Old Judge Roger Connor

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

I recently completed a trade where I acquired an N172 Roger Connor. It is the "hands on knees" pose, which I was told is extremely rare. Can anyone verify this and estimate the number of examples that might exist with this pose?

It was factored in at what seemed like a pretty high price, although I do realize there is a major premium for difficult poses of HOFers.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Ryan Christoff

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Two points:

1-Connor is in the top third of the toughest Old Judge HOFers although near the bottom of that group. That is the good news.

2-The hands on knees pose is one of his two most common poses.

Just a piece of advice--assume all poses in the Old Judge set are equally common unless there is a strong reason to assume otherwise. Even then, do not pay a premium unless you are sure you can recover it because there are so few pose collectors that virtually no one cares if a pose is scarce or not, they just want a card of a particular player. Obviously, there are some exceptions (like portraits) which carry a premium but for the most part this a good policy to follow.

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Posted By: Halleygator

Having said that... Keep in mind that Jay charged me a premium when he sold me this one:

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Maybe it became less rare in the past few years.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Read what I said above: Connor is a relatively scarce HOFer but this is not a scarce Connor pose. This is not tobacco litigation, this is something serious.

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Posted By: Julie

because it's the same one on the A35--just a personal thing. (Goodwin Round Album).

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Does anyone have a guess on how many might exist? Just looking for a rough estimate of scarcity. Are there 5 with this pose? 25?

Thanks for your help,

-Ryan

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Posted By: Jay Miller

You are asking a question that no one knows the answer to. I would guess, and this is just a very rough guess, that 100 Connor N172s exist. If that were the case, I would say that about 40 of this pose exist.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Jay,

That's exactly what I was looking for. I realize that questions about population are unanswerable, but a guess by an Old Judge expert gives me a good enough idea.

I appreciate the estimation. Even it's off by 10 or 20 cards, your guess of 40 tells me there's more than 4 or 5.

For the amount I paid in the trade, there needed to be 4 or 5, not 20 or 30 or 40.

Because some of the Cuban and Puerto Rican cards I collect are so rare, I sometimes forget that "rare" doesn't necessarily mean "less than 10 known."

Thanks again for your help, Jay.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Halleygator

Jay:

NOBODY is ever going to old you to this ... but can you PLEASE give us some rough ideas "number-wise" how your OLD JUDGE "scarcity" chart breaks down????

In other words: Connor is at the bottom of the Top 1/3 in terms of "toughness to find" in the Old Judge set ... and you think there are about 100 of his cards in existence. (This tells me that 1/3 of the way down your chart is the number "100")

SO ... IN YOUR OPINION:

How many are in existence for the HARDEST Old Judge card to find?? (What number is at the Top of your chart? What player is this?)

How many are in existence for the middle of your Top 1/3? (i.e., what number is about 1/6 of the way down your chart, and about who would that be?)

How about HALF way down your chart (middle of your middle 1/3)? Same questions?

How about at the BOTTOM of your chart? Who is the most common and how many do you think are out there?

***Poses are not relevant, since that would be too confusing. Just players in all poses.

THANKS!!!

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Posted By: Halleygator

Jay:

IN a nutshell - can you please put some ROUGH ESTIMATE numbers with your chart from this thread:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=153652&messageid=1079617466

Thanks!

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

Im definitely not going to speak for Jay,but i think just because Connor is approx. 9th ill say according to Jay,it doesnt mean overall hes in the top 1/3 as far as every player goes. The hall of famers,were for the most part the most popular players back then so they should be a little easier to find in packs back then(a few players who were at the beginning of their career are exceptions,as well as Anson and McPhee).

Theres plenty of players in the set who are much harder to find than a Connor,just most people dont care about them.

Just ask Kevin if you need proof of how hard some commons can be

this is my signature

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Those pesky Larry Corcoran cards can be a dickens to find!

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Posted By: Julie

than ALL the rarest HOFers in the OJ set. More I don't know.

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Posted By: Halleygator

You guys are of course correct. I am sure that the "nobody" cards got thrown away by people in 1890...and are now impossible to find.

Technically, NOBODY can tell us what the "scarcest" Old Judge cards are today ... because some are probably SO SCARCE that NONE exist ... and therefore we don't even have them on the checklists!

BUT, since Jay posted the HOF scarcity list previously, I am hoping he can at least give us some estimates for that list.

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

Kevin,my best guess is that Larry is at a bar somewhere right now about to beat the crap out of Orator Shaffer because he wont shut up

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Posted By: Anonymous

Orator: So Corcoran, why did your career turn to **** so quickly?

Corcoran: A horse stepped on my index finger...

Smith: Phenomenal!

