Rankings of the rarest T206 Cards (NOT BACKS!)

[Clark7781]

I really enjoy the posts regarding the Demmitt and O'Hara cards, and was shocked that it is estimated that there may only been about 300-500 known examples of these two cards. I am curious what you experts would say are the top 10 "rarest" cards in The Monster. This list is NOT back specific; that is a seperate beast.

I think I know the top five rarest T206s, but would love to see what you would list to round out the top 10. My list, starting with the rarest:

1. Doyle Error
2. Wagner
3. Plank
4. Magie
5. Demmitt/O'Hara
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

[Blunder19]

I would tend to say the tough variations come next..

Dahlen Brooklyn
Elberfeld Washington Port
Lundgren Chicago
Brown Washington

Then I'd say the 2 toughest SLer's...Shag and Foster

Then maybe
Smith Chicago and Boston
Kleinow Catching Boston
Evers Cubs on shirt


Jamie

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Blunder19

I would tend to say the tough variations come next..

Dahlen Brooklyn
Elberfeld Washington Port
Lundgren Chicago
Brown Washington

Then I'd say the 2 toughest SLer's...Shag and Foster

Then maybe
Smith Chicago and Boston
Kleinow Catching Boston
Evers Cubs on shirt


Jamie

Jamie, if you check out the PSA pop reports on the 'other half' of the variations, I think you would be surprised (e.g.: Lundgren KC, Dahlen Boston, etc.)

[FrankWakefield]

The 150 series card of Ed Reulbach needs to be jammed in there above Evers and below Klienow, I think.

[T206Collector]

As far as I'm concerned, the most definitive research on this topic was accomplished by Scot Reader in his book, "Inside T206". You can read it here:

http://www.oldcardboard.com/t/t206/I...al-edition.pdf

Unfortunately, it seems his "Difficulty Rankings" from earlier editions is no longer in print. Not sure if that's because his data on this front changed. But here is where he listed the difficulty in the top 50 in 2006. (The first number after the names is the ranking, the second number is irrelevant for these purposes.)

Cobb (Ty Cobb Back) 1 1
J. Doyle (N.Y. Nat.l) 2 2
Wagner (Pittsburg) 3 3
Plank 4 4
O.Hara (St. Louis) 5 5
Demmitt (St. Louis) 6 6
Magie 7 7
Elberfeld (Wash. Port.) 8 1
Lundgren (Chicago) 9 1
Smith (Chicago & Boston) 10 1
Persons 11 1
Cranston 12 2
Foster 13 3
Mullaney 14 4
Revelle 15 5
Hart (Little Rock) 16 6
Manion 17
Ellam 18 8
Smith (Shreveport) 19 1
Ryan 20 9
Lafitte 21 10
Howard (Savannah) 22 11
Shaughnessy 23 12
Smith (Atlanta) 24 13
Fritz 25 14
Molesworth 26 15
Coles 27 16
Paige 28 17
Bay 29 18
Reagan 30 19
Dahlen (Brooklyn) 31 2
Kiernan 32 20
Stark 33 2
Lipe 34 21
Otey 35 22
Breitenstein 36 23
Jordan (Atlanta) 37 24
Hickman 38 25
J. Doyle (N.Y.) 39 3
Lentz 40 26
Perdue 41 27
Brown (Washington) 42 4
Bastian 43 3
Thronton 44 28
Bernhard 45 29
Violat 46 30
Guiheen 47 31
Helm 48 32
Greminger 49 33
Hooker 50

[DixieBaseball]

So from the list the SLer's dominate the Top 50 list. With that being said, I can pick up anywhere from 2-5 of any of these players on ebay right now. I even noticed there are 4 Kid Elberfeld Portraits on ebay as well. I am not too sure scarcity matters with respect to T206's outside that top 6-7 cards.