Posted By:
Scot ReaderMike,
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.
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.
Scot