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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

For your kind words about the article. It was fun to do.

Paul's question is a good one -- we went back and forth about whether to include numbers of that kind-- (like are there 25-50 Green/Joyce cards known total, etc.) In the end this is the only such estimate we went with, knowing it would be questioned (by us too).

But on the other hand, there are tons of cards a lot scarcer than the T206 Wagner-- E cards, T cards, etc. etc. That card is only "rare" in its specific context of T206. Its value is the product of a perfect storm-- a very scarce card in the most widely-collected set, an A-list HOFer, the anti-smoking Wagner lore, and now decades of hobby legend behind it.

One other thought: a while back when I polled M101-4/5 population among this group, we got a total in the low thousands-- the equivalent of 6-8 sets at most. I think mine accounted for 25-30% of that total (I had about 300 cards in the two sets at the time). From that surprisingly low number owned by a group of avid collectors, I guess I extrapolated that there were not a huge number of sets out there-- dozens more, certainly, but not hundreds and hundreds.

Anyway, we can continue to discuss. I got a note this morning from a man who gave me a lead on where the Mall Theatre was located! I'm about to look into it.

Tim