OJ Cap Anson in uniform pose

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Posted By: Chris (the illini)

Hello all,

Having a slow day at work and daydreaming about cards I would love to have. I saw a picture of the N172 Cap Anson - in uniform card and a note that mentioned that only 5 examples are known to exist. Does anyone know why this card is so exceedingly rare? It seems odd to me that a star of Anson's magnitude has only two poses in the OJ set. Any thoughts???

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Posted By: petecld

Going from memory here:

Isn't Cap's face the same one on both the clothes and uniform cards? Seems Cap didn't like his picture taken.

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Posted By: John(z28jd)

Hey Chris dont know the answer but it is cool to know im not the only person who daydreams about old judge cards at work

I dont really care for the portrait poses in any set,id rather see the uniform,full body,in action poses but that would be the Anson id rather have

(editors note: I dont see me buying any Anson card,anytime soon,i dont have the willpower to not buy cards for as long as it would take for me to save for one)

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Posted By: runscott

Is this really him?

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Posted By: Jay Miller

There are several interesting questions that surround Anson's cards:

1-As one of the major stars of the period, why doesn't he have an 1887 card?

2-I am told that the Anson in Uniform card shows his head superimposed on another player's body (this can be seen from one of the Chicago team photos which I have a copy of somewheres). Why was this done rather than just taking a photo of him in uniform?

3-If Anson objected to having his picture taken why did he allow a photograph to be taken in street clothes?

Anson certainly had no objection to having his picture taken with the team. In fact, in the ultra rare Jos Hall cabinet of Chicago, he is standing right next to the team's black mascot. That could have been grounds for having his Klan card revoked.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

The Anson in Uniform Old Judge card is the 19th century equivalent of the T206 Wagner and I have kept close tabs on the number known. As far as I can tell, unless the is one in the Wharton Tiger collection at the British Museum, there are four known copies with one of these being the copy in the Burdick collection.

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Posted By: Chris (the illini)

Jay,

I got the 5 examples total from an old PSA article discussing the Lipset auction where the card I have posted sold in 2001. I will take your opinion that there are 4 copies known over theirs...

I would have thought that the folks at Goodwin & Co. would have loaded their cigarette packs with pictures of Anson, who was definitely one of the biggest stars of the time -- if not the biggest. Maybe there was some sort of contract dispute???

Also, how tough in terms of scarcity is Anson's other OJ card? Taking into account the high demand for his cards, it doesnt seem particularily difficult to find. Am I right?

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Posted By: Julie

At leasst I have one, so they can't be too rare.

I dream about OJs in Food Addicts Anonymous meetings...

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Scott:

I don't know about you, but to me the image on the Upper Deck SP card looks more like Fred Pfeffer than it does Cap Anson.

Kevin

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Chris--Perhaps Anson was the first chase card. The other portrait of Anson is relatively scarce. Just fooling around I tried to rank the 27 HOFers in the set from toughest to easiest and I ranked Anson 9th. This was just a quick thing and is not meant to be carved in stone. However, if you believe this quick ranking, it would put him just barely in the top third in terms of scarcity. The Anson Old Judge cabinet is amongst the most common (along with Kelly) but that is because people could choose who they wanted.

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Posted By: runscott

BTW, the UD set this came from is an excellent source of high-quality vintage player photos, as are the two Ted Williams sets from '93 and '94.

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Posted By: Chris (the illini)

I am curious to hear what you think about the OJ HOFers and their relative scarcity

--chris

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Posted By: Ben

If you have a spare moment, please post your OJ HOF scarcity list...I am very interested to see what your take on it is, and I'm sure many others feel the same. Thanks!

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Posted By: Jay Miller

I feel a little uneasy about ranking the players from 1 to 27 because I haven't given the issue enough thought and analysis and these lists sometimes take on a life of their own. However, I will list the HOFers in three groupings, broken out as scarce, medium and common HOFers. This is just one opinion so please take it as no more than that.

SCARCE

Anson
Connor
Delahanty
Mack
McPhee
Nichols
Robinson
Rusie
Wright

MEDIUM

Beckley
Comiskey
Galvin
Griffith
Hamilton
Hanlon
Radbourn
Thompson
Welch

COMMON

Brouthers
Clarkson
Duffy
Ewing
Keefe
Kelly
McCarthy
O'Rourke
Ward

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Posted By: Julie

How about a similar list of the NON-HOFers? (I understand ALL these are rarer than ALL the HOFers)?

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Posted By: david

jay,
thanks for the list of hofs, in your opinion where do the spotted ties fit in in terms of scarcity. we all know they are just about impossible to find but the prices dont seem to reflect the scarcity, except with a few exceptions like the behel. i must see about 50 hofs for every spotted tie and about 20 browns champ for every spotted tied

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Julie--That list I will not provide---sorry

Spotted ties are very scarce with the most common spotted ties being as scarce as the toughest HOFers. Brown's Champs used to be relatively common but you don't see many of those now.