Hey Bill,

Wish you the best on your upcoming surgery!!

You are making sense-what you are seeing is the "domino effect" I talked about earlier in this thread. How creating a manufactured scarcity in turn creates inflated prices all the way down the line.

Sincerely, Clayton

Thanks, buddy!

Well, it looks like the Titus will be one of the last cards in the set that I buy. Maybe the price will have normalized by then.

I've been taking a break from collecting for a while now, but I do still have this SGC40 Old Mill (back damage, bah!). I'm sure you've seen it before, haha.

Pretty shocked to hear about the Titus craze now - these prices are wild!

http://www.t206.org/misc/scan0001titus.jpg

beauty Trae...you may be set for retirement with that one!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3178/...802d2988_o.jpg
SWEET, MY CARD IS RARE!

I enjoyed this topic and man...this card situation is out hand for what it is. I even find hard to cough up $100+ for a 1 grade or equivalent joe doyle.

Titus is not scarce. He is tied for 366 out of 524 on the difficulty spectrum in my study of over 100K Internet sales of T206s from 2008-13.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype.

Sorry for those who bought in.

Jeff, I love that Donlin. :D

Collectors over time have been remarkably astute in figuring out the relative scarcity of T206s. So, for example, Dahlen (Brooklyn), Elberfeld (Washington) and the Southern Leaguers (and a few other toughies) command solid premiums because they are REALLY difficult.

Then there is Mr. Titus. Cool mustache, but the card is a 350-only subject THAT IS NOT MUCH TOUGHER THAN THE MOST PEDESTRIAN CARDS IN THE SET SUCH AS MADDOX, DOWNEY (FIELDING), MILLER (PITTSBURG), GANZEL, DYGERT, LENNOX, and I could go on.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype. He is not "scarce" if one's view of scarcity is the number of examples extant. He is only "scarce" if one takes into account hoarding and hype.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype. He is not "scarce" if one's view of scarcity is the number of examples extant. He is only "scarce" if one takes into account hoarding and hype.[/QUOTE]

+1 and a little research shows who the main hoarder is.

I purchased it ~a decade ago, but I have a really nice Carolina Brights John Titus card. Since then, both rare backs and John Titus have exploded. Wonder if that would mean a spectacularly crazy price for the card?

I hope its Tom Selleck.

http://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn...ared/image.jpg

I agree the card is neat just glad I don't have to buy it today...because the prices are a bit silly on this one.

http://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn...tus60large.jpg

reminds me of the dot.com bust. What is going to happen when this one person stops collecting the Titus card?? lol.....

My only issue with this whole thing (and the reason I overpaid by 4X for one) is that we do not know what the reason is for the "hoarder" to be doing this. Just a quick ebay sold search shows that he's won like 90% of the recent sales and was underbidder on the others. At this point, he knows what is going on and just doesn't care. He continues to spend thousands of dollars and drive the market up on himself.

I said this in my inital post to this thread a while back, but I rememer reading from someone that knows him that he has some "special project" going on. We don't know what that is and he obviously doesn't care how much it costs. I like to imagine him in a dark basement creating some sort of mosaic wall display out of the cards like a mad scientist. What if he is busting them out of slabs and pasting them to a canvas or something or even worse cutting them up in some sort of way. I doubt it but again we just don't know.

Yes, I am "educated" enough in the T206's to know that Titus is not really rare. But if he has some sort of lifelong project going on, his hoard my never see the marketplace in our lifetime. Maybe he'll will the project to his relatives, again who knows. So my question is still - without knowing the intent of the hoard (and at this point it doesn't appear to be financial or for profit) and if the cards will ever be available, doesn't that justify buyers treating the card as rare/tough and spending accordingly?

Shouldn't we be hearing from Mr. Gregory himself on this subject?
 

Maybe a short screen or two worth?

