Posted By:
Tim NewcombHi Jeremy,
I see where you're coming from with this article, but I think the poster (fluckzilla)'s whole claim is nonsense. There's no mystery about the way this card was slabbed. It's not a new find.
The problem lies in the way these sets are handled. You can look at M101-5 and M101-4 as two sets each with its own checklist, and each having a bunch of different backs. Or you could claim that each back is actually a totally different set. When Burdick was doing the ACC, he decided to give the M101-style Standard Biscuit a separate catalog number, D350-1. A few others also have their own numbers, like D329 (Weil Baking) and H801-9 (Globe)
So sometimes you will see Standard Biscuits listed as D350-1. At other times, people will just call them M101-5 (or M101-4).
What PSA did was to slab this card as M101-5. That's not really wrong or right. It could have been slabbed as D350-1 just as easily. It doesn't really matter what it was slabbed as. Either way the card is an M101-type #184 Wagner with a Standard Biscuit back. It's part of the Standard Biscuit checklist, which is the same as all the other M101-5 checklists except for those three cards I mentioned. So it's ridiculous to claim, as Fluckzilla does, that the card is somehow "uncataloged" because PSA labeled it one way instead of the other.
It's clear that you have gotten a lot of messages claiming (Fluckzilla) or implying (SCD) that this card is uncataloged. I'm sympathetic to the position that puts you in. But these sources of information are just plain wrong. This is why Todd and I have written the article -- to try to unravel some of these tangles.
FYI, VCP only lists the Andy Madec sale, which I guess is your card. So the card is rare-- but the point is that it's rare in exactly the same way that any other given Standard Biscuit card is rare. It's not in the same class of rarity as a Wagner with a Holmes to Homes back.
On another point, I would hesitate to say that any card is "unique" because that can never really be proven to a certainty. But you're on safe ground with "1 of 1" in population reports.
It's clear you're not trying to mislead anyone intentionally, so since I think I've made my point, I'm going to sign off here.
Tim