[cfc1909]

I think this back is overrated but still a difficult back. You can still pick these off ebay if you look hard enough. 10 years ago you could pick up several per week, but as collectors start to hoard these they have become more scarce.

As each collector starts their collection I think the top 8 to 10 and the bottom 8 to 10 will pretty much be the same. All the ones in the middle will have a different ranking depending on what was avalible while you are collecting.

There was a time on ebay when you searched for the more difficult backs, 8 to 10 sometimes even 20 examples would come up and all were a traditional auction. I remember searching for Hindus and 20 auctions were going. Now most of those examples are in collections and not going anywhere.

I know between my 4 or 5 closest collecting friends we have close to 250 Hindus-that is alot of Hindus off the market and makes Hindu much tougher to obtain. Same goes for the backs above Hindu on the list and including Piedmont 42.

There has always been a large number of 206 collectors but now it seems they all also collect the tough backs. In the 90s no one cared about the backs. The goal was to get one of every player crease free. Now The goal is to get every player and at least one example of each advertisement.

Just like I said in my original post this is very debatable. If you took 20 rare back collectors every list would vary. If you started now Piedmont 42 would be higher than 16. I started more than a decade ago and that is where I feel it belongs.