This Helmar fantasy fake is hilarious. Without the 'stache, Titus just doesn't bring the cash.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTUyWDMwOA...VTjfPD/$_1.JPG
http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Helmar-...-/400720471839

The modern Helmar cards aren't my thing, but there is a Titus with 'stache version that apparently also carries a premium over the sans 'stache version of a Titus Helmar card. :D

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Helmar-...p2047675.l2557

What I find hilarious about the high prices for the Titus card is the fact that back in the day his nickname was "Tight Ass" because he was so frugal or "tight" with his money. Titus, if he was around today, would never pay $300+ for a PSA 2 common

...And I highly recommend you read his SABR bio, very interesting fellow.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/edd1ff06

I was the underbidder on the Hunt lot. I got out around $300. It was 8 cards, with the Titus being one of them. If the bottom fell out before I had a chance to flip him, I would have felt really foolish!

http://www.huntauctions.com/phone/im...23&lot_num=432

Thanks for the bio, nati...I enjoyed reading about Titus!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Betcha The Hoarder doesn't have a Wonka McTitus.
http://photos.imageevent.com/kawika_...ald%20t206.jpg

+1, I agree with Scot as far as the examples that are being sold recently, lots of cards out there. The irony is, however, population reports of cards graded PSA 7 or higher are extremely low.

Cool custom

As a natural born eccentric myself, Titus has always been one of my favorites (just behind Mike Donlin, drinking was a hobby of mine also). I recall reading that he once walked about 6 miles back and forth to sign a new contract in order to save about 20 cents in cab fare. Married a 17 yo when he was 39? I approve. I have an EPDG of him which would surely make a 3 or 3.5. I'll sit back and wait until I can trade it for a Plank.

Raymond, if you are referring to Bill, there is no reason to hear from him because he is not one of the people hoarding this card. He uses it as his avatar and screen name- but that's about it. God help me if someone ever starts hoarding Vic Willis portraits. :D

Sincerely, Clayton

Sgc 80 just went for 713 on ebay.

Not a T206, but here is a related story. A buddy of mine has been hoarding a limited edition card of which there were 100 made. He has almost half of them already. If he gets all 100, he plans to publish the burning of 99 of them on YouTube, leaving him the documented owner of a 1 of 1.

Look at the bid history. The hoarder got out at $500. Figured he would hit that card harder than that.

personally...i think this is awesome...esp since I'm guessing this is a modern card. doubt he'll get all 100 though?

John Titus-Itus
 

It will be really awesome when he finally gets #100, posts the YouTube video, and then gets a saved search alert from eBay with another one for sale.

who is the hoarder?

s***h with 1165 feedback score got out at $500. If you search Card Target, you will see he or she has an acute case of Titus Itis.

Anyone know a cure? I was thinking perhaps an Allen and Ginter Cap Anson or some other 19th century mustached card?

The Cure:

http://magnum-mania.com/images/mpi_c...eries_full.jpg

:eek:

This is going on my Christmas list.

Ya, I don't know what he's implying. My user name was an homage to Rollie Fingers, who I grew up cheering for when he was a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. In fact, when I first joined this forum, my avatar was a picture of Rollie for the first year or so I was on here. I only changed it to a picture of Titus because I collect T206 cards, and his card is the only one in the set with a mustache. I don't have any of his cards, much less a horde of them.

Once again, my un-informed, over-eager attempts at humor come back to bite me in my 'Buck Herzog'?

No harm or intrusion intended.

It's quite ok, Raymond. I just wanted to make sure that nobody thought I was hoarding these things. I wish I could get my hot little hands on even one really nice Titus. Then I'd be content. :p Lord knows I need so many cards from the set yet, so buying more than one of any T206 card wouldn't even cross my mind unless I was doing an upgrade. But then I'd sell the other card, like I did with my Walter Johnson.

When it comes to communicating online, especially on an internet forum where you may not personally know everybody, something that is humorous, or tongue in cheek may be obvious to most people, but not everybody. I'm usually pretty good at catching those kinds of things, but I do miss them, too. This is another example of my whiffing. To be perfectly honest, I thought your post was more directed at my tendency to be somewhat long winded in my posts. Either way, I wasn't offended. It's all good. ;)