Quote:
Originally Posted by ajquigs
I'm enjoying this thread.
A question: Are there any prevailing guesstimates / conventional wisdom on roughly how many cards were produced - and how many survive - for particular sets. For example, do people in the hobby have some rough idea how many 1933 Goudey #181 Babe Ruths or T-206 Dark Cap Mattys (or cards in Topps issues, while we're at it) were produced and survive?
Thanks.
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There was a thread a couple of weeks ago that had a link to one of Bob Lemke's blog posts where he gave the sales revenue for Topps from 1951-1961, and he had another post that included the sales revenue for Goudey during the 1930s. If we knew how much Topps sold each pack of cards for, and what percentage of that business was baseball cards, then you could get a rough estimate of production for each year.
My question: every time I read about detecting forged baseball cards, there is always something about how modern printing techniques and equipment are different from back then, and knowing those differences can help spot fakes. But other than money, what prevents a forger from buying a printing press from the 1950s, and inks and cardboard from around then, and cranking out a few sheets of 1952 Topps #311s? It seems to me that the knowledge is out there, the equipment and materials are out there, really the only thing that is missing is someone who can tie the two together.