Complete or near-complete N172 player sets?

[Archive]

Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

A short time back one of our illustrious board members (Lee Behrens), asked how many collectors on the board had complete or near complete T206 sets. I thought that was a cool thread and I wanted to revisit it,only this time I want to know about N172's. So here it is:

How many collectors on the board have near or complete (according to the known checklists) N172 Old Judge player sets?


*For those not in the know, I asked about player sets only, as there is no such thing as a complete N172 set due to the seemingly endless variations.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

Given that the card pulled from the OJ pack a few years back is unique, as I am sure several other players are, I highly doubt anyone has a complete set and would be very surprised if anyone is even with 10 cards of being complete. I'd say anyone that is within 25 cards of being complete is doing pretty darn good.

I had a hard enough time getting one card of every Minneapolis and St Paul player, I can't imagine pursing one of every player and hoping to get anywhere near completion. This coming from a guy who wants one card of every major leaguer that appeared on a from 1908-1945, lol.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: Judge Dred

Adam, do you mean the complete "known" player set?

It would be so sad to complete a player set only to find out that there is another player that was discovered and you can't have it because someone else attempting to complete the set has it and wont part with it. Could you imagine having the only complete set (or one of the only complete player sets) only to find out it wasn't really complete because a new player popped up out of the blue? I guess it could be considered an N172 collector hazard.

[Archive]

Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

Yes, "known" players set. Previously undiscovered or unique cards is one of banes of N172 collecting. I imagine it's even more so with Zeenuts , as new cards still pop up. I'm sure there are likely no complete player sets, but I'm guessing at least two or three people should be within 25-30 cards. I just wanted to get an idea of who was close.

Jay the SGC 98 N172 that I think you are referring to is of Alcott, Mansfields which while unique in it's grade and possibly the pose, is not to my knowledge a unique N172 player card. I beleieve David Levin had a couple of ALcotts in his inventory not too long ago.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

It may be that the Mansfield designation is unique then. Even if someone were to try and put together one card from each team it would be almost impossible. Getting one of the CA league cards would be a serious stumbling blaock for most people.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: john/z28jd

I think if someone tried to start from scratch right now they would have a real hard time trying to complete a known players set.They would need to buy a large collection from an established collector.Theres certain players who if their cards popped up would cause a bidding war into 5 figures,so if you wanted to try to get all of the know players it would cost well into 6 figures and alot of time.

Getting a card from every team isnt impossible because its been done but there is 2 teams which only 1 example is known so unless other cards show up there will be only one complete team set.Some teams only a handful of examples exist so even getting close is a chore.I am willing to stop 9 short of the complete team set which im just 4 short of.Anyone got an extra Mansfield card? Ive seen 2,i know of another one so its not a unique team card.

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe_G.

The single largest obstacle by far is the California League subset with 17 different players currently known to exist. I believe some of these players are unique (only one known copy of the card). Then I'd estimate perhaps another 20 players that are difficult but certainly collectable including some of the script cards and certain 1888 (Fb) cards and even a couple 1889s to boot.

If you are only after one copy of each player, that takes difficulty away from trying to find certain pose rarities such as the Anson in uniform and the Deacon White portrait (McGreachery error). Similarily, no concerns over trying to find 1890 Players League / National League variations.

Total # of players stands at 519 (512 + 12 - 5)
512 = last World Index Listing
12 = number of cards listed between 1-512 as a xxx.5
5 = number of world index numbers that were skipped (57, 169, 219, 256, & 307 - previously listed as McGreachery which is now listed as a pose for Deacon White)

I'd guess that maybe 3 collectors have hit the 500 player mark, perhaps another dozen have hit 400 players. Our very own board member, Alan Sassoon, is nearing 75% completion on SGCs registry and I believe he is less than two years into collecting them, but like anything else will become increasingly difficult to add to.

But, there are so many ways to collect the cards. As most of you know, I collect the members of the 1887 Detroit Wolverines. 9 players were represented in 1887 on the "0" numbered cards amongst 28 poses. I'm down to 6 poses to complete all 28 (note that the "0" numbered cards are easier to collect and somewhat popular since they cover all 8 National League teams + Brooklyn).

If you want to talk poses, on average, there are just under 5 poses per player. Some players are represented with a single pose, with Dorgan taking top honors with 17 different poses all first issued in 1887. It should be noted that in many cases there is little correlation between # of poses and rarity of the player.

I always thought it would be fun to pick one of the plentiful 1887 New York players with a lot of poses such as Deasley (14), Dorgan (17), Mattimore (11), etc. and try to complete all the poses.

