N172 --Cap Anson Chicago NL in Uniform Price?
 

N172 --Cap Anson Chicago NL in Uniform--is this card the most valuable and rarest card in the set-- any ideal how many exist?

According to PSA's pop report, they've authenticated/graded four of them.

In the 2008 Old Judge book by Jay Miller, Joe Gonsowski and Richard Masson, they mentioned there being three copies known.

In Lew Lipset's 1983 Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, he mentioned that there were, at that time, only two copies known, with one of them in the Burdick Collection.

Also, in Joe Orlando's 2002 The Top 200 Sportscards in the Hobby, he mentioned a raw Anson in-uniform, estimated vg-ex condition, had sold for more than $60,000 within the previous two years.

Steve

I believe there are some of the California/West coast players where only one, maybe two cards of each player are known to exist. They are rarer than Anson in uniform. Also, since the Goodwin/Old Judge book came out, I thought I had heard another previously unknown player or two was discovered from the set. So that means a single card of that player(s) was found, which would again be rarer than the known Anson in uniform OJs.

There are either four or five copies of Anson in Uniform. It is nowhere near the rarest card in the Old Judge set. There are quite a few that are unique, including about half of the California League cards.

Only one of the California League players is shown with another team on a different, regular OJ card, if I remember correctly.

Yes, Veach

Isn't the Madden leaning on rock card supposed to be pretty scarce too?

There are a lot of extremely scarce OJ cards, especially when you start talking about particular poses as opposed to just particular players. Other than Veach, as Jay mentioned, there are likely fewer OJ cards for every single California League player than there are for the Anson - In Uniform pose variation. And with the total number of different pose variations out there, there are going to be more than just a few poses that are going to be as scarce, or scarcer, than the Anson - In Uniform pose. Just off the top of my head, I would expect at least several of the Spotted Tie player cards to fall into this extreme rarity group, along with the Players League cards for some players as well. Jay, Richard, and Joe would know more about specific rarities of other players and poses than anyone I could think of. If you are interested in OJs, I would definitely reccommend acquiring their book on the Old Judge cards put out by the Goodwin company.

I agree - anyone who is interested in Old Judges should definitely have a copy of the Old Judge book in their library.

I will let the other experts chime in, but I do not think that any of the Spotted Ties are scarcer than the Anson in Uniform card.

And you may be right about that, but wouldn't be shocked if a couple aren't at least in the same area code scarcity-wise. I did say possibly as scarce as, or scarcer. I don't go looking at pop reports very often so could have overstimated their scarcity. I just haven't noticed very many of them coming up for sale much. Now if you want to talk the Players Leauge OJ cards, those rarely show for sale.....ever.

Kevin is right. The scarcest spotted tie is Behel and I would guess that there are ballpark ten copies.

Thanks Jay, learned something new. But to me, 4 known versus maybe 10 known, they're still both really rare. To me they are in the same ballpark. LOL

Anson in uniform - wow, that's a dream card.

I'm not trying to hijack the thread, I figure there's only so much that can be said about the Anson in uniform card.

To me (and probably most collectors) OJs are kind of an enigma. There are a lot of interesting subsets like Spotted ties, Cal League, Script series and Browns Champs. Then there are PL and NL cards which make the collecting even more fun.

One card I'd like to learn more about is the "Phenomenal Smith" portrait card. I can't remember the last time I saw one up for auction, I'm guessing well over a decade or more.

Are there any guesses on why/when (1886?) that card was released? It's kind of an oddball portrait. Any guesses on population for that card?

If you don't have the OJ book, you can always buy Buck Barker's OJ's, because he has info on the backs. How rare is this Collins guy? He wasn't even on the team. Why did anyone outside his family keep his card? Probstein sold a "John Smith" pose 2 the other day for $175. It's a crazy set to make sense of.

Yeah, but it is still a great set.