T206 question

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Posted By: CN

With the recent posts about the Magie and O'hara that just sold I was wondering if I could get an approximate guess as to the populaton of the Magie,O'hara and Demmitt cards as well as the number of Uzits and Drums that exist. Thanks CN

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Are you polling us???

For me, one Demmitt.

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Posted By: Ed McCollum

one of each for me. All beaters.

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Posted By: Steve M.

Magie 150

O'Hara 250

Demmitt 200

Uzit 900

Drum 500

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Posted By: Dave S

1 ratty O'Hara
1 decnt Uzit

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Posted By: MVSNYC

+/-

magie 150
demmitt 300
o'hara 300
uzit 300
drum 200

just a shot in the dark...

Doug Allen/Art M.--- jump-in here. you guys did a survey a few years back for the book you were writing, i think you accounted for close to 500,000 cards and came up with shocking evidence of just how rare T206 rare backs are...can you expand on this, please?

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Posted By: CN

This was not meant to be a poll, what I was interesting in was finding out the approximate total number of each card that exists. Thanks CN

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Posted By: Ed McCollum

I don't have a Magie. Wish I did. But I do have the others (not a reference to LOST, but you should meet my in-laws)
Ed

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Posted By: MVSNYC

CN- for some reason people are NOT reading your original question correctly...

he would like if some of us collectors can give an estimate of how many of each of the above mentioned cards are in existence...NOT who owns what...

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Posted By: Rob Fouch

As the purchaser of the recent O'Hara, I'd be curious to know this, too. Just checked the PSA population report and it has 64 graded, mostly 1's and 2's. How about SGC? I don't use SGC so don't have access to the site. Do they have a population report? I know they're not entirely accurate since some people cross over cards and they don't get eliminated in the reports, but it does give some sense of the numbers. (And of course, I know there are probably many ungraded ones.)
Thoughts? SGC numbers?

BILL O'HARA ST. LOUIS 31 27 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 64

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Magie 150
Demmitt 250
O'Hara 250
Drum 200
Uzit 400

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Posted By: MVSNYC

wow Scot, our numbers are very close...

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Posted By: Dave F

Wow, the fact there would be that few Drum's and Uzit's is really eye opening. Assuming the guesses are fairly accurate, what would it do to prices of Uzits lets say if a find came up of 125 of them?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

Dave- a find of that size is very unlikely...why are you so surprised that drum & uzit are that rare...

focus on what is, not what might be.

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Posted By: Dave F

Michael,

I don't know if a find like that would be that unlikely would it? Assuming there was a gentlemen of the time period that smoked only Uzit's...then obvioulsy that is all he would have cards of. Would only have been 125 packs....about 2-3 months worth of smoking.

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Posted By: Cobby33

My estimates would be in line with Scot's and MV's as well.

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Posted By: Dave F

I read somewhere there were 113? possible cards issued with Uzit backs. Now the one year that Uzits were produced....how many would have been produced? If 100 total card of each player would have been made...that would have been a total of 11,300 T206's with Uzit backs..and now there is only a couple hundred left?

Of course I'm talking about something I know nothing about...I just find it mind boggling..maybe the Uzit company didn't produce but 20 cards of each player to begin with.

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Posted By: John

Unlikely yes, but not out of the question REA had a nice little haul of Uzit’s a year or so ago. I forgot how many but I want to say over 50+ cards???




Mike good stuff, couldn’t remember the exact number. Only 30....I'm really disappointed in REA, what a bunch of clowns, don’t bother me with rare back finds that don’t break the 10,000 qty mark!

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Posted By: MVSNYC

dave- well, we could also sit here and say "what if" there was a find of 125 wagners, let's say someone's great-grandfather worked at the factories that printed the cards and kept all of the ones that were pulled, or "what if" there was a huge find of 200 demmitts, from someone's grandfather who loved demmitt and hoarded all of his cards (hence the scarcity)...? whether or not i agree with 11,300, is besides the point, let's work with that number...think of the fact that there were 2 WW paper drives, mothers throwing cards out...plus almost 100 years of fires, water damage, etc...i'd say it is totally realiztic that there are only 200, 300, 400 etc, of these cards left.

once again, let's focus on what is, and not get too deep into "what ifs"...

p.s. john, i think REA was around 30 or so (125 would be outrageous)...but, i hear your point that it is not out of the realm of possiblity...

