T3 question

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom Russo

We all know from the instructions on back that you had to send in ten coupons to get a T3 card. What I have always wondered is, if you could order by number, why aren't there many more Cobbs, Mattys, Speakers, out there. Wouldn't the most popular players be ordered more frequently? Anyone have any insight on this?

[Archive]

Posted By: Frank Wakefield

There are more Cobbs.

Mr. Lipset mentions this in his great Encyclopedia...

"Because the cards were ordered primarily by preference, players of note such as Cobb, Mathewson, McGraw, and Speaker occur with greater frequency. It only follows that the action series subjects without a players name wee in less demand in 1910 and command a premium now."

Generally, that same popularity carries through today. Even though there are more Cobbs than there are cards of Kentucky hurler Howie Camnitz, most folks, ALL folks would rather have a T3 Cobb.

Mr. Lipset's Encyclopedia is a fantastic reference.

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom Russo

Thank you Frank. You're right I should have checked the encyclopedia. Demand will always exceed supply on Cobb cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: Matt

While the population reports show more of Cobb and a few other stars, it isn't overwhelmingly more - SGC has 14 Cobb, and maybe 8 or 9 of the other major HOFers, and then they average about 5 or 6 per common. If someone could chose what player they were getting, I would assume at least 90% of people would take the superstar first, and the only way the lesser players would be picked is people doing set building, but I don't know how many back then built T3 sets - has a T3 set "find" ever occurred? I throw this out there, because, perhaps, there was a dual mode of distribution in addition to one where you picked your player, perhaps there was another where you didn't get to chose and that accounts for the decent proportional distribution of lesser players.

[Archive]

Posted By: Marc S.

T3s were printed in sheets....people requested the star cards, and the "remaining" players were given to employees or removed in some other back office fashion....as I do not believe that there is any evidence to support that Turkey Red actually printed the star cards in greater quantity than the others.

Marc

[Archive]

Posted By: Bobby Binder

I don't think they where collecting sets but choosing there favorite player on the team in the city they live. That is why the cards with no player names are the hardest to come by...

[Archive]

Posted By: Matt

Marc - good suggestion.

Bobby - you raise a great idea - the cards with no player names should seemingly be non-existant since who would have reqyested a card with no known player on it over a Mathewson or Cobb? However, the SGC population report has populations of 4,4,3,3,2 for the 5 non-player cards, which is comparable to the cards with players names on them. Looking quickly, I would venture, 1/3 of the cards have a pop of 4 or less.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay wolt

According to the coupon voucher
you must give 3 choices of a player you wanted
and if they had none of your choices they would
substitute one at random.

So if Cobb was the most popular player in 1910 & '11
He could have easily sold out and others added to round
off the excess.
Will scan a coupon voucher shortly that has this info on it.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay wolt

[Archive]

Posted By: Matt

Jay - I think that explains it! As was suggested above, they probably printed all the cards on a sheet, so they all had the same frequency. People may have asked more for the superstars, but once the printed superstars were sent out, they sent out all the other cards, randomly. Then, it would stand to reason that the star cards are not all that much more commonplace then other players, which the pop report has supported.

[Archive]

Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Marc S, I don't think it is that simple.

If we printed net54 cards, would we have one of each on a sheet? Would we double print some, or short print others. If we were going to let people pick the player they wanted, then we'd double or triple print the more famous, more requested players. That isn't steamboat science (turn of the century rocket science), that is easy to figure. If they were printed in equal numbers, with employees taking the extras home, seems like they then pitched the action T3s and only kept some of the players.

I think Mr. Lipset, and the knowledgeable collectors he consulted 30 years ago, I think they got it right. I agree that a Cobb T3 would be slightly more likely to be graded than a common one. But I also think more Cobbs were distributed.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jon Canfield

I wonder if an answer to this question can be tied in with the ad back's and no-ad back's of the 1st series? The ad back's all contain advertising for Turkey Red, Old Mill and Fez. No-ad back's contain no advertising. Maybe the no-ad backs were given out or somehow distributed outside of the redemption program (hence no advertising). If this is the case, maybe distribution was purely random?

[Archive]

Posted By: Bobby Binder

Take into consideration that SGC just started grading oversized cards not to long ago. So that is why the pop reports are a lot lower then normal sized cards.

[Archive]

Posted By: Mike Peich

This is an interesting question. And I agree with Frank, and Lew Lipset, that it is safe to asume that the more popular players, like Cobb, Matty, Johnson, et alia, would have been more requested, hence there were more of them in circulation. As a good example of this theory, take one of the scarcest cards in the set, Bob Rhoades. By the time the set was being distributed Rhoades, who had pitched a no-no in 1908, and had a 22 win season, with a 1.80 era in 1906, was out of basball, probably the victim of a dead arm. But because of his few promising years pitching for the Naps, he was included in the T3 set. When the set was released, very few people requested a Rhoades card--out of sight, out of mind. Some people may have asked for him, but probably more than a few got him as a third choice. Whatever the scenario, not many of Rhoades were distributed, hence their scarcity today.

I don't know about the blank backs, other than they may have been created to help fill the demand for cards. I have three blank backs in my collection, but none of the them is a particularly big name other Donovan.

I do hope Craig Diamond weighs in because he is very knowledgable about the set.

[Archive]

Posted By: Matt

Bobby - your point would affect Cobb as well as a common. Bring the PSA registry info and that would help the discussion.