T205, T206 Survival Rates

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Posted By: Scott Levy

Would love to hear thoughts about what the initial print runs were for the T205 and T206 sets as well as the survival rates for common cards. When we discuss hundreds of even the rarest cards remaining, its kind of mindnumbing to think of how many common cards must remain. Any estimates are welcome.

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Posted By: John S

My guess for common crads in the T205/T206 sets....less than 1%.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

scot/ted/brian could better answer this...but i think the 1% +/- number is commonly thrown around.


p.s. i know what some of you are thinking..."you're in London, what are you doing on the internet, and not out enjoying the city?"...

well, i did not sleep on the plane and must rest for now, because i'll be hitting the town tonight!

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Posted By: RC

I'll be in England this summer. Any suggestions after your visit related to cards, etc... would be appreciated.

RC

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Hi Scott,

For T206, I have written about this elsewhere. My analysis starts with an assumption that there are roughly 250 examples of each of Demmitt (St. Louis) and O'Hara (St. Louis) extant. Next, I assume that these subjects were printed in similar quantities as other 350-only subjects WITH THE POLAR BEAR BACK. I think this is a fair assumption since they showed up in similar numbers as other 350-only subjects WITH THE POLAR BEAR BACK in my 20,000 card T206 eBay survey. Next, I apply the fact that about 6.6% of 350-only cards in my eBay survey had the Polar Bear back. This leads to the conclusion that if Demmitt (St. Louis) and O'Hara (St. Louis) had been printed with ALL of the 350-only backs (not just Polar Bear), about 250 / .066 = 3,800 copies would exist today. So one can expect that about 3,800 examples of a "normal" T206 subject from the 350-only series are with us today. Now, the 350-only series is slightly more available than most other series. But, if one assumes that 350-only subjects are available in similar quantities as subjects from other series, the total number of T206 cards that have survived to the present is roughly 520 X 3800, or about 2 million.

Of course I am not estimating the number at 2 million with a high degree of precision, but I think that number is in the neighborhood (or since we are talking about baseball cards, perhaps better to say it is in the ballpark).

Edited to add: Oh boy. I see you also asked about initial production. On this topic please see my T206 e-book which you can download in .pdf for free from oldcardboard.com or t206museum.com.

Scot

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Posted By: Scott Levy

Good Analysis. I like your reasoning and buy into it. Have you published populations figures of backs based on your study...if so is that in your e-book.

Was also trying to gauge the same thing for T205s. They seem to be a touch less plentiful than T206s, but maybe that's because they're not as hotly collected. Also, I hear that Drum and Black backs for T205s are nearly impossible.

Regards.
Scott