How many pre-war cards from Scrapbooks?
 

This is a spin-off poll to Leon's poll on whether he should remove the paper remnants from the back of his card.

What percentage of pre-war cards do you believe have been removed from scrapbooks?



I also just wanted to see if I could figure out how to post a poll :)

I am estimating 10%, many of them not very skillfully.

Conservative vote
 

I voted 20%, but I wouldn't be suprised to find out that it is closer to 25 to 30%...where do you think the majority of great looking cards come from? Banging up against the side of a box for 75-100 years?

Brian

I'd say 20% as well
 

but I would not be suprised if it was higher. I came to this conclusion after reviewing my collection. My budget puts my personal collection at closer to 45-50%.

I don't know what percentage of cards have come from scrapbooks but I have a sad story to tell.

Back in the 1990's, I found a guy in Georgia who had about 500 T206's that his Grand Father had collected when they first came out. The cards had been in a scrapbook but the guy and his brother had removed them after they inherited them. Unfortunately, when doing so, they really messed them up.

Not only were chunks missing from the edges of some of the cards but there were also chunks missing from the backs. It was really sad because he had numerous Cobb's, Young's, Johnson's and other Hall of Famers. The backs were Piedmont and Sweet Caporal (as far as I can remember).

The guy said he and his brother just pulled the cards from the scrapbook because they thought they would be easier to store if they were out of the book. I told him he had made a big mistake and that the cards would have been better off (and more valuable) if he had just left them in the scrapbook.

David

I think you've got something there, Brian. My '56 Kahn's Frank Robinsion with an EX+ appearance, but back damage had obviously been glued into a scrapbook, and then removed improperly, but with a blank back, I wasn't overly concerned. Also have a '21 Exhibit Hornsby (which just absolutely captures the old ornery cuss to me) which had been placed in a photo album and was knocked down to VG-EX due to the very slight indentations at the card tips--otherwise, it was a strong EX-MT. More recently, the 1910 PC796 Walter Johnson I won in the REA had been kept in a photo type album, and apparently had similar, very light indentations, but otherwise appeared EX-MT to NMt to the naked eye.

Good post!

Larry