[53toppscollector]

I'm sure this will come as a surprise to you, but I have thought about this topic as well, lol.

Ultimately I think you need to start with some way to put a "value" on each front/back combination. There are multiple variables that go into that for the front and back

Front:

* how many total copies are available of the card? For a super print, we are talking 1500+ copies graded. for Demmitt/O'Hara STL we are talking less than 300 or so.

* how desirable is the player on the front? HoFs, short prints and rarities would command a higher score, while commons would have a much lower score

Back:

* how scarce is the back overall. We are talking 177,000 Piedmont backs, compared to, say 2400 Cycle 350 backs.

* how scarce is the back relative to other subjects available with that back. Big difference between 3 total copies of an EPDG Leach Bending Over and 56 copies of an EPDG Bresnahan With Bat

I have too many other things eating away my brain to tackle this in any detail, but I think you'd want to strive for simplicity, something that is easy to calculate and maintain, and something easy enough to solicit help from others to turn it into a community project.

My instinct is to say you need to leave condition out of it, because condition is super subjective, and I can see that causing a bit of consternation.

Just thinking roughly, I think you develop a potential scoring system for each card factoring in the front/back

Front: 1-5 points depending on the population of the card. 1 being the lowest score for the cards with the highest population, 5 being cards with the lowest population

Front: 1-5 points for the "prestige" or demand of the player on the front. 5 for HoFs, 1 for commons, 2 for tougher commons (Titus?), 3 for short prints, 4 for very tough short prints, 5 for HoFs

Back: 1-5 points for the brand difficulty...think 5 for Uzit, Broad Leaf, Hindu Red, 4 for Carolina Brights and Lenox, 3 for Hindu Brown, AB 460, Cycle 460, 2 for AB 350, Cycle 350, EPDG, Old Mill, 1 for Piedmont/SC, etc.

Back: 1-5 points for scarcity within the subset. 5 points for a card in the bottom 20% of the population for that card (for example, all PG 1 Old Mills), 4 for the second 20%, 3 for the next 20%, etc.

Then you have a scale where the lowest value cards are worth 4 points, and the top tier, toughest cards would be worth 20 points. You can set your scales/weights however you see fit. Anyway, thats just kind of how I thought about this idea in my head before, but never actually tried to theorize how you'd do it. It would require a lot of work to get it set up, but its doable.