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Posted By: Dave F

Michael,
My point is...who knows "what is"? Obviously anybody's guess is as good as anybody's I think. It's impossible to come up with a "total" number of cards....the registries are no help there. When your taking guesses at how many cards there are of any issue..it is a "what it could be" instead of a "what it is"

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Posted By: Dave F

delete

Had a point...but then it didn't make sense...so I didn't have a point.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

deleted because it was a response to dave's deleted message...

dave- you are too fast...haha.

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Posted By: Dave F

Yeah...I saw that...thats why I changed my statement. Was arguing with myself.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

dave- you're just lookin' to pick a fight...

go buy some T206 cards on eBay...

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Posted By: Dave F

Your right..I am looking for a fight. And I'm scared of my wife.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

BILL O'HARA 250-300
RAY DEMMITT 250-300
SHERRY MAGIE 150-200
Uzit 300-400
Drum 200-250


Be well Brian

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i see a pattern here...

Scot, Brian & I all have very similar estimates.

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Posted By: CN

Guys thanks for the estimates.CN

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Hi Dave F.,

You said:

<<Now the one year that Uzits were produced....how many would have been produced? If 100 total card of each player would have been made...that would have been a total of 11,300 T206's with Uzit backs..and now there is only a couple hundred left?>>

Uzit distribution began on March 11, 1911, which means that Uzits were only distributed for a couple of weeks at the very tail end of T206 production. Now, I actually think more than 100 of each subject were produced during this short span but that the survival rate is a lot lower than you might think--perhaps as low as 1%.

Scot

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Posted By: J Hull

The Uzit lots in last spring's REA sale had 33 cards. They were a group that had been assembled by the consignor's grandfather, if I remember correctly. I spoke to Rob Lifson about them at the time and he told me that the consignor's grandfather had lived in a poor, mostly immigrant neighborhood in New York City when the cards were collected. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Uzit cigarettes were strictly limited to NYC in 1911, or alternatively, that packs of them that held T206s were only sold there. Given the very brief time period that cards were included with Uzits, it seems likely that there couldn't have been a whole lot of geographical dispersal.

Jamie

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Posted By: Dave F

Very interesting. Any thoughts on why so few would remain today? Could it be Uzits were an off brand cigarette that didn't sell much? Many of the packs may have not been sold and at that point destroyed?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

The 30 years I've been collecting as a grown-up, I have seen or know of approx. 100 near complete T206
sets with over 500 cards and with Demmitt & O'Hara. Given my limited experience, if I extrapolate this number
threefold.....I think it would reflect a very close approximation of near sets in the population.

Therefore, my estimate is that there are 300 - 400 Demmitt & O'Hara cards out there.

UZIT cards.......the 5 or 6 that I have had over the years have all come from NYC or NY state.

TED Z

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Dave F.,

Based on the fact that over 1 billion Piedmont cigarettes were sold in 1910 (the equivalent of 100 million 10-stick packs having one card each) and the fact that the Piedmont back appears on about one-half of T206 cards it is possible that over 200 million T206 cards were distribted in 1910 alone. All told, that means almost 400 million T206 cards could have been distributed between August 1909 and April 1911. (The actual numer is probably lower owing to distribution mechanisms other than the 10-stick pack and the insertion of non-baseball subjects in packs. But the 400 million number is probably not a gross overstatement). Of course, only a tiny fraction of these cards would have had the Uzit brand--probably fewer than 100,000. And only a small fraction of these would have survived to the present. You have to consider that, unlike Topps cards, T206 cards were not the item being purchased but an insert. Most people wanted the smokes and threw the cards away often without so much as an initial viewing. You also have to consider that these cards had no economic value until recently so there was no economic incentive to save them, much less pass them down from generation to generation. All this is not to mention accidental loss and World War II paper drives. So the survival rate for T206 could well be 1% or less--with the natural consequence that only a few hundred Uzits are still with us today.

Scot