T206 Old Mill Backs

[wazoo]

Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Well, this year I was lucky enough to add some more t206s to my collection. While looking through the backs, and then the SGC Pop Report (Not the most accurate reference), I was wondering how much Old Mill backs add to a Hall of Famer? Or a tough common? I usually don't hear much talk about Old Mills and that is why I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. By looking through the pop report, there were very few examples per card.

The Old Mill examples which I happen to own:

• Fred Merkle (Throwing) SGC 60 (7 known in SGC pop report. Mine is the highest Old Mill SGC example.)
• Sam Crawford (Bat on) SGC 40 (6 known in SGC pop report)
• Addie Joss (Hands at Chest) PSA 4 (7 known in SGC pop report. Contradicting because I'm using the SGC report for a PSA card).

I do realize that the SGC pop report is very limited, and does not display all the data within the hobby. Regardless, I still feel that the SGC pop report displays the scarcity of the cards. So, I guess my overall questions are, do these cards have any additional value because of the Old Mill backs? Are these Hall of Famers harder to find with such back? Where, based on opinion, does Old Mill black stand on the scarcity list? (I use the one from t206.org, but I'm sure people have different opinions.) Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,
Wazoo

[E93]

Just my unscientific opinion, but I think of Old Mill (along with Polar Bear and Sovereign) as one step tougher than Sweet Cap or Piedmont, but still not too hard to find. They may get a very slight premium or just sell a little quicker, but not a huge premium. All things are relative though and I would much prefer an OM to P or SC. I would pay a 10% premium.
JimB

[wazoo]

What a beauty! Thanks for the info. I would have to agree with that. With that being said, I feel that the price has gone up for Old Mills on Ebay especially. Not a crazy price spike, but still a noticeable one.

[sreader3]

Waz,

OM commons commanded an 80% premium over Piedmont 350 as of May 2012 according to my market study which looked at sales from major auctions from 2008-2012. This was a substantially higher premium than a few years earlier.

http://www.t206resource.com/Article-...ltipliers.html

I would guess the premium for HOFers and tougher commons was about half of that, or 40%, as of that time.

Scot

[sdkammeyer]

Originally Posted by sreader3

Waz,

OM commons commanded an 80% premium over Piedmont 350 as of May 2012 according to my market study which looked at sales from major auctions from 2008-2012. This was a substantially higher premium than a few years earlier.

http://www.t206resource.com/Article-...ltipliers.html

I would guess the premium for HOFers and tougher commons was about half of that, or 40%, as of that time.

Scot

Thanks for linking me yesterday Scot. I read most of it last night and finished digesting it all this morning. Good Stuff.

[sreader3]

Thanks for the hat tip Steve. Best luck with your T206 pursuits in 2013.

Scot

[wazoo]

Great info. I love the website and it is very useful. Thanks for the link as well.

[Exhibitman]

Nice analytical work!

[wazoo]

Although, I'm not sure if I could consider Brown Hindu a Top 10 back over the Piedmont 42 back. I find it extremely difficult, and it's taken me many years to finally pick up 2 examples. Also, you do not find them too often. If you do an eBay search, you'll find that there are 2 for sale as of now. I believe there are 20+ Brown Hindus on eBay. Of course, it all depends on who's selling and what not, but in my opinion, I believe the Piedmont Factory 42 is a Top 10 back compared to Brown Hindu.

[freakhappy]

Originally Posted by wazoo

Although, I'm not sure if I could consider Brown Hindu a Top 10 back over the Piedmont 42 back. I find it extremely difficult, and it's taken me many years to finally pick up 2 examples. Also, you do not find them too often. If you do an eBay search, you'll find that there are 2 for sale as of now. I believe there are 20+ Brown Hindus on eBay. Of course, it all depends on who's selling and what not, but in my opinion, I believe the Piedmont Factory 42 is a Top 10 back compared to Brown Hindu.

Great point Waz! It is hard to judge just on what is for sale right now, but it does seem that Piedmont 42 does not get the credit it deserves for being a tougher back.

Scot, thanks for posting that...I saved it to my favorites! T206resource.com has been very informative and has been a great reference.

[sreader3]

Waz,

P42s are difficult, but not quite as much as it may seem. Many sellers of P42s don't know what they have and don't advertise the card as a P42. Just three days ago a seller put a Leifeild (Batting) P42 on eBay in G-VG at a BIN of $24.99 (check out eBay Completed Listings). This happens several times a year. On the other hand, Brown Hindus and other scarce backs are almost always advertised as such. This leads to a perception that P42s are a little more difficult than they are in fact.

Also, setting difficulty aside, many collectors would rather own a Brown Hindu than a P42 because they perceive brand differences as more important than factory differences. Plus, many people just love the look of the Brown Hindu back.

Don't get me wrong. P42s are difficult and deserving of a considerable premium. But many people would pay more for a Brown Hindu for reasons stated.

[wazoo]

Great point as well. I think both are beautiful looking cards, and I am very happy to own both backs. I totally feel that the eye appeal of a Brown Hindu, regardless of the condition (mine is a beater), is another reason why they get more attention. I feel that Piedmont 42's do not get enough attention, and in a way, I am happy with that....for now! It's true though, many of them go unnoticed, and that is the fun of acquiring them.

Back to Old Mills though...I find them as an in between back. As if they do not get much attention, but when they are spotted, people take to them. I personally like the design of the Old Mill back, that is why I like to acquire them. I just feel that recently, that not a large amount of cards are backed with Old Mill backs, making them a nice piece to any t206 collection. That being said, they are not impossible to obtain.

