[sreader3]

The reason Ryan is out of the top 10 in my algorithm is that it adjusts population for condition. My algorithm assumes that T206 subjects should generally have the same condition profile and that a significant reason some subjects have higher populations than others is higher price, which induces surplus submissions. When you adjust population for condition, it removes high value submission bias and provides a truer measure of scarcity. It so happens that there are an unusually high number of Ryan cards in strong condition relative to his total population. So after adjusting for condition, Ryan does not fare as well in the southern leaguer scarcity rankings as he otherwise might. Perhaps Ryan is an anomaly and it’s a coincidence that the cards of his that have survived are in unusually good condition. But condition-weighting works extremely well for most of the 524 T206 subjects.

Raw populations are not very useful as a comparative T206 scarcity metric, although if one limits the discussion to southern leaguers perceived to have similar value I suppose they could be of some use.