I could go on and on . . . , but it's Friday night.

[Archive]

Posted By: Judge Dred

Joe,

Please continue, it's Friday night and I'm all eyes and ears. Actually, I wouldn't care what day of the week it is.

Great thread with great information - just what this forum is supposed to be about.

[Archive]

Posted By: Don J

Don't forget the collector who now owns Trevor Hocking's old collection.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard Masson

I'm at 491 players and 1960 poses, hoping to outlive everyone else.

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe G.

Richard Masson, I was going to list you and a few others with Jay Miller and Alan Sassoon but decided to let those who aren't very public about there collection/holdings remain so. I must say however that I didn't think you were that close to the "500 club", very impressive indeed. If you don't mind me asking, what is your goal? Are you aspiring to complete a player set?, pose set?, team variations? etc. Have you landed a California League card?

It would be nice to know approximately how many 400+ player collections are out there together with 500+ player collections etc.

And congrats again Richard!, 491 is quite a feat. Let us know if and when you've hit 500.

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard Masson

Unlike Jay, I consider the CA League cards not part of the set (mainly because I don't have any), so I would be complete at 502.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

But here goes anyway:

When you say "players" I take it you mean different people not different poses?

If so, is there any count on the total # of known poses?

Realistically, how many extreme rarities (say less than 5 known examples) are we dealing with in this set as it stands today?

How do you "lesser" OJ collectors cope with the fact that you are not likely to ever come close to a full set of these cards given the existence of extreme rarities? Does it turn you off of the set? If not, why not?

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller

I think we need to correct some of the numbers in this thread. The last Cartophilic Society lising had 512 different players. Since that time 14 have been added(Davin, Flynn, Fudger, Gibson, Hapeman, Levy, McDonald, Meegan, O'Day, O'Neill(Oakland), Powers, Stockwell, Sylvester and Veach). Six players previously thought to be different players are now thought to be repeats of other players in the set (Burns(KC)=Burns(Omaha), F.W. Foster=Forster, Healy=Healy, Kelly(manager)=Kelly(umpire), McCreachery=Deacon White, O'Neill(moustache)=O'Neil(no moustache)). That would place the total number of different players in the set at 520. There are 19 California League players which would put the total of non-California League players at 501.
To answer Adam's question there are just over 2450 different poses of these 520 different players in the set. Also, to my knowledge there is now only one unique team variation. In Dave Levin's find there was an additional copy of Collins-Lowells found. Up to that time there was only one known copy of a card with the Lowells team designation,. The only unique team that I know of is Irwin-Wilkes Barre.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Holy crap! I now knoe for sure that I will never catch this fever.

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

Certainly not everyone who collects OJs aspires to complete the entire set. There are a number of popular subsets, and collectors often identify their own "set" objectives.

I find that several OJs fit a number of my theme oriented groupings, and a subset I am working on includes Chicago players of that era.

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe_G.

520 different players / managers / umpires / mascots it is, I stand corrected.

There are 19 different California League cards as Jay stated, but one of them, Veach, can also be found with St. Paul (3 poses with St. Paul, 1 with Sacramento) so his card as a player isn't as difficult. So guys like Richard Masson with no desire to collect the California League cards would be complete at 502.

It should also be noted that the total number of poses varies depending on whether you count N173 cabinet poses. There are a significant number of N173 cabinets featuring poses not known on the smaller N172 cards, 34 I believe. So the numbers, to the best of my knowledge, break down as follows:

1887-1890 N172 Old Judges
520 different baseball subjects
502 different baseball subjects minus California League Cards (502 includes Veach with St. Paul)
2,418 catalogued N172 poses, 2,452 if you include N173 unique poses

Include team changes and even year-to-year re-issues with same team together with spelling and minor layout variations and the number becomes astronomical.

If you subtract out the 19 California League cards/poses, you have 2399 N172 poses representing 502 players for an average of 4.78 poses per player.

Lastly, I'd like to thank Jay Miller for his sharing over the years, without which I wouldn't have nearly as much to contribute to this thread.

-----------------------------------------

For those that follow SGCs N172 Registry, they have their own unique numbering system with several mistakes as follows:

Missing from list, need to add:
Leighton Gibson
Harry O'Day
John Weyhing
Whitacre

Need to Remove:
McCreachery

Skipped Numbers:
221
258

With all these corrections, SGC would show 520 N172 subjects.

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Hamilton and Von der Ahe

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

I'm neck and neck with you Adam. Want to race to see who completes his n172 set last? :-p

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

unless there is a radical shift in my finances...

