T206: Tough Sweet Caps

[joshleon]

Hi,

Was trying to find some comps on cards I have and I have this really nice Kroh that I have looked up and the prices seem to vary in weird way. Mine is a SC and the comps in the VG-EX range seem to be very high relative to similar in a piedmont.

Sorry if I didn't do enough research before asking but I couldn't find anything. What are the tough sweet caps?

Edited to add images and apologize for how awful a job I did at doing so.

[Bobbycee]

The SC 460/25 are tougher. My favorite is the equally tough 150 /factory 649, with the red over print bar.

[53toppscollector]

There are 2 types of T206 collectors: those that care about off backs and those that don't. For some people, they see a SweetCap back and that is all it is to them, a SweetCap, and those people aren't likely to pay any premium for the different factories. For back collectors, specifically people putting together a back run, they will pay a premium.

Piedmont backs are also more plentiful than SweetCaps (by a fair margin), so if the person buying the card cares about the rarity of the back, they should expect to pay a slight premium for a SweetCap over a Piedmont.

Your best bet is to look at the population reports for PSA/SGC. But there are a few issues with that:

* PSA originally did not distinguish between the backs (labeling cards as just T206 in the beginning), then they start to only distinguish by brand (SweetCap, Piedmont, American Beauty), and then they finally started to include the Series and Factory numbers. Because of that, the PSA pop report is not entirely accurate.
* SGC breaks down SweetCaps by year (1909 = 150, 1910 = 350, 1911 = 350/460) but they don't break it down by factory. The Piedmont to SweetCap total for SGC is a good barometer though in determining the rarity.

Within SweetCaps themselves, the factory 25s will command a small premium over Factory 30s. Factory 42, 42 OP and 649 OPs are more scarce in general.

For the Kroh you mentioned, PSA has graded 241 Piedmonts, compared to 59 SweetCaps. Using those numbers, the Piedmont is 75% more plentiful. This drastic of a split between Piedmont/SweetCap is not universal. Within the SweetCap breakdown at PSA of those 59, 30 of them are Factory 30, while only 4 are Factory 25. As noted above, this is inexact, because there are likely a bunch of SweetCap Kroh's that just say "Sweet Caporal" and don't have a factory designation. But, it is clear that Factory 30 is more plentiful than Factory 25.

You will see that almost universally, where Factory 30s outnumber Factory 25s by a fairly wide margin.

To illustrate the 350/460 Series scarcity

Latham: 124 Piedmonts, 96 Sweet Caps. Of those 96, 7 are Fac 25, 31 are Fac 30, and 9 are 42OPs.

Lake w/Ball: 162 Piedmonts, 114 SweetCaps. Of the 114, 5 from Fac 25, 47 from Fac 30, 7 are 42OPs

[53toppscollector]

also, last bit I can add here are the SweetCap portraits that have low overall populations. The below portrait poses have less than 100 total graded SweetCap examples between PSA and SGC

Knight (only 40 total SweetCaps last time I checked)
O'Neil
Hunky Shaw
Mitchell
Shad Barry
Merritt
Randall
Schlafly
Thielman
Bescher
Dessau
Malarkey
Armbruster
Arndt
Barger
McGinley
Herbie Moran
Poland

[joshleon]

Thanks James and Bob...very helpful. I had always treated Sweet caps and piedmonts as equals in my mind...probably because for whatever reason I have more SCs in my own collection. That was probably due to buying a large amount at once from a 2nd/3rd gen owner of SCs who sold all to a dealer (and then to me).

Anyway, thx!

[joshleon]

.

[parkerj33]

Thanks James!

For overprints, some have solid bar, others have squiggly line. can the same subject be found with both? is the squiggly associated with fact 649 and solid with factory 42? or vice/versa?

i haven't looked at mine close enough to recall.

[53toppscollector]

I may be wrong, but I think the 150/649 OPs have the solid bar, while the 350-460/42 OPs have the more uneven bar for the overprint.

[Vintagedeputy]

Originally Posted by 53toppscollector

There are 2 types of T206 collectors: those that care about off backs and those that don't.

Actually, I'm type 3. I don't care about any backs at all. I collect the cards for the players on the front. The advertising on the back means very little to me. If you tell me I have a rare back and its worth more because of that, terrific. If I have a card with a common back, it doesn't make the card any less cool to me.

[jcmtiger]

I collected all the Detroit players, no one cared about backs then. Have sold all in the last few years. Don’t know is I had any rare backs. Lol