How many copies of T206 exist today?
 

The title says it all. I know that the Wagner only has 50-60 publicly known.

However, I wonder how many Emil Batch t206 cards exist ( I feel like I see them for sale everyday!)

I’d be interested in thoughts about how many HOF vs commons vs SL exist too

Any and all educated guesses are welcome! Thanks

This is definitely not scientific but minus the big money cards like a Wagner where most people have probably had graded. My guess is double the pop report on most prewar cards and you will be close to the final population of a card.

Its not a rare set by any means, I'd speculate there's probably 500+ each if you count the assorted backs (of course there are outliers)

Way more for pre-war and post war, imo.

Way more than you think
 

I would say there have to be thousands of each card (not counting the back variations) in all conditions. To put it in perspective, if you guess only 500 of each card, means each Wagner is only 10 times rarer. Obviously not the case…..

I agree, it’s way more than double the graded pop report. It’s just too expensive and hard to get stuff graded, especially on the lower end of condition.

I collect T205 and do not collect T206 but as I write this the PSA pop report for 1909-11 T206 White Border shows they have graded 277,084 cards...no way to tell how many of those are repeat grades, crossover attempts, etc...and obviously this does not count cards graded by other companies or raw cards held in collections...so other than the rare cards it seems to me there would likely be a few thousand of each non-rare T206 card still in play....but condition is usually the deciding factor in collectibility

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Thousands of each card.

It is without a doubt THE most common set of pre-war cards until the 1933 Goudey set was produced and no other set is even close.

I would also guess 1000s of each player. The pop reports are a complete joke and shouldn't be considered accurate for anything. I have personally owned dozens of T206s and T210s that I can trace through at least 3 different slabs. The last Red Cobb I owned I know for a fact has been in 4 different PSA slabs and each time was sent in raw.

aside from rarities i also believe there are thousands of each. 2-3000

The easy answer is way, way more than 500, but we don't know. There were likely millions of a T206 common printed.

We have some data points on T cards.

For example, from Fullgraff's records and court records for T225-1 have found at least 21,000,000 cards printed in multiple print runs of as many as 5 million cards in a single day, from August of 1909 to February of 1910 of its 25 subjects. 840,000 printed of each subject, assuming the print runs I have accounted for were 100% of the print runs. This set is not particularly rare today, but nor is it one of the common T sets (t206, T206, T59, T29, etc.). There are several T206 Batch's today for every T225-1 Driscoll's. The survival rate is far below 1%.

T206 figures are not known; and the estimates that assume they were in every Piedmont and Sweet Cap pack for the entire duration the set existed is not a good guesstimate. We could probably extrapolate from sets that are known and relative scarcities to ballpark it as a rough starting point.

I think about 3,000 for a typical T206. Polar Bears alone there are about 300 copies of each (of those 250 cards). Hall of Fame poses on average should be somewhat more common than "commons" just because people would have been less likely to discard cards of recognized/preferred players (both in 1909-1911 and every year since then).

I am a likely an outlier but I think including the undiscovered and ungraded, numbers are closer to 10000 each at minimum for common backs. T206 is the 1989 Topps of prewar, there is nothing even close.

Greg’s post is a good starting point for understanding, the numbers of these were astronomical especially when the population is considered. Smoking was common for adults and children at the time, they likely had the opportunity with habit to collect 2-3 cards a day. The stories of sweeping dozens of cards off the floor of bars are common. The only limitation to claiming there is multiples of millions out there is time and that most did not hold onto them for long.

That said, the idea that stars should be more common than “commons” makes logical sense. The stars likely do have the highest real population.

Have you been to a show lately? Dealers have hundreds/thousands of T206 cards in binders at the shows and they have hundreds/thousands of binders to look through. Then throw in the slabs and all the cards listed on eBay and the auction houses.

