Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Mike Pugeda</b><p>If any of the caramel card collectors can give their opinions, I would like to know...with the more common caramel sets (ex. e93) what is your estimate of the number of existing cards for any card in the set? For example, how many e93 Ty Cobb cards exist? <br /><br />While you're at it how about e94,e95,e98,etc.<br /><br />Thanks in advance,<br /><br />Mike

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>I can't tell you how many of each are left, but there are less E94 than E98; less E98 than E93; and more E95 than all the rest. Exact numbers escape me.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Mike Pugeda</b><p>Thanks Barry...anyone else care to take a stab?

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>Caramelcard.com does a decent job, but perhaps an updated ranking is in order.<br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Scot Reader</b><p>Mike,<br /><br />I looked through the PSA population report a while back and calculated the average number of each subject graded in the various major early E-sets e.g. E90-1, E93, E95 etc. I believe among the major early E-sets, as Barry suggested, E95 is the easiest followed by E93. E90-1 comes next. Then E92 (although this is somewhat tricky since there are multiple E92 sets). E96 follows (it is somewhat underrated in terms of difficulty) and then E94. I didn't consider the E91s because I really don't like the fake designs--and I think I am not alone in this view.<br /><br />Perhaps a more interesting fact is that there are, very roughly speaking, about 10X as many T206 cards as there are cards in the most prominent early E sets. This relative scarcity helps the early E cards in terms of valuation--but only to an extent. I am an advocate of the "sweet spot" theory of valuation. That is, if a set is TOO scarce, collectors tend to shy away from it since it is nearly impossible to complete. Thus, there is not a straight correlation between scarcity and price; there is a certain virtue to abundance that somewhat offsets the vice.<br /><br />Scot

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>bruce Dorskind</b><p>Let's limit the discussion to 6 sets<br /><br />E 93, E 94, E 95, E 96, E 97 and E 98<br /><br /><br />A total 5596 cards have been graded (as of today) by PSA and SGC.<br /><br />Interestingly, SGC has the larger market share having graded 57.1%<br />of the E cards from the aforementioned sets.<br /><br />A closer look at the combined Population Report provides an excellent<br />benchmark for just how scarce some sets are. Isolating the samples<br />in the best condition (PSA 6 or better and SGC 80 or better) the data<br />is even more compelling<br /><br />Set Population High Grade Cards <br /> <br /><br />E 93 1366 167<br />E 94 625 68<br />E 95 1617 116<br />E 96 687 51<br />E 97 569 23<br />E 98 731 53<br /><br /><br />One final item of note. Of all the cards graded by PSA 13.4% received a high<br />grade of 6 or better. The odds of receiving a high grade from SGC were<br />considerably slimmer. SGC has graded 3191 cards from these six sets <br />and only 159 cards (4.99%) received a grade of SGC 80 or higher.<br /><br />One fact that must be considered, but would very difficult to calcuate,<br />is the question of cross-over grading. How many cards were taken from<br />a PSA holder and switched to an SGC holder and/or how many lower grade<br />SGC holders were sent to PSA?<br /><br />The data is rather interesting. Your comments are welcomed<br /><br />Best,<br /><br /><br />Bruce Dorskind<br />America's Toughest Want List <br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>I'm gonna try to complicate this discussion as much as I can. <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />With many E issues, I believe there are quite a few more hofers floating around than commons. I think E93, E98, and E97 (to a certain degree)collectors would agree with this as a couple of the tougher cards in each set are common players. E95 and E96 are pretty completeable overall, but I still see more hof players than commons.<br /><br />This doesn't have to do with how many were printed or if they were all printed on the same sheet. Common sense tells me that early consumers and collectors were more likely to hang on to Ty Cobb then Hippo Vaughn.<br /><br />On the other hand, in today's market, collectors are likely to hoard/collect hof players like cobb and wagner. This evens things out a bit. The E90 Jackson is a good example of a card that is not known as being short printed or particularly hard to find, but very collectible which makes the card unavailable to most. <br /><br />Futher, many E and T collectors that I know only collect Hof types of Cobb, Wagner, Young, Plank, etc. This sometimes makes these cards expensive and tough to find.<br /><br />Overall, I guess it depends on what player we are talking about in terms of how many exist. Exact numbers aren't possible.<br /><br />Compared to T206 with common backs, I would say E98, E94 are at least 100x harder to find. At any given time on ebay, it's 700-800 T206 or so to less than 5 E94s.<br /><br /><br />Scot: You're right about the "sweet spot." E97 commons do not do well for how tough they are because the set is so very hard to complete that a lot of collectors back off. <br /><br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>Robert -<br /><br />Good luck with finding 5 E94s on ebay at any given time. I would say if you find 1, you are doing well!<br /><br />Scot and Robert - <br /><br />I think a lot of people refrain from collecting E97 due to there not being a lot of desirable hofers as well.<br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>There's a semi-obvious reason why some of these candy issues are more uncommon than others.<br /><br />Philadelphia Caramels must've been very popular. The evidence is in the numbers. The company not only sponsered E95/E96, but also other non-sports issues. I believe far more product was sold over a bigger area then some of the other candies.<br /><br />Standard Caramel must have been midrange. At least they could afford to put their name on the cards. <br /><br />As for E97s, Lozenges don't sound very appealing for kids.<br /><br />E98s and E94s might've been used by different products, hence the anonymity.<br />They apparently weren't used as much.<br /><br />Rob