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Posted By: runscott

I was getting into this Connor thing and forgot myself.

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

c'mon Scott! get to the part where he beats him up! Dont forget about grasshopper Whitney jumping out of the place because it was starting to get heated up

p.s. Scott,you get extra points if you can work Cannonball Titcombs name into the story

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--I'll give you guesses but they are not worth much. For the scarcest HOFers I would say there are maybe 50 cards. For the most common HOFers, the Keefes, Clarksons and Brouthers of the world, I would say there are maybe 500 cards each. For example, there are 14 variations of McPhee that are known. Even though his card is one of the scarcest I find it hard to believe that there are not at least three cards, on average, of each variation.
John is correct. The scarcest non-HOFers are much scarcer than the scarcest HOFers.For those cards we are talking less than 10 copies known.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

John:

At 5' 9" and 165 pounds, old Orator wasn't much of a he-man, but he was positively Brobdingnagian compared to that 5' 4" 120 pound Lilliputian pansy Corcoran.

Besides, you failed to notice that Orator's brother Taylor was on the next stool and they would have double-teamed the whole bar and administered a serious a** whuppin!

Kevin

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

we will see what Scott says about this!

Dont forget,Larry had an older brother Mike who pitched in the majors and also fancied the bar scene.

Plus Hal said what i also figured.Who is gonna save a card of Sam Smith back then and all the way up till now.Think of how long cards were worth nothing so there was always a chance someone would say Sam Smith who and just throw his card out(they probably wouldnt have said Sam because his first name isnt on the card)

while as someone like Buck Ewing or (insert famous players name here) wouldve been more likely to have been saved

p.s. Hal,email me sometime,darealdrza @ aol.com

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Posted By: runscott

Billy Sunday was most likely to have been saved...

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Posted By: Kenny Cole

about Deacon White. He was about as pious as Billy.

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

ok,i wasnt gonna say something but an email Kevin sent has me thinking........Hal thats a nice Connor butt(and i put 2 t's in that word for pun purpose) i dont know if i would want that card,i see its the hands on knees pose,and he has an intense look on his face,so whats that thing about knee high between his legs on the picture?

maybe it was the work of some 19thcentury jokester or something,please tell me its not actually on the card

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Posted By: Halleygator

It's on the card ... but hopefully it is just a glitch from someone who mishandled the card over the past 125 years and NOT a "dropping dungball" as it does appear.

Had there also been a pile on the floor below him, however, I would have become concerned.

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Posted By: runscott

Next thing someone will find a variation with a puddle on the carpet.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Scott--That is sometimes seen on the Whitney with Dog card

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Posted By: Halleygator

THIS must be why Jay said my card was so "rare" when he sold it to me!!

The ONLY known copy of the "Connor Drops a Load" pose!!

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Posted By: david

while not being near the expert on oj that jay is i will just add that the browns champs are probably somewhere in between a middle and an easy hof and the spotted ties are up there with the toughest cards in the set. jay, would you agree?

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

he brings up a good point about the browns champion cards,is this Connors considered a "Browns champion" card?

ive also seen the puddle Jay mentioned on the NY mascot card,both by himself and with Ewing,altho Ewing sweared it was the mascot.If you look close you can see the mascot indiscreetly pointing at Buck

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Posted By: Jay Miller

1-Connor is not a Brown's Champ as...he didn't play for the Browns. Brown's Champs are a seperate 1887 subseries(see Lew's Book)

2-All spotted ties are tougher than any HOFer but not nearly as scarce as the scarce non-HOFers. There are certain spotted ties that are tougher than others so not all spotted ties are created equal (or were created equally).

3-Brown's Champs are as scarce as the tougher HOFers. I used to see alot of these but don't see many any more. Then again I don't see alot of Old Judge material that used to show up on a regular basis.

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Posted By: john(z28jd)

from the jokes arent funny when you have to explain them department:

Jay i meant "Browns champion" as in reference to what was mentioned above with Hal's particular card.I knew this wasnt actually a Browns champion

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Posted By: david

jay,
you corrected my mistake, thanks. i meant to say the hof's, not the tougher commons. the browns champs are interesting because for their scarcity they seem to come up for sale a lot more often then the numbers might indicate they should. in the five or six years that i have been tracking the sales on ebay i have probably seen about 10-15 spotted ties , but i have seen several times that number of the browns champs cards, latham seems to be one that i see a lot of-could just be the same one everytime though.

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Posted By: Halleygator

John:

If it makes you feel better ... I got your joke about the "Brown" and was LMAO!!

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Posted By: david

jay
what is your estimate for players league and PCL old judges. i cant recall seeing a copy of either one in a long time. also, has a ward pl card ever been found?