For the non SLers yes I agree that each player (minus the obvious Wagner, Plank, Magie, Doyle, Demmitt, O'Hara) has at least 1000+ cards that survived either graded or raw however for the SLers it is clear to me that none of those players have more than 750 copies that would be available.
For the SLers PSA has about 300 cards per player and SGC has about 200 cards per player when you factor in resubs, crack outs, crossovers, raw etc. I would put the number of SLers that are still existing in the 500-600 range each incl BVG, PSA, SGC and raw
So if you had 100 copies (Hindu, Old Mill, Piedmont) of a SLer say Shaughnessy then I would say you have about 20% of that card that is available.

Scot Reader gave it a shot using tobacco production numbers and came up with up to 370 million total produced. (on page 26: Inside T206)

Let's say one rounded down to 300 million because of other subjects printed, then only half a percent surviving (my number) puts the total at 1.5 million, then you divide by 500 – this is all so BotEC in nature, anyways – to get an average of 3,000 for each. (Again, Scot has a better discussion.)

I'd love to develop a model that estimates propensity to be graded. There must be a somewhat similar distribution of grades for each across all cards (hopefully, but we could account for people taking special care of their Mathewsons over the decades). Using cards of varying desirability (via price), if we could compare the difference of the right of the distribution to the differences in the center and left of the distribution, we might be able to get an idea of what remains. (Refine it from there to account for regrading.)

I have a recurring dream (fantasy) that I would open an auction website and there would be 9 pages of e-cards and less than a dozen decent T206s for sale.

Given that the American Tobacco Company owned about 200 manufacturers of cigarettes by 1910 including A&G and OJ and had revenues of $316 million, if there was a card in every pack and each pack was $0.10 that would be 3.16 billion cards produced. So, the big question is how many baseball cards were produced and how many survived?

Note: by 1911 ATC was broken up by the feds as a monopoly with RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris being created out of that breakup.

There was not a card in every pack. Some packs had two. Many, many packs had 0. Some brands never issued a set even once during the T card period. We can’t arrive at a reasonable answer by this method.

I only care what TedZ thinks...

How many T206 Collectors are there?
 

Looking at this from supply and DEMAND, let’s flip the question - how many T206 collectors are there? Those who have or are actively building a significant number of cards. Based on an assumed demand, and a gauge of prices, we can estimate a supply.

Based on a shot in the dark on demand, if there were only 500+ of each, prices would be much much higher. I too think 3,000+, but possibly more closer 10,000 plus for commons.

I am not a T206 collector, but I am still hoarding these 20 or so common cards that collected about 20 years ago.

T206
 

What I find amazing is that with all of these examples apparently available, not one collector has put together the entire set....EVER!!!

👆 Ever ?

If you are talking about 524 several people have done that. If you are talking about a current master set that would be impossible even if the person attempting it had unlimited funds to try it.

What are you considering an entire set, because there have been plenty in have seen and heard of. We just had a member break a full set with Wagner and Doyle. :confused:

Yea I questioned that also - The 524 is doable (and I am assuming more than a handful of people have gotten there)...... For Me - 520 is going to be a complete set and Yes I will get there.

I've got one...
What is the closest to a Master Set ever completed?
And who had (or current has) that number....?

Maybe I misspoke, but I thought a master set had never been completed. I thought the closest anyone ever got was David Hall who got within 50 or so and finally decided to sell it all at Heritage. Am I mistaken?

complete set T206
 

A few years ago, there was a complete set of the T206 set, with Wagner, at the Detroit Institute of Art. It took up most of a wall. I can't remember the owner, I believe he was a Rochester, MI collector. The exhibit even included a small safe that belonged to Wagner. Maybe somebody can add to this.

lumberjack

He needed way more than 50 to complete the master set.

Hall had close to 5000 player/back combos
https://youtu.be/2t4UZYA7Si8

My confirmed list is at 5286 so he would have been closer to being about 300 cards away

Brady Hill had over 3500 different player/back combos before he broke his up

Not sure who is the closest now but I would guess not too many have over 2000 different player/back combos maybe a few with over 1000

Now it would be really interesting to see how many different player/back combos us net54ers could come up with combining our current T206 collections. If anyone wants to start a thread to post players and backs they have I'm game. Pics are welcome and would be a great bonus. I don't have any Abbaticchio's so I could join in when we get to Abbott.
Over/under 2500 different player combos from net54ers

Over!


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