Posted By:
Adam J. BaxterPaul,
I'm exhausted, so please excuse me if my post is in any was incoherent. I'm not sure why those "5 or less examples known" cards are so scarce. Perhaps Mark or another veteran Zeenut collector knows the story behind their scarcity? When I first read Mark's comment regarding "several hundred different cards with fewer than five documented examples" I was blown away to say the least. I knew about some of the scarce ones (Bohne, Arbuckle, Claxton, Thorpe), but I hadn't heard about all the others.
Mark MaCrae had an auction ad in a 1997 issue of VCBC with a bunch of Zee-Nuts including Arbuckle, Claxton, and Thorpe. In his description he had some figures about known examples on those scarce three.
They are:
1916 Jimmy Claxton- About 2 dozen examples documented.
1919 Fatty Arbuckle - Less than 20 examples known.
1922 Jim Thorpe - About 2 dozen examples known.
I'm not sure if those figures are still correct.
From what I understand, Arbuckle is scarce due to his murder trial. The public disagreed with the acquittal verdict and destroyed items relating to him.
As far as Claxton and Thorpe go, it may be due to issues of race and cards were either destroyed or pulled. That might be the situation for the Claxton, but then again Thorpe was pretty well-known and popular at the time, so I'm probably way off on my guess were he's concerned. I honestly don't know.