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>quan</b><p>robert,<br /><br />pete's gone corporate so i hail you as king of the caramels now with the excellent analysis always! you should work out a deal for his caramel-cards.com, take over and compete with leon for some of those advertising $$$ <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>.<br /><br />one point though...i found the e96s hard to complete for some reason, must've been a timing thing but I believe their distribution was less. When your set is not driven by Cobb/Wagner they tend to be less popular. They also don't come in high grade like the e95s, very underappreciated set. during the same time span the e93s/e95s were easy, e98s a lil tougher (due to underbidding cobb/wagner) but not much, e96s/e97s/e102s were about the same percentage-wise. E94s are e94s...a class to themselves. Also alot of collectors don't dig the red-back e103s (besides Brain) but I like them tremendously although they show up even less than the close candy.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>Having collected all four sets that Barry mentioned (E93, E94, E95, and E98), I agree with his order of relative scarcity. From toughest to easiest: E94, E98, E93, E95. I would throw E96 and E97 in between E94 and E98. <br /><br />As for a guess at actual numbers, it is really hard to say, but I will take a stab at it.<br /><br />E94s 50-75 of any given player regardless of color<br />E98s 100-125 of any given player regardless of color<br />E93s 125-250 of any given player <br />E95s 200-250 of any given player<br /><br />This is a completely unscientific guess. I would guess that T206s are about 100-200x easier to find than E94s.<br /><br />JimB<br /><br />P.S. Great thread!

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>I don't know if E103s are scarcer than E94's, but over the last year I have seen E103s coming out of the woodworks due to the high prices they are fetching. I have seen far more E103 Cobbs and Wagners than E94s.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Mike Pugeda</b><p>JimB,<br /><br />Thanks for the post. Your estimate at actual numbers is what I was looking for. There is no way of knowing, but if your numbers are close, I'm amazed that there are so few around (relatively speaking). I know some may think that 100-200 is not that scarce, and compared to issues where maybe 10-20 or less are known, it's not...but I just thought there were more out there than that.<br /><br />Mike

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>I'll take a stab at the scarcity order. Throwing out the short prints and double prints, if you take your average single card availability in any given set:<br /><br />E93<br />E95<br />E90-1<br />E92 Dockman<br />E96<br />E102<br />E101<br />E97<br />E98<br />E103<br />E106<br />E92 Candy<br />E92 Cocoa<br />E94<br />E104<br />E92 Nadja<br />E105<br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>I know this info has probably been discussed, probably in Scot's t206 book (just too lazy to check) but how many t206 HOFers are there by comparison to the e cards? Is jim b's estimate correct - approx. by my math, anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 of each?

