T205 Piedmont 42 - Update?

[Jobu]

I have one T206 Piedmont 42 (Ames) and know how tough they are. I was curious about Piedmont 42 in T205 and read a bunch of old threads that showed that people's idea of how tough this back is in T205 has been changing over the past few years.

Can anyone give me the current lay of the land on this? How tough is this back in T205 and does it bring any premium?

Thanks.

[bn2cardz]

If you mean for the specific player, Ames, it isn't a confirmed back.

The back in general is tougher but premiums come and go on tougher back t205. A lot of the time I have seen no premium given or very minimal at best.

Drum, Hindu, and Broadleaf seem to be the only backs to bring consistent high premiums.

[Jobu]

Thanks Andy. The Ames is a T206 and is confirmed for that set. My question was about Piedmont 42 in T205, a set that I really don't know much about.

Does anyone have a confirmed list for this back in T205?

The best info that I found is from a LOTG write up (part of which follows):

According to an extensive study conducted by T205 scholars Joshua Levine and Shawn Adkins and published in SGC Collector magazine, the Piedmont Factory 42 reverse is ranked #4 in overall scarcity, behind only the impossibly rare Drum, Hindu and Broadleaf back ads. The two conducted an exhaustive census of T205 cards and concluded that the Factory 42 reverse accounted for less than 1% of all T205 cards with more than 20,000 individual cards counted.

For collectors concerned with back variety, the Piedmont Factory 42 back is a true rarity, perhaps the equivalent of a Carolina Brights or Broadleaf 350 reverse within the T206 issue.

[Gradedcardman]

Check out T-205 Resource at t205resource.com

Good checklist although not totally updated but a very good starting point.

[Jobu]

Thanks Adam, the list there is nice and I didn't realize it existed.

So it more or less seems that Piedmont 42 T205s are really rare backs that usually don't bring much, if any, premium?

[AddieJoss]

IMO the Piedmont 42s are tougher to find but not very difficult. I think they are about as common as American beauty or Cycle.

[Jobu]

In 2012, Joshua (Wite3) posted the following ranking of back scarcity - is this still accepted? Are the backs here ranked within tiers as well?

Thanks to the T205 experts for answering my questions, hopefully others are benefitting from this conversation.


Extremely Scarce

Blank Back
Hindu
Drum

Scarce

Broadleaf greenish
Broadleaf black
American Beauty black
American Beauty green
Piedmont Fact. 42
Cycle

Slightly Rare

Hassan Fact. 30
Sovereign
Honest Long Cut

Common

Hassan Fact. 649
Sweet Cap. black fact. 42
Sweet Cap. black fact. 25
Sweet Cap. red
Polar Bear
Piedmont fact. 25

[T205 GB]

That list is semi accurate. A large group of us T205 guys made a list of confirmed backs a few yrs ago. That list really brings to light rarities. Nothing beats knowledge though. I have noticed many of us hardcore T205 guys don't post up info anymore.

To answer your question yes Pied 42's are tough and they do command a premium. All that I have sold and seen sell over the past few yes have commanded a noticeable premium unless they flew under the radar. AB green are more scarce than black, Cycles are not scarce they are being horded by a few guys. Trust me I owned a lot of them at once and they were still very available at that time when I sold them all off. I reall had a lot of them btw.

[Al C.risafulli]

Piedmont Factory 42s are TOUGH. I was fortunate enough to have been the publisher of Collector magazine, so at the time (the Spring of 2007) I had access to the raw data that Joshua Levine put together, as well as the article written by Shawn Adkins. It was a pretty massive undertaking; more than 20,000 backs had been catalogued at that point, and I know that Joshua continued long after the article was published.

Anyway, at the time, the breakdown of backs by percentage in their database looked like this:

Piedmont Factory 25: 37.25%
Polar Bear: 12.06%
Honest Long Cut: 8.8%
Sovereign: 8.45%
Sweet Cap Factory 42 (red): 7.44%
Hassan Factory 649: 6.84%
Hassan Factory 30: 4.95%
Sweet Cap Factory 25 (black): 4.22%
Sweet Cap Factory 42 (black): 4.15%
Cycle: 2.78%
Piedmont Factory 42: .96%
American Beauty (Green): .77%
American Beauty (Black): .69%
Broadleaf (green): .19%
Hindu: .17%
Broadleaf (black): .14%
Drum: .14%

The things that struck me about this breakdown were the plentiful nature of the Polar Bear and Sovereign backs, especially in comparison with T206, as well as the scarcity of the American Beauty backs.

Anyway, I'm sure that over time some of these numbers have changed a bit; I understand that the population of AB Greens have increased with some finds, and that the population of Cycles may be off because a couple of guys with big collections of them weren't part of this project, but I think with this list you can get an idea of how most of these backs relate to one another in terms of overall scarcity, and can see that the Piedmont 42s are not given the credit they deserve.

-Al

[pherbener]

I've been starting to collect the Factory 42's over the past few months. I enjoy the scavenger hunt nature in the e-bay listings looking for a stray unrecognized 42. I've picked up about 10 of them including a Matty, Tinker, Chance and Bender. They are few and far between.

Paul

[Jobu]

Thanks guys. Al, that list is extremely helpful and is what I was hoping to see here, thank you for posting it.

I find it interesting how big a difference the back makes in T206 and many other sets while seeming to be less important in T205. I guess perhaps the impact of the ad back is proportional to the size of the ad and therefore the smaller ads on T205 make people care about them a little less?

[obcbeatle]

Originally Posted by Al C.risafulli

Piedmont Factory 42s are TOUGH. I was fortunate enough to have been the publisher of Collector magazine, so at the time (the Spring of 2007) I had access to the raw data that Joshua Levine put together, as well as the article written by Shawn Adkins. It was a pretty massive undertaking; more than 20,000 backs had been catalogued at that point, and I know that Joshua continued long after the article was published.

Anyway, at the time, the breakdown of backs by percentage in their database looked like this:

Piedmont Factory 25: 37.25%
Polar Bear: 12.06%
Honest Long Cut: 8.8%
Sovereign: 8.45%
Sweet Cap Factory 42 (red): 7.44%
Hassan Factory 649: 6.84%
Hassan Factory 30: 4.95%
Sweet Cap Factory 25 (black): 4.22%
Sweet Cap Factory 42 (black): 4.15%
Cycle: 2.78%
Piedmont Factory 42: .96%
American Beauty (Green): .77%
American Beauty (Black): .69%
Broadleaf (green): .19%
Hindu: .17%
Broadleaf (black): .14%
Drum: .14%

The things that struck me about this breakdown were the plentiful nature of the Polar Bear and Sovereign backs, especially in comparison with T206, as well as the scarcity of the American Beauty backs.

Anyway, I'm sure that over time some of these numbers have changed a bit; I understand that the population of AB Greens have increased with some finds, and that the population of Cycles may be off because a couple of guys with big collections of them weren't part of this project, but I think with this list you can get an idea of how most of these backs relate to one another in terms of overall scarcity, and can see that the Piedmont 42s are not given the credit they deserve.

-Al

Hmmm ... if these percentages are still accurate ... I'm twice as likely to see a T205 Sovereign and Honest Long Cut back than a Sweet Cap.Black back. Is that correct? I was never very good at math :-)