[Archive]

Posted By: J Levine

Even with limited finances you can still collect OJs. My Phillies OJ collection stands at 11 different players and 21 different poses. Granted, I doubt I will ever own a Delahanty but I hold out hope....

Joshua

[Archive]

Posted By: john/z28jd

I notice alot of Old Judges are going to big collectors who have the money to buy as many as they want which eventually wont leave much for the others.I think the supply of them will dry up soon as more go into permanent collections then it will near impossible for someone on a budget to "collect" OJs.They might be able to put together meager collections but someone on a budget has a tough time getting anything significant.

I at one time has delusions of putting together a near-players set but at this rate ill be finishing about 30 years from now and probably short of my goal.Who knows what the prices will be by then but i know one thing,if the bottom drops out of the market for them,ill finish my player set alot sooner and not worry about what i spent getting them

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom L.

Here's what is involved with collecting just one team...

I collect Baltimore players and those with a Baltimore connection. Ignoring the latter, there are 24 different players listed with Baltimore (AA), plus 2 two-player cards. There is also one 1887 script card - "Phenomenal" Smith - which is quite distinct from Smith's later cards. Thus I consider the basic team set complete at 27 different cards.

However, for a full team variation set: If you counted just the cards listing Baltimore as the team, and tried to acquire all poses and variations (e.g. 1888 version, 1889 version, spelling variations such as those with Shindle and Cantz, etc.) you are up to over 140 different cards. [That doesn't include identical poses with other teams, poses that have no Orioles counterpart, etc.]

And Baltimore is a team that has only one 1887 card (Smith script, as mentioned above), and no PL or NL cards from 1890 (players such as Foreman and Shindle have identical poses but are listed with new teams). So you are probably looking at well upwards of 300 different cards for each of the National League teams with cards issued every year from 1887 through 1890.

By the way, I still need just the Horning (Hornung) Baltimore card to complete my basic team set. Can anybody help? (If so, please e-mail me at wtl.jr@comcast.net )

Thanks,
Tom Lawrie

[Archive]

Posted By: J Levine

I only collect Phillie NL players--not PL or Athletics...even without those two other teams the Phillies have 32 different players with nearly 350 pose and caption variations. It is a daunting task to say the least.

Joshua

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe G.

Here is one example of how ridiculous an Old Judge collectors habits can become if you must have all variations, and this is just one example pulled from the offerings on Dave Levin's site.



Here is a pose that was first issued in 1887 as a "0" numbered type 1 card, then two different examples of "0" numbered type 2. The 4th card is an 1888 type Fb and lastly an 1889 card. 5 different variations of the same pose all with the same team.

It might be fun to try and collect all variations if you are after a single person or even a single team, but anything beyond that you'll go crazy and broke trying to collect more than one copy of each pose. Most are happy with one copy of a given pose which in cases such as this makes it an easy pose to obtain.

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

Looking at these five variations of the same pose, I have to wonder which is the most common and which is infrequently encountered.

And what is the total population of this pose? It certainly is 5, but is it 50?

[Archive]

Posted By: Scott Forrest

...and just make your own set. One of our liveliest board debates was when I started making OJ reprint sets (oversized, etc.) - I stopped soon after nearly cutting off a finger during production, but still get occasional requests.

In any case, I created two sets of about 50 cards that were correct size and as close as I could get to proper stock. I kept one set and sent Jay Miller the other as a joke, telling him they were the ones I would be selling. It was the only time he has ever called me on the phone

PS - John, I am creating another sheet of these and will include the Corcoran you requested. And to head off questions, no, with the exception of Jay, I NEVER would send these to anyone.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

So, if you exclude the California League players, who are the toughest players to find in this set? Are there any with only one or two known? Again, I'm not talking about poses or team variations, just the toughest players when you take into account all of that player's N172 cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

set feel about our OJs? I love all 27 or 28 of them. I love 19th century photographs (which is esentially what OJs are), I--was-collecting all the 19th century HOFers (till I had to sell my Ramly Burkett). If I never get another, I'll still be happy. I'd have to live to be 150 to get them all!

Mine are mostly HOFers, except for the four Hoys and a Kid Gleason and a Caruthers.
But I have 3 Radbournes, 2 Kellys and 2 Ewings.

HOFers I haven't been able to get in N172, I try to get in N300, N162 and N28, N43. Whoops--and a Scrapps and Tobin Brouthers.

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe_G.