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>Richard - I know the only reason you are labeling the e93s as the easiest is because you are secretly plotting the demise of my e93 set <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Scot Reader</b><p>Robert,<br />I agree that the T206:E93 (for example) ratio is more like 100:1 when you compare the total number of cards. My rough and ready 10:1 ratio is a "per subject" ratio; since there are 520+ subjects in the T206 set and only 30 in the E93 set, a 100:1 ratio in the total number of cards translates in to a much smaller ratio "per subject".<br /><br />Josh,<br />I think I estimated that there are about 3,000-6,000 examples of a typical T206 subject extant. This was based on a rather convoluted analysis involving the fact that Demmitt (St. Louis) and O'Hara (St. Louis) are available only with Polar Bear and that about 6.6% of the 350-only subjects have the Polar Bear back. See the book for details.<br /><br />Scot

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>Thanks Scot. Also, I will note that in rereading Jim B's post, he didnt state that there were 100 to 200 t206s for each e94, he only stated that they were 100x to 200x easier to find (which really speaks more to the frequency that they become available for sale etc, not to the numbers).

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>Scot,<br /><br />Are you saying that your average E93 example is 10x harder to find than your average T206 example?<br /><br />Rob

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>Josh,<br />I was saying that I think there are 100-200x as many of any T206 as there are E94s. Since I estimated the numbers of E94s at 50-75, the total for T206s would be 5,000-7,500. <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br />That is in the ballpark of Scot's T206 population estimates.<br /><br />I just did a quick ebay survey to get a sense of things. There are currently 34 T206 Cobbs and 24 T206 Youngs available. There are no E94 Cobbs or Youngs in any color. One could argue that individual T206 poses should be considered separately, but the same argument could be made for E94 colors. There are still 11 T206 Red portrait Cobbs available now and no Cobb E94s of any color. I would be willing to bet that the ratio of available red portrait Cobbs on ebay outnumbers E94 Cobb availability by 100:1 at least over the course of any given 3 month period. And though it is not science, I think this is generally indicative of their relative populations.<br />JimB<br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>Hey Jim, <br /><br />I guess my original math was correct as I also used your upper limit of 200x as easy to find. Your 5000 to 7500 would be 100x as easy to find.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Jim- I think you are more correct than you know when comparing red portrait Cobbs to E94 Cobbs on ebay. I think you can even triple your figure of T206 red Cobbs to any color E94 Cobbs and be closer to the exact figure. In a whole year there MIGHT be one E94 Cobb on ebay. The last one I remember was over a year ago and it was a really low grade, severely creased and ragged violet I believe. I know Quan picked up a violet, a nice mid grade one for a bunch in an off-ebay (Net54?) transaction, but that's all I can remember on ebay.<br />Richard- I pretty much agree with your rankings but I would flip-flop the E97s and E98s as there are a few E97s which are almost impossible like the Nichols variation, Young variation, Keeler is very tough as is Kelly. I know (believe me I know) how tough the Vaughn, Coombs, Walsh and Kling are in the E98, but they are still obtainable with patience and the money, I can't say the say about some of the E97s...<br />TBob

