T206 PSA Unknown Backs
 

Thinking out loud: I really wish PSA would make a concerted effort to get all the Unknown Backs classified. They could poll the owners for pictures and then go back and assign the backs to these cards with just a little effort.

Actually, that seems like a lot of effort
& I doub't that the majority would comply w/ scans to PSA
and were talking thousands of cards.

I wasn't really too concerned about their effort but you're right, it may take a lot of work. I just thought some cards removed from 'unknown' would be better than none. Looking at the POP Report, I can no longer even tell what % of cards are unknown now. Is it 1/3 , 1/2.....? I'm not a statistician but I assume one could just take the current POP for a given card and multiply.

Not enough interest from the hobby as a whole to dedicate that much time to something like this in my opinion. T206's may be popular on the board but I would think modern grading outnumbers T206's (or vintage cards in general)by a huge margin.

I would also think the percentage of people who collect T206s by backs are even smaller than the percentage of the whole who collect T206s at all.

This is a good point too.... Looking at PSA, T206 makes up only 1.6% of all the PSA graded baseball cards.

I've said this in the past. The pop report is totally useless, due to so many "unknown" cards. When auction houses refer to the rarity of a particular back (1 of 3 at this level, none higher) it's rubbish.

It's only rubbish if it's taken as an absolute. The same is true of price guides.

If the number is taken as a general idea of where the card is on what's usually a bell curve, then it's pretty useful.

And sometimes the number can be figured out as at least temporarily factual.
One card I have is the highest graded for that player and pose (Maybe back too, I forget), except it's not. There's one other one or two grades higher but done before SGC put the brand and pose on the label. The other one was on Ebay and may still be, with a silly price.
Mine actually looks a bit better. The other has slightly better corners and a couple small stains. Mine has no stains.

The SGC pop reports show the higher grade one in the unknown back category - I forget their term, so I knew it was out there.

There's a few other things that can be figured out from the existing reports, not precisely, but generally.

Steve B

Steve, according to how these auction houses refer to it in their titles and descriptions, I'd say it is rubbish, because they do use it as absolute.

Actually 1.6% of all PSA cards sounds huge to me. What set has a higher proportion? With the thousands of sets out there, I would think T206 would be near the top with that number.

Also, PSA, and SGC, BVG for that matter could re-grade at 50% off all no-name back T206's and probably get a lot of them regraded. Not all of course, but an easy, cheap win-win for the hobby.

T206 is top ten, it falls in line with some of the 50s and 60s Topps sets. Surprisingly to me, 1961 Topps holds the crown with the most graded cards.
I like the idea of a 50% discount to get them reslabbed, I wish they would try something to correct their error.

Figured PSA's most graded set would be a Topps issue but the year would have been a tough guess. I wonder where T206 and other issues fall %-wise over at SGC?

I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the big auctions. Hardly any of them have lots I can afford. I have seen a few lately where the population descriptions indicate the number of unknowns as well as where the card is in the known backs. So it may be changing.

The ones I find amusing are the ones with stuff like "one of 50 at this grade with only 175 higher"

Someday they'll include factory info for sets with multiple factories as well. Until then it's almost entirely guesswork and estimating.

Steve B

Has anybody else noticed that PSA started including Series/Factory info on their flips? (not my cards)