Boston Store, Collins McCarthy, Biscuit and Weil

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Posted By: Richard

Of all of the 1917 E135 type backs:

1) Boston Store
2) Collins McCarthy
3) Weil Baking
4) Standard Biscuit

How would you rank them in term of scarcity?

Does anyone know how they were distributed?

My thoughts are that all 4 are very tough. Much much tougher than M101's and E121's.

The Boston Store seems to be the most plentiful, but is also the most glamourous. Of course, most plentiful is a relative term as I rarely ever see even these.

The Collins McCarthy is right behind the Boston Store. And Weil Baking and Stardard Biscuit follow.

Thoughts?



Thoughts?

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Posted By: fkw

overall the E135 group is scarcer than M101-4/5 and E121

here is my order

1) Blank Back
2) Weil
3) Standard Biscuit
4) Boston Store
5) Collins-McCarthy



Here are 3 blank backs

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Posted By: Wesley

I know population reports are misleading, inflated, inaccurate, evil, etc., but here are the PSA numbers anyway:

165 total Boston Store cards grade
40 total Collins McCarthy cards graded
1 total Weil Baking card graded (Cobb only)
1 total D328 Standard Biscuit card graded




The total numbers might be misleading because one overzealous slabhead may have submitted an entire Boston Store set all at once, thereby throwing off the population count. So let's look at the cards of the player submitted the most.

8 total Collins McCarthy Ruth
3 total Boston Store Ruths
1 total D328 Standard Biscuit Ruth
0 total Weil Baking Ruth



All of them are very tough, but Weil Baking and Standard Biscuit are next to impossible.

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Posted By: Scot York

I agree with Wes and FKW on scarcity. I just purchased my first Weil Baking card (Grover Alexander) and sent it to PSA. I have had several of all the others. You will spend years completing any of the above mentioned sets though.

Edited to say: I've never owned a blank back.

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

but they're not that rare. And Boston Store is noticeably more available than Collins McCarthy. Weil and Blanks are scarcest. Standard Biscuits are nearly as prevalent as Collins; in fact, over the past 3 years, I've seen more higher grade (ex or better) Biscuits than Collins.

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Posted By: Matt

Is there any more consensus now on these issues and the back scarcity?

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

I think what was said here several years ago is still pretty true. In my opinion the bank backs are about the same as the Weil Baking. I also don't know that the Standard Biscuits are all that much more common than the two I already mentioned. The Boston Store & Collins are the easiest, and from my experience they are about the same, but I also live on the West Coast so maybe I have seen more Collins's for that reason.
-Rhett

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Posted By: Steve F

Gee Willickers Matt, You've got the patience of a Saint.



I'd be interested to know as well. But, don't have a PSA account any longer and last checked on Blank Backs;

1, B-B Cobb
1, B-B JJax
1, B-B Wagner



SGC list all but any B-Bs(?);
4, C-M Cobb (1916)
5, C-M Cobb (1917)*Presumably, later slabs labeled with corrected DoP?
3, B-S Cobb (1916)
2, B-S Cobb (1917)*
2, W-B Cobb (1916)
1, W-B Cobb (1917)*

4, C-M Ruth

2, C-M Joe Jax
2, B-S Joe Jax

1, C-M Wagner

It's tough to say which is less common, the W-B or the B-B. Though I just search for the big guns, in several years I have not seen dupes of any Blanks Backs yet.

Also, I think pop report inaccuracy may be a factor -exhibited by the amount of Cobbs v commons.

Can you bring up the PSA numbers?

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Posted By: Matt

Hey Steve - I also have seen nothing to sugest that more then 1 blank back exists per player.

Here is PSA on those 4 players (I excluded the Standard Biscuits because I have 0 faith that they have been correctly separated into D350-1As, D350-1 D350-2 and D350-3):
Cobb WB:4 BS:4 CM:6 BB:1
JJax WB:1 BS:5 CM:2 BB:1
Wagner WB:1 BS:3 CM:4
Ruth BS:4 CM:8 BB:1

Also total entries:
WB: 26
CM + BB: 94
BS: 258

I don't think pop reports can be used for much when populations are this low. One or two resubmissions or crosses could skew the whole thing.

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Interesting about the blank backs, I knew they are among the toughest but never really looked at the pop reports. I only have 8 cards from the E135-like series and 3 are blank, but I probably bought them because they aren't seen as often. One is a PSA-goof (I'm not starting a PSA bashing thing here!) as they apparently didn't know what to make of the item and thought they were grading a W575-1, regardless the card isn't "hand-cut" as they state on the flip.



Edited to add: While the pop reports seem to show the Boston Store's as being more common than Collins-McCarthy's (due to a far greater # total graded), a truer measure is by looking at the big stars, as many people across the board will be getting them graded--not simply from 1 or 2 sets or large accumulations being sent in by one or two individuals. The stats seem to show the two easier backs being roughly equal--which has actually been my experience with the sets, although the Boston Store's tend to show up in "groups."