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Dylan</b><p>I think its pretty safe to say there are more T206 Cobbs at almost any given time on ebay then there are E1-card Cobbs combined. Right now theres (including store listings)<br />1 E93 <br />2 E95<br />1 E98 <br />1 E101 <br />1 E102<br />for a grand total of 6! Thats accounting for all E1 sets(E90-E106) There's no mistaking the rarity of E cards, thats part of why i enjoy them so much!<br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>fkw</b><p>4,000 examples of a common T206 would = roughly 2 million T206 cards out there. I think that is high. Ive always heard estimates of about 2,000 of ea. T206 common (1 million total cards), but no one really knows. <br /><br />You have to remember there are 10-20X fewer subjects in the average E set (compared to T206) so obviously the numbers of individual cards of a certain player will be different and you cant compare them.<br /><br />EXAMPLE: Say there are 2,000 T206 red portrait Cobbs, and 1,000 E95 Cobbs, the E95 is still 40X rarer (25 subjects to a set rather than 525)<br /><br />Overall I believe for every E card (combining all the sets), you have about 10-15 T206 cards.<br /><br />This will give you an idea, (on eBay right now in the pre1930 for sellers who know what they have and use ACC#'s) there are 1041 T206 cards (ACC# listed in auction title), and only 72 total "E" cards listed in title (E90-1, E90, E91, E92, E93, E94, E95, E96, E97, E98, E101, E102, E103) (PS I used both E-92 and E92 etc., and T-206 and T206 for each search).<br /><br />Thats would make all "E" cards combined 14X scarcer than a T206 card (on eBay).<br /><br />But I also think more E cards are saved (set collectors) and not sold as frequently overall.<br /><br />Some have said they think there are 50-250 of a certain player for some E sets, but I believe there are far more of each player because the sets are so small. For example if there are 250 of a certain E95 card that would only be 6,250 total E95s out there. If there are 4,000 of a certain T206 card, thats would be 2,000,000 total cards. There is no way a E95 is 300+ times rarer than the same player in a T206 set. That would be like seeing 300 T206 (red) Cobbs for every E95 Cobb.<br /><br />I think there is more like 1,000 of each E95 card (20 per State, ie. 20 E95 Cobbs in Ohio), and if thats true it would still make E95's roughly 40X scarcer than a T206 card (based on 1,000,000 total T206 cards/2,000 ea. common).

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>Frank -<br /><br />I think your comparison and numbers work well for the "type" collector. If I did not have a single E94 nor a single T206 and I wanted to understand how difficult it would be to find a single example of any player for each, then your argument makes sense.<br /><br />However, as a player collector, if you wanted to understand how much rarer an E94 speaker is compared to a T206 speaker, then that is a whole different order of magnitude.<br /><br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>fkw</b><p>E94 is a different story, As far as numbers, they should not be compared to E90-1, E92, E93, E95, E96, E98. They should be compared to E90-2, E90-3, E104, E105, E106, T209, T213-3, T216, D303, D304, etc.<br /><br />Using the same search technique (as above), there is only two E94s on eBay right now.<br /><br />So you should see a E94 Tris Speaker once every 15 weeks on eBay <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>"Some have said they think there are 50-250 of a certain player for some E sets, but I believe there are far more of each player because the sets are so small. For example if there are 250 of a certain E95 card that would only be 6,250 total E95s out there. If there are 4,000 of a certain T206 card, thats would be 2,000,000 total cards. There is no way a E95 is 300+ times rarer than the same player in a T206 set. That would be like seeing 300 T206 (red) Cobbs for every E95 Cobb.<br /><br />I think there is more like 1,000 of each E95 card (20 per State, ie. 20 E95 Cobbs in Ohio), and if thats true it would still make E95's roughly 40X scarcer than a T206 card (based on 1,000,000 total T206 cards/2,000 ea. common)."<br /><br />Frank - I don't quite follow your logic.<br /><br />If there are 250 of each E95 and 4000 of each T206, then there would be 1 E95 Cobb for every 16 T206 Red Port Cobb. The ratio is 1:16, not 1:300<br /><br />If there were 1000 of each E95 and 2000 of each T206, then the ratio would be 1 E95 Cobb for every 2 T206 Red Port Cobbs. 1:2<br /><br />Clearly there are far more than 2 red ports for every E95 Cobb. There are clearly even more than 16 red ports for every E95 cobb.<br /><br />Please correct me if I am missing something.<br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>bruce Dorskind</b><p><br /><br />Richard and Robert<br /><br />Given the fact that 5600 E 93-98 cards have been graded, what is<br />your assumption about the number of "ungraded" e cards?<br /><br />What is the statistical basis for that assumption?<br /><br /><br />Since it is impossible to determine the actual number of ungraded<br />E cards ( Let's limit the discussion to E 93-E 98), would it not make<br />sense to take the ratio of E cards graded to T 206 graded and assume<br />that the same ratio exists for non-graded cards?<br /><br />An E Bay survey over a 4 month period which compares the ratio of<br />E 93-E 98 ungraded cards offered with T 206's not graded will also<br />provide data with a larger enough sample size for one to develop<br />a reasonable hypothesis?<br /><br />What are your thoughts?<br /><br /><br />Best,<br /><br /><br />Bruce Dorskind<br />America's Toughest Want List<br />

