we know why?

I think the reason that both Shad and Jack Barry have low Sweet Caporal pops is because they were skipped in one or more of the Sweet Caporal stages.

This is just my opinion but I've said it before that I think there were several stages of printing in each print group and I think one of the stages involvedaround 25-30% of the Old Mill and Sweet Caporal 350/30, 50-75% of the Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25's and around 5-10% of the Piedmont 350's. Both Barry's are unconfirmed Old Mills and I think they weren't in that print stage and that's the reason for their low Sweet Caporal numbers.

Here's an example of a print flaw that I think occurred during that stage with the flaw data.

533677


533678

533679


533680

533681

[Ronnie73]

I think the reason that both Shad and Jack Barry have low Sweet Caporal pops is because they were skipped in one or more of the Sweet Caporal stages.

This is just my opinion but I've said it before that I think there were several stages of printing in each print group and I think one of the stages involvedaround 25-30% of the Old Mill and Sweet Caporal 350/30, 50-75% of the Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25's and around 5-10% of the Piedmont 350's. Both Barry's are unconfirmed Old Mills and I think they weren't in that print stage and that's the reason for their low Sweet Caporal numbers.



Great info Pat. That is sometimes the only way to break the print groups into sub print groups or possible sheets. I used a few ways to break down the 460 series cards. 350 series cards are a bit more tricky but not impossible. With some exceptions though, which will be found out as this Sweet Caporal breakdown continues. Then another secret will be revealed.

[RCFire82]

☝️🤔...

[53toppscollector]

23. Batch (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/xJ8nyNL/23-Batch.png

Batch's Factory 25 percentage appears to be lower than the PSA estimates. Only SGC graded copies and no Factory 25s that I could see (2 that were just too blurry to read). Lots of "T206" labels for Batch, but most of them were Piedmont 350s, unfortunately.

[53toppscollector]

I think the reason that both Shad and Jack Barry have low Sweet Caporal pops is because they were skipped in one or more of the Sweet Caporal stages.

This is just my opinion but I've said it before that I think there were several stages of printing in each print group and I think one of the stages involvedaround 25-30% of the Old Mill and Sweet Caporal 350/30, 50-75% of the Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25's and around 5-10% of the Piedmont 350's. Both Barry's are unconfirmed Old Mills and I think they weren't in that print stage and that's the reason for their low Sweet Caporal numbers.

That is really interesting. Has there ever been any actual confirmed writing about how the print process worked in detail? I know assumptions have been made about sheet size (based on your plate scratch work) and we've been able to draw some assumptions based on populations (the super prints and the exclusive 12)

Finding those old records/details about how subjects were selected, how the print runs were ordered, etc, would truly be the holy grail to me. Reading the rationale for why so few Drums were printed, why more Polar Bears were printed compared to EPDG, etc etc. That is the stuff I am truly most interested in.

[53toppscollector]

Also, just a record keeping note, we obviously skipped from 21 (Barry) to 23 (Batch) because 22 (Bastian) is a SLer and they have no SweetCaps, so I will just be skipping every SLer (and Demmitt/O'Hara STL variations, since they have no SweetCaps)

[Pat R]

That is really interesting. Has there ever been any actual confirmed writing about how the print process worked in detail? I know assumptions have been made about sheet size (based on your plate scratch work) and we've been able to draw some assumptions based on populations (the super prints and the exclusive 12)

Finding those old records/details about how subjects were selected, how the print runs were ordered, etc, would truly be the holy grail to me. Reading the rationale for why so few Drums were printed, why more Polar Bears were printed compared to EPDG, etc etc. That is the stuff I am truly most interested in.


I don't know of any confirmed writing on the printing process but there was an
old journal that discovered that included an order page for non-sports cards.

533992

If you haven't seen this thread there's some interesting information in it.
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=309276

Even if there is an uncut T206 sheet discovered some day IMO that will only tell us a small part of the T206 printing process because I think there were different sheet sizes and the layouts changed numerous times during the printing process.

[53toppscollector]

24. Bates (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/qjBLxCJ/24-Bates.png

Here is a fun one. The PSA pop report does not include an entry for the SC 350/25 of this card, yet there were 2 cards that are labeled as 350/25, and I found a total of 5 of the 350/25s in PSA holders (the other 3 were in Sweet Caporal or T206 slabs)

We've now looked at 2 subjects (Alperman and Bates) that have the 649OP back, and I think the spread between the 5 SC factories is pretty interesting

https://i.ibb.co/9h4Qq2M/XX649-1.png

[Pat R]

Here's a recently graded Manning with an incorrect factory number on the label
there are 37 SC350/30's in PSA's pop report and 6 SC350/25's with this being one of the 6.

534060

[53toppscollector]

26. Beaumont (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/gz1h07j/26-Beaumont.png

Interesting distribution between the SC 350/25 and SC 350/30...

[53toppscollector]

27. Beck (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/G9k8RmF/27-Beck.png

A very rare Fac 25 subject

[53toppscollector]

28. Becker (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/L5fJZz0/28-Becker.png

So many blurry scans for Becker, which is unfortunate. Despite only looking at 30 PSA slabs where I could distinguish the factory number, I apparently found all 6 of the SC 350/25s in the population report...

[53toppscollector]

29. Beckley (Print Group 2)

https://i.ibb.co/tDXnmqh/29-Beckley.png

Beckley is an interesting case study to me from a somewhat different perspective. As a HoF (though obviously a lower tier HoF), a ton of his Piedmont cards have been graded (600+ between PSA and SGC), but he has a relatively low SweetCap count, with only 71 at PSA and 58 at SGC. His Fac 25 does seem more rare than what the PSA pop report shows.

[53toppscollector]

30. Bell - Hands Above Head (Print Group 1)

https://i.ibb.co/DbHf74V/30-Bell-Hands-Above-Head.png

Nothing remarkable to add here, pretty much on par with the pop reports.

[53toppscollector]

Hey all, just a quick update. I am going to get back to the census soon, work has been insane for me over the last month or so, along with a spate of other items in my life requiring my focus and attention. But I will be back. I appreciate those of you who have reached out to me about the project.

[RCFire82]

Was beginning to wonder. Hope all is well James. Looking forward to the research/findings.