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Posted By: Steve F

"Wagner WB:1 BS:3 CM:4"



Matt, wasn't the B-B listed?.. If not, perhaps it's under the incorrect date.

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Posted By: Matt

Steve - nope.

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: Steve F

Then perhaps I'll just auction it off and donate half to the Human Fund

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Looks like PSA groups the Blank Backs as "E135 Collins-McCarthy Blank Backs" which would skew the Collins-McCarthy backs listed above.
-Rhett

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Posted By: Steve F

Matt or Rhett, Could you email a screenshot of the C-M pops and save me $100 please?

fdnyladder7@comcast.net

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Posted By: Matt

Rhett - PSA shows them separately in the actual report, just totals them together which I noted ("CM + BB"). SGC, on the other hand, makes no differentiation in the pop reports between CMs and BBs and certainly their pop report of CMs could be skewed.

Steve - email sent.

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: Richard

Wow - a 2 and a half year old thread dug up, and I actually started it. I feel dated.

From what I have seen over the years, the pop reports by both SGC and PSA are unreliable for these issues because:

1) they incorrectly categorize the issues some of the time (ie. Blank backed are called Collins McCarthy or W575)
2) a person or several people have submitted large portions of certain sets which have skewed a true sense of rarity
3) the numbers for most of these sets are so small that no detailed conclusions can be made

There was also mention that the 1917 Standard Biscuit oftens gets mixed up with the 1921 version. I would also agree with that.

That being said, based on my experience I feel that Boston Store is the most common (which is still very very uncommon) followed closely by Collins McCarthy.

Then there is a huge jump down to Standard Biscuit followed by Weil and Blank Back.

Something like this (10 being most common and 1 being least common)

Boston Store 10
Collins Mccarthy 9
Standard Biscuit 3
Weil 2
Blank Back 2

Based on this scale, something like E121 would be a 40 or 50.

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Posted By: Wesley

Since someone mentioned Boston Stores as perhaps the most common back in this seris, I have a related question:

The Rogers Hornsby rookie is one of the keys to the E135 related sets. Has anyone ever seen a Hornsby card with something other than a Collins McCarthy back? I have seen close to ten Collins McCarthy Hornsby cards, but never a Boston Store, Weil, Standard Biscuit or blank back.

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Posted By: Matt

delete

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Posted By: Matt

Wes - I believe there is a Boston Store and Blank Backed Hornsby floating around. You've seen 10 E135s? I know for certain the pop reports on the Hornsby are skewed due to crosses and resubs (not by me).

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: Anonymous

Weils are toughest, Standards are a little easier, then there is a big gap to Boston Store and Collins-McCarthy, which are about equal in difficulty. I have both versions of the four corrected cards in Collins-McCarthy, but have never been able to find the corrected versions in Boston Store. Can someone verify they exist? If not, C-M may prove slightly easier than Boston Store since one can presume it was issued and circulated both before and after the corrections.

I do not know if the variations exist in Weil or Standard Biscuit.

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Posted By: Matt

"C-M may prove slightly easier than Boston Store since one can presume it was issued and circulated both before and after the corrections."

Although it's possible that even if it was distributed before and after, it was in far lesser numbers so knowing that wouldn't really help us with the question of difficulty, although it certainly would be good to know for check listing purposes.

My Trade/Sale Page

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Posted By: James Gallo

Well, since I have been chaseing this set, I have noticed several things.

There is no base line to priceing and they are all over the map.


I find them either in P-G or NM shape and less often in-between.


I don't find them too often, but I have seen more major HOF with the CM back.


I have crossed a bunch of cards especially recently from PSA to SGC probably 15-20 or more.


I have close to 100 different BS mostly commons and a few low grade HOF.

These sets have nasty problems as how they are dated and defined has changed over the years. This makes the population reports pretty worthless, unless it is something that can be combined, however how do we know that a 1916 BS Ruth wasn't regraded and then listed as a 1917....


The backs are generally far worse on centering then the fronts, which I find interested as they don't match up. The back may be badly miscut s-s but the front is nicely centered.

The SGC population reports don't list any variations. I don't see any listed for the BS set but there is a corrected CM High assuming they got it right.

I don't think I have ever seen any of the corrected ones for sale and all the ones I have are the incorret images.


I really like the real photo images.


I will remember they day forever if and when I own the Joe Jackson from this set


James G

Looking for 1915 Cracker Jacks and 1909-11 American Caramel E90-1.

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Posted By: Michael Steele

The post above is correct, the centering on the back's are awful when compared to the front.

I have about a dozen mixed between B-S and C-M and I would agree that the price and condition for these run all over the board. As stated, thinly traded so Pop reports could be easily skewed. I would love to see an article on these similar to the Tim Newcomb T-207 study in VCBC back in 04.