[mrvster]

hands down piedy 42's are where they should be behind carolina bright, very tough back....i know who won the $25.00 one, lucky ducky, and no it wasn't me, but went to an "eagle eye" good guy

[White Borders]

A couple things:

First, I pretty much agree with Jim and Scot's comments.

Second, be careful with population reports. There are two Merkle subjects in the T206 Set: Merkle Throwing and Merkle Portrait. For T206 Old Mill, yes SGC shows a pop of 7 for Merkle Throwing. But it also shows a pop of 6 for Merkle with no subject description, with the highest graded of these being an SGC 80. For other backs, it does show some being Merkle Portrait. So if these Merkle No Description were really Merkle Portrait, wouldn't they most likely be listed as Merkle Portrait?

Merkle Portrait could possibly be found with an Old Mill back, but it has not been confirmed on either T206Resource or Ted Z's Old Mill Backs Survey. PSA does show a pop of 2 Merkle Portrait with an Old Mill back, compared to a pop of 7 Merkle Throwing with an Old Mill back, but this may be an error. So I'd say most, if not all of the SGC Merkle No Description are actually Merkle Throwing.

This is not a knock on Wazoo, as he does state that SGC is limited. Nor is it a knock on SGC. Rather it is a caution on interpreting pop reports. PSA offers a similar conundrum in that of the population of nearly 150,000 T206, about 63,000 are listed as "Unknown Back".

So on one hand, a portion of the SGC T206 population has a known back, but no description for the subject. And on the other hand, PSA has a subject description, but the back is unknown.

Third, I am finding it possible to cross-reference between SGC and PSA pop reports, and along with data from the wild (ebay, auctions, BST, etc), knowledge of which subject/back combos are possible, and statistical methods, to begin modelling an estimation of the T206 backs population distribution. I've been at it for quite a while, and it will probably be quite a while still until I'm ready to discuss what I'm doing and present results, but I will throw out the attached graph as a "teaser". (caveat: Further research will most likely result in a change in the order across the horizontal axis (such as the American Beauty backs probably shifting towards the right) as well as the relative population distribution curve. But it does demonstrate what I am working towards.)

Best Regards and Happy Collecting
Craig

[wazoo]

Thank you very much for clarifying that. It's true, I was making too much of an assumption. Either way, it is a high graded OM so I'm pleased. Anyways, wonderful detail and great "teaser" chart.

[goodtricks]

Great info here. Thanks for the links!

[t206blogcom]

Always felt Old Mills were underrated...

[frohme]

On the Old Mill topic, does anyone feel there's any variation in relative scarcity across the various T206 series? I ask because in my recent (now defunct) pursuit of the set of all Pirates, it seemed that in the Old Mill cards, the 150/350 series cards were tougher than their counterparts. Not significantly, but enough to be noticeable.

I found the 350 and later series to generally be easier than the the 150/350, and found Gibson, Clarke (port), Leach (port) especially tough - was missing only the latter two when I stopped.

Anyone have thoughts, pro/con feelings?

Thanks
--
Mike

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by frohme

On the Old Mill topic, does anyone feel there's any variation in relative scarcity across the various T206 series?

Anyone have thoughts, pro/con feelings?

Thanks
--
Mike

Mike - I believe that some subjects within the Old Mill subset are more scarce than others. Most, but not all, of the more difficult subjects are from print group 1 (150/350).

[sreader3]

Hi Mike,

You are on to something. Broken-down by subject group, OMs accounted for the following percentages of total backs in my 2003-2006 survey:

150/350 = 1.2
350-only = 1.7
350/460 RP = 4.2
460-only = 2.8

Scot

[E93]

Scot,
Great research and article! Thank you.
JimB

[Brian Weisner]

Nice work guys.... My numbers have always indicated the same... In fact for many years people believed that certain tough 150 cards were printed with OM backs, but they never showed up.... I looked for Lundgren and Evers Blue sky for 15 years before becoming convinced....Keep up the research....
Be well Brian

Ps Tim's print groups made since of what I was seeing...

PS hi Scot, nice to see you around....hope you are well...

[wazoo]

I'm not too familiar with print groups for backs such as Old Mill. Where can I find this information?

[E93]

Originally Posted by wazoo

I'm not too familiar with print groups for backs such as Old Mill. Where can I find this information?

T206resource.com

JimB

[Rob D.]

Originally Posted by wazoo

I'm not too familiar with print groups for backs such as Old Mill. Where can I find this information?

Here's a link to the article on Print Group 1. From here you'll be able to easily continue on to articles on the other five print groups.

[sreader3]

Adam and Jim,
Glad you liked the piece.

Brian,
You were my go-to guy on T206 backs when I was a newb. Was sorry to hear about your recent injury. Hope you are feeling better.

Scot

[wazoo]

Originally Posted by Rob D.

Here's a link to the article on Print Group 1. From here you'll be able to easily continue on to articles on the other five print groups.

Thanks Rob!

[Gradedcardman]

Wazoo, don't forget that if a collector prefers SGC over PSA or PSA over SGC, the only way the pop report gets adjusted is if the owner notifys the company. PSA requires the insert to be sent to them before they will adjust the pop report. I unfortunately just learned this at this years National. It certainly skews the numbers !!

[wazoo]

Thanks for the information! Never even knew that. You learn something new every day.

[teetwoohsix]

To add on, you also have to take into account for the Old Mill cards graded by BVG (I have no tally on that).....I've always loved the Old Mill back, as much as Polar Bear, EPDG, and Sovereign. Here are the only two I have (for now):

Sincerely, Clayton