T207 Anonymous Factory 3 (Recruit) evolution, timeline, update.

[frohme]

The 'Anonymous' backs in T207 rarely get much attention. Whether this due to lack of information, lack of interest, or something else isn't all that important. What matters is that the Anon Factory 3 (Recruit) subset has just reached a new plateau with a major addition.

The backstory

For the longest time, it was theorized that the Factory 3 back was the only back that could be found on all T207 poses. Lew Lipset, in "Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, Vol. 3 (1986)". wrote about the Anonymous backs ...

Anonymous (Coupon) - The printing is in black and there are two variations. The first is Factory 3 from Louisiana and the second is 25 from Virginia. It is probably the Louisiana printing that has caused collectors to feel that the back is a Coupon because all the T213 Coupons are from there. This is, however, inconclusive. The Factory 3 cards out of Louisiana are, in fact, the only back that is common to every card in T207. Because of this, a collector cannot assume that if he has a T207 with a rare back, that he has a rare card. He can with Broadleaf, Cycle, Red Cross or (Coupon) Factory 25, but not with (Coupon) Factory No 3.

For the next 20-ish years, it doesn't seem like much changed with that notion. Though you can still find websites that allude to (or outright state) the notion that "Anonymous Factory 3 is the only back that can be found on all poses"; most have updated their info to say something along the lines of "The Anonymous Factory 3 back is the only one that is found on cards from both the Recruit-Napoleon and the Broadleaf-Cycle groups." While that statement has been well established since the early collecting days, the extent of coverage of the Recruit group had (as above) been presumed to include all Recruit-group poses.

Fast forward to 2004, when Bob Marquette and Tim Newcomb published articles on T207 in VCBC #37, covering (if I recall) population comparison to other T sets (Bob) and part 1 of a survey of T207 individual card populations (Tim) that he had been undertaking for the past year (or so?). Tim followed up with part 2 of his survey analysis in VCBC #38 (the final issue). Those survey results are pretty much canon when it comes to T207, even now, 20 years later.

In 2007, referring to his 2004 survey Tim wrote in a Net54 thread (post #4):

I can't agree that all R/C cards can be found with Anon-3 backs. My survey of 6800 T207s found only about 23 different Recruit cards with the Anon-3 backs. Every one of these 23 players appeared less often than the average Recruit-backed card. There was not a single exception to this pattern.

To explain this, I propose in the article that there may have been two "series" of Recruit-backed cards issued, one of 100, and a second one of 50 issued in smaller numbers. Only this "second series" was issued with Anon-3 backs. I believe, therefore, that only 50 players of the R-N group will ever be found with the Anon-3 back.

A few years later, in June of 2010, he summarizes a critical point from his analysis in his Old Cardboard article entitled "Set Profile: T207 Brown Backgrounds (by Tim Newcomb)" where he writes:

The set's 200 cards vary widely in scarcity. The 150 Recruit-Napoleon cards are the most common overall, but still exhibit a wide range of difficulty. A few players, including Carrigan, Ellis, Graham, Higgins, Kling, Nunamaker, Stovall, and Wood (listed alphabetically), are nearly as difficult as the average Broadleaf-Cycle card. I speculate that these variations are due to a two-stage release of Recruit cards: the "first series" of 100 cards, issued around Opening Day, became the most common cards. This was followed perhaps two months later by a second release of the remaining 50 Recruit cards, now including a small proportion of Napoleon and Anonymous Factory 3 backs. This "second series" was distributed much less widely, accounting for the variations in scarcity 100 years later.

By mid-2012, T207 collectors had cataloged nearly 40 examples, up from the 23 counted in the survey 6 years prior. Now and then, one would pop up in at an auction house, or on eBay - these didn't usually raise any stir, even if it was an uncatalogued example. The change came in October 2012, when Heritage auctioned off a complete collection of Anonymous Factory 3 - 50 Broadleaf poses and 49 Recruit poses. Weaver, I. Lewis, W. Miller and Lowdermilk were sold individually. The other lot consisted of 95 cards. The original description of that large lot "1912 T207 Anonymous Partial Set (95/200) with many scarce subjects" only listed about half (52) of the cards and had images of only 17. In response to questions about the rest, Heritage added the full list of cards in the lot, though they did not add any additional images. The kicker was that the lot included 49 Recruit class cards ... nearly all of Tim's proposed 50 cards... and there it stayed ... and stayed. Various of us batted around ideas as to which the 50th would be, and if/when it would be found. Most of us believed Ellis was the most likely candidate as he was not in the Heritage lot, yet he is/was generally perceived as one of the most difficult Recruit class cards - as borne out in Tim's survey. Nothing showed up, not even another example of a few of the cards from that lot. Until now.

The update
Fast forward to the present... nearly 12 years to the day later ... late October, 2024 ... Ellis shows up in REA's November Encore Auction. I saw the card when the auction opened, but held off posting this thread and outing the auctions for the usual reasons. I guess I need not have, as the auction ended a couple of hours ago and at least two people clearly understood the relative significance of the card as the results likely exceeded expectations by many multiples.

So T207 Anon Factory 3 is officially, unequivocally now (at least) 50 cards. I suspect its likely to stay that way. I'm happy to see this card come to light - its a fabulous example of an Anon Factory 3 Recruit and one of the highest graded by any TPG. I feel an odd sense of closure, knowing that the card exists and that Tim's hypothesis may be correct after 20 years.

and because every thread needs a card - here are REA's images (not resized):

and