For those with interest, SGC has corrected it's Old Judge registry based on this thread. So if you want a complete listing of the 520 players/managers/umpires/mascots, their website can serve that purpose.

http://www.sgccardregistry.com/index.asp

And to answer the question posed earlier about the Myers batting pose, I suspect there is somewhere close to 100 examples of that pose that have survived since it was issued every year from 1887 to 1889. I suspect the breakdown might be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% issued in 1887 (split between the type 1 & type 2 "0" numbered cards), maybe 15% 1888 re-issues, and the last 25% being 1889 examples. That is purely my irresponsible speculation.

Joe Gonsowski

<editted to correct the link>

[Archive]

Posted By: john/z28jd

now sgc's power rating for OJs needs an overhaul,theres some tough cards that arent being given their proper due.Then again unless an expert in OJs does the rating for them then theyll never be exactly right

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe_G.

Agreed, SGC's Power Rating is pretty poor but I believe they are willing to update those as well. The California League cards are nearly split evenly between 1s & 12s for instance.

[Archive]

Posted By: Preece1

Jay,

Without counting the California League cards, you stated that there are 501 different Old Judge players. Which ones are the rarest? Any unique players, or players that only 2 or 3 are known?

[Archive]

Posted By: Preece1

Jay,

I read my question again and it is a little confusing. What I wanted to know is are there certain players (because there are only 1-3 in existence) that would make completing a "player set" of Old Judge impossible at this stage if one were to try to start?

[Archive]

Posted By: Chris B.

Preece,

There are most likely players who fit that description, but that type of information is guarded pretty closely by the big-time OJ collectors.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

I asked the same question on June 30th (look above).

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

If you can get somone to tell you this, you got yourself a serious piece of hobby gold. This type of info isn't just handed out. Let along on a public board.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

I find this all very interesting. It is no secret that the California League players are exceedingly rare, that the Anson in uniform is rare, and that Rusie with New York is rare. I believe Jay mentioned earlier in this same thread a particular player with just one or two known examples listing him with a particular team. This last one, especially, is an obscure bit of valuable information.

I understand why OJ collectors wouldn't want to reveal additional information of this type. They hope to find a rare one and pick it up cheap. But it's still interesting that other similar information has leaked out over the years.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

Info about HOFers is a little easier to giure out as they change hands ona higher profile level in the major auctions, etc. So figuring out what is common and what is not is pretty easy to do. This type of info commons is little more difficult to figure out this way.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: Chris B.

It doesnt help with scarce players necessarily, but if you can get a copy of the complete listing of OJ's which lists every pose and team designation(I think the old standard catalog used to list OJ's in this fashion), you can figure out the difficult teams and some poses fairly easily.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

that this particular set engenders so much jealousy and pettiness that collectors will not share information on scarcities like they do with every other set I can think of, but when big $$ and obsessive collecting are at issue, I can see it. Like Chris Rock said, I don't condone it, but I do understand.

[Archive]

Posted By: john/z28jd

I dont think its jealousy as much as putting a higher value on a card before you can get it.I know some cards which are tough but if i tell everyone then thats basically me saying i dont want that card anymore because i dont make half as much money as most people on the board.

If people are starting a collection and taking notes and i say Joe Schmo cards are next to impossible,then one shows up on ebay,i couldve just cost myself the only shot at that card i'll get in 10 years.This isnt like pointing out t206 cards which deserve 50% premium,this is about 10x premiums on some cards,on a few its even more.

That doesnt sound anything like pettiness

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

John- You say that you don't want too many people to know which Old Judges are rare because it might be your only chance of winning one on ebay; however, there are already several people who know every rare Old Judge, and they will never let one go for less than the market value. So it's already too late, and you might as well let the cat out of the bag. What difference does it make if two people or ten people know; either way the chance of getting a bargain has disappeared.

[Archive]

Posted By: john/z28jd

Eventually when all the other collectors in the know get a certain player it will be my chance to win it wouldnt it Barry? Im obviously in my case not talking about the cards with only 1-5 known examples where the big boys are sitting around waiting for one to pop up.

Chris i believe mentioned,if you look at a catalog and study it like ive done for years,youll notice certain things,like rare teams and if you follow enough auctions youll notice some cards just dont show up.I didnt learn all of it on my own but it cost me alot of money to find out some of this stuff.I dont make that much money,i dont need to make it harder on myself or my friends for that matter,looking for certain cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

If you are talking about the slightly more difficult, yes, a little knowledge will help. But the rarities will always go for market value. The collectors who own them will protect their interests.

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I learned a while back that you can't ask certain questions regarding OJ's on this forum. Which is too bad, but like Adam said I understand. I do take notice on ebay though when an non-hall of famer N172 goes for much more than one would expect.