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Matt</b><p>just an aside: correct me if my memory is poor, but i remember seeing more of the "tough" caramels a few years ago on ebay...before the caramels were hot...certainly not in T206 quantity...but more than today...i wouldn't necessarily judge absolute scarcity by present day ebay trends....too bad you can't search ebay in "years"

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>Two ideas,<br /><br />The ratio of graded to ungraded cards on eBay does not precisely reflect the ratio for cards on the planet, but only roughly. A few folks will only get a card graded if they're going to sell it. Only rarely would someone break out a slabbed card to sell it raw on eBay. So the eBay ratio will be skewed toward slabbed cards. Kinda like the ratio of clean cars to dirty cars differs if you're in a mall parking lot, a subdivision, or a car dealer's lot. Cars and cards get cleaned up when offered for sale.<br /><br />Second matter, I looked for Caramelcard.com and it wasn't there, but as I looked around I found <a href="http://www.caramel-cards.com/cards.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.caramel-cards.com/cards.html</a> Caramel-cards.com That might help someone who's looking for the site.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Peter Thomas</b><p>I am quite sure the number of graded E cards is considerably overstated. In the last year I have crossed over all of my PSA ecards except E93's and E103's. The crossed cards have been about 200 and I am quite sure they are still on PSA pop reports. I will cross my E93 set at national when I can discuss it in person with SGC. I will also discuss my E103 set then, but this is less critical to me since PSA has a holder that fits these cards. I think others have done the same thing.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Scot Reader</b><p>Robert,<br /><br />That's a guesstimate. So, for example, you would find about 10 T206 Waddell (Throwing) examples for every one E93 Waddell. Maybe the ratio is closer to 20:1--but I doubt it is near 100:1. For reasons stated above, I think there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 of a typical T206 specimen, which would then set the count of a typical E93 specimen at 300 (10:1) or perhaps 150 (20:1). Of course, only a small fraction of the extant total would be mid-grade or better.<br /><br />Scot

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>Scot,<br /><br />Wow, I'm bad at math. Thanks for clarifying.<br /><br />I guess it just depends on which set we're discussing.<br /><br />If there are 6000 t206 waddell portraits out there, I don't think I am underestimating when I say there are only 60 E94 speakers.<br /><br />On the other hand, there are many more E95 cobbs out there. <br /><br /><br /><br />Rob

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>fkw</b><p>Richard, its easy. It all based on how many cards are in the set.<br /><br />When the cards were first obtained.....<br /><br />Your chances (roughly) of getting a T206 Cobb red is 1 in 525<br />Your chances of getting a E95 Cobb is 1 in 25<br /><br />Even though the odds are far less, the T206 Cobb red is far far more plentiful, all because there were obviously far more Cigarette packs sold than Caramel packs.<br /><br />There are 21 times more (different) cards in the T206 set. Thats why you cant directly compare the numbers of a single player between a set of 525 and a set of 25.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>But is it possible that Cobb was issued in greater number because of his popularity? I always wondered how savvy marketing was back then.

Caramel card scarcity
 

Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>The question was posed why it seems that there were more caramel cards, especialy of the tougher cards a few years ago then now. I think more collectors have turned to the caramel cards and cards are going in to collections rather than being flipped. I remember also that the very same caramel cards (E93, E94, E95, E96, E97 and especially E98) were being bought and sold (flipped) quite often. I owned a number of E98s which I saw later flipped and then flipped again but you don't see that very often now. As the caramels have become scarcer and scarcer, the cards in even lower grade are simply not changing hands anymore like they used to...