Piedmonts are getting expensive.
 

High quality, but........

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Piedmon...item3cdb18ed6e

But it's the best of the best!

Hard to imagine a card being inserted into a pack of cigarettes which is then boxed & loaded & shipped in a rickety truck/train, placed onto a convenient store shelf by a stock boy, handled by a customer, opened by a smoker, the card tossed aside and likely handled by a kid, all in the cards first couple months of existence and looking anything close to as mint as that card looks. Not to mention surviving the NEXT 100 years.

Agreed...and after pulling the card from the pack you'd have to handle it with kid gloves and place it somewhere safe and virtually never touch it again for 100 years? What are the odds???:confused:

So then what's the deal, is it fake?

not fake...likely enhanced over the years.

he is proclaiming highest graded copy. he might be able to get that price. problem is there are many cards that are not in the pop charts.

some piedmont cards bring higher premiums than others, believe it or not.

kevin

Thanks guys, always learning.

And, it's NOT even a Factory 42, although this is hard to discern due to the blurry scan. This eBay seller really needs to spend a few $$ on a scanner with a CCD scanning element, if he hopes to sell graded cards at inflated prices.
Val

spot on. no effing way. this is exactly why i don't buy anything pre-war above EX.

How are these cards enhanced? And why isn't this recognized by authenticators?

Personally, I think the majority of ultra high grade pre WWI cards were at some point trimmed down from their original size...imperceptible for whatever reason to the graders?

Haters. ;)

As hard as it would be to believe, I'm sure there were some people that kept them in nice condition...rare, but possible.

There were several cig packs that were not opened in the early 1900's either...some of these could have been opened a few/several decades later by a collector and then stored away for safe keeping. A lot of possibilities here...

I totally agree with you Mike.

I agree...it is definitely "possible"...just not likely. I mean how many t206's are there graded nm-mt or better?

i think the population is reflective. there are only a handfull to a few dozen of 6+ or 7+ of each card.

if there are a million t206s in total, you think its absurd for there to be a few thousand in superb condition? not after the 20s and the giant depression hoarding.

kevin

I hear ya, Pete...that's why I used "rare" in my post :D;)

ha ha...good luck!

I'm not sure Pete, but doesn't one member here own them all? ;)

With the high volume of t206s produced
 

To act like none could survive in high grade is completely and utterly ignorant. Some people need to quit all this bull crap if you know the card to be altered fine. But there are high grade unaltered t cards and to pretend there are not is foolish. For the record I have not even looked at the scan but to act like no t card could survive in nice condition out of the millions produced is laughable. None were placed in drawers were they say untouched for years or placed in a book or cigar box and forgot about? Not rvery card was given to a child to play with. You guys act like that was the only option.

First, the Schaefer card is definitely not a Factory #42 PIEDMONT. Note in the scan shown here the Factory #42 (N.C.)
bottom line extends across the card.

I, too, have my doubts about this Schaefer card grading an "8". It does remind me of the PSA 8 Wagner......which we
know (and has been attested to) as being "trimmed".

http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/d...az/bp46042.jpg
TED Z

I can easily imagine a card being placed in a book shortly after being pulled from a pack and not being removed from the book for 80 years.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

PSA 161,458 graded
grade how many
10 13
9 267
8.5 49
8 2356
9Q 41
8Q 127
total 2853 =1.7-1.8%

SGC 94,730 graded

grade how many
100 0
98 (10) 1
96 (9) 18
92 (8.5) 28
88 (8) 146
total 193 = 0.2 %

Interesting numbers. I'm not sure I'd say SGC is that much tougher on the high end. It's more likely that there are very few T206s that are NM/Mt left ungraded.

Steve B

NMMT T cards unaltered do exist just not many
 

You must have never had any old relatives with extensive book collections. When my great aunt died there were books in her library that approached 80 years between openings. Im not saying it happened a lot but is plausible. It does not need to be many just a few ther are not a ton of unaltered PSA/SGC 8 T cards out there but pretending there are none is assinine sorry thats just the way it is. Im sure many who have bought large t card collections have had the occasional card or two that was indeed in rather nice condition. PSA 8 need not be perfect. Its just ignorant to think every card was handled extensively. The book was just an example by the way could have been a cigar box/ case ,glass case, dresser drawer or something else where they were not handled extensively for a long period. I've owned unaltered 8s from vintage collections, not many, but they do exist. I agree the number is small but it is not 0.

thanks for posting those #'s, Steve...interesting that a little over a quarter of a million T206's have been graded.

Glyn...I definitely agree that some minty T206's exist...just not that many...and I'd guess a lot of them have...been altered!

Personally I am notorious for putting things in the middle of books to preserve them...and I'm sure this was occasionally done back then as well!

Well lets see what the numbers prove about the PSA International thread. If all the 8s were reviewed with the graders and had a 10% chance of getting bumped to a 9, you would have about 267 9s.

And if all the 9s were reviewed with the graders and had a 5% chance of getting bumped to a 10, you would have about 13 10s.

But what if all the 8s were bumped up from 7s......Hmmmm.

Every time a card crosses over to a higher grade or gets a re-review bump the mountain gets more populated at the top. Certainly many of the 8.5s were once 8s as the half grades are relatively recent at PSA. So how many of the 9s were once 8s? How many of these high end cards have been cracked and resubmitted in an effort to get a higher grade and failed?

See what I'm saying.

No I'm not saying cards can routinely sequentially be bumped from 7 to 8 to 9 to 10, but I am saying there are several reasons why these high pop numbers may be inflated, whether the cards are legit or have been touched up :eek::eek:.

And I'm not saying the same effect could not be seen with SGC numbers.

I'm an equal opportunity analyst, who firmly believes that....

"Figures can lie and liars can figure.";)

My 2 cents - I think a lot of the high grade cards were pasted into books and later soaked out. Personally I don't care either way.

that is likely, Alex.

The numbers probably are inflated a bit. Simply from the occasional crossover or crack and resubmit. I'm not sure how many people would do that on a prewar card with a high grade. I know I'd have a hard time taking the chance.

Just as a small point, the numbers for 7s are roughly 4500 PSA and just over 900 SGC. So not much population to bump.

Steve B

Interesting thread. I don't collect the high grade cards, but reading through this I couldn't help thinking of the Black Swamp find.

Sincerely, Clayton

I don't know Clayton... I don't know of any large finds of mostly mint condition t206s... Some more seasoned collectors might? That would be like the Black Swamp find!

Yes there was a large find like that. About 25 years ago, roughly 1000 cards found in a closet in Virginia. They were by far the finest T206's I've ever encountered in my 45 years in the hobby.

Brian I think I remember that find... Weren't they all stored by team in cigarette boxes?

I never heard specifically how they were stored, other than they were found in a closet. It seems like the Dealer who got the find, was at most of the larger shows with them. Obviously, they sold pretty quickly.

I remember that find - most of the cards were stored in Piedmont boxes with tape strips labeling the team being stored in the box. There were a bunch of cards in great shape but not all. I think that Billy ended up with a bunch of them. I can't remember the name of the guy that scored them - he flipped everything quick.

Yes exactly! I'm pretty sure one of the old publications...the predecessor to old cardboard had a story about it.

The name of the Company was Southern Cards, and it seems like the guy's name was Marco.

here's a link to an old thread that discusses some big t206 finds:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=62598

Brian, I believe you are referring to Marco Rol, who was the promoter of the Chantilly, VA, Show for many years, until he sold it last year. And, if I remember correctly, Marco had a retail store in Charlottesville, VA, many years ago.
Val