Posted By:
Joe_G.Hopefully our resident OJ expert, Jay Miller, will chime in but in short there is great variance in the number of cards surviving today. You must realize that there were four years of N172 production by Goodwin & Company. The first year, 1887 are amongst the more common cards, 1888s can be very chanllenging and 1889s are all over the map. The 1890 cards are rare, with previous year poses updated to reflect NL or PL status. As I suggest above, even once you zero in on a given year there is significant ranges of scarcity. 1887 overall is fairly easy year but includes the script cards, the short numbered cards, and long numbered cards (leading 0). The script cards are recognized as fairly difficult (Spotted Ties etc.), the short numbered cards slightly easier (Brown's Champions etc.), with the long numbered cards easier. Many of the players issued cards in 1887 enjoyed production in subsequent years as the same pose(s) were many times issued cards in 1888 and again in 1889 etc. Usually this was done to track a players team change but many were re-issued even if the player remained with the same team.
Lot's of HOFers were not issued cards until later years such as Anson (1888 first appearance), Delahanty (1889 first appearance), etc. As already mentioned, some players were issued many poses some only one. Anson only has two poses with one of them being very rare (perhaps 5 known). Despite only having one widely distributed pose, he is much easier than some of the other HOFers with many poses.
Lastly, there is the contribution of players popularity over time. Current HOFers like Hanlon may not have been cared for as well as King Kelly who is and always has been a cherished card.
So, no two HOF players were likely issued the same number of cards from start to finish and the percentage that have survived to today also varies a bit. This is what makes it such a fun yet frustrating set to collect.