E94 Overprint Research

[t206kid]

Having recently started collecting E94 in earnest, and with a few new fresh to hobby examples sold into the market, I became very interested in the overprint backstamps. I read through the old Net54 threads and tried to educate myself. Conventional wisdom seemed to suggest that of the 10 overprints, Blome’s was the toughest and the other 9 were roughly similar in difficulty (very difficult!). I also came across an old thread that attempted to list out all the overprints that were known. I decided to refresh that list, data mine the Internet and auction sites for whatever was out there, and I also asked a few hobby friends what they had. Below is my current list of 63 confirmed overprints. The 63 cover 25 total cards, so it's really close a complete set of 30. If there are others, I would love to add to the list.

So far, the data is showing something rather interesting. Below is the overprint breakdown by back. Not surprisingly, Blome’s is the most common with 18/63 (28.5%). I was, however, surprised to see 15 Your Out stamps (24%)—making it seem like Your Out is more like Blome’s, than the other 8. The other 8 seem to have many many fewer examples and appear more clumped together in relative scarcity. The addition of one or two cards could change the “other 8” power rankings dramatically, so it's hard to put a lot of stock into a pop 2 being that much tougher than a pop 4.

Blome's - 18
Your Out - 15

A Base Hit - 6
Home Run - 4
Oh You Fan - 3
Oppie Dildock - 3
Pennant Winners - 4
Three Strikes - 4
Your Safe Close - 2
Your Safe Cuckoo - 4

Total - 63

Finally, a word on grading. Inconsistent. As you can see, there are numerous examples of both PSA and SGC high grades, where they presume the overprint is part of the card and not an added stamp (especially on the older holders). And, more recently, SGC is giving 1.5/2s (all the new to hobby examples I referenced above were 1.5 or 2 but with very sharp 3-5 appearance otherwise) perhaps considering the overprint as a stamp. My own contributions are Chance and Lord, because every thread needs pictures.

-Jay