T206: Tough Sweet Caps

[53toppscollector]

There are 2 types of T206 collectors: those that care about off backs and those that don't. For some people, they see a SweetCap back and that is all it is to them, a SweetCap, and those people aren't likely to pay any premium for the different factories. For back collectors, specifically people putting together a back run, they will pay a premium.

Piedmont backs are also more plentiful than SweetCaps (by a fair margin), so if the person buying the card cares about the rarity of the back, they should expect to pay a slight premium for a SweetCap over a Piedmont.

Your best bet is to look at the population reports for PSA/SGC. But there are a few issues with that:

* PSA originally did not distinguish between the backs (labeling cards as just T206 in the beginning), then they start to only distinguish by brand (SweetCap, Piedmont, American Beauty), and then they finally started to include the Series and Factory numbers. Because of that, the PSA pop report is not entirely accurate.
* SGC breaks down SweetCaps by year (1909 = 150, 1910 = 350, 1911 = 350/460) but they don't break it down by factory. The Piedmont to SweetCap total for SGC is a good barometer though in determining the rarity.

Within SweetCaps themselves, the factory 25s will command a small premium over Factory 30s. Factory 42, 42 OP and 649 OPs are more scarce in general.

For the Kroh you mentioned, PSA has graded 241 Piedmonts, compared to 59 SweetCaps. Using those numbers, the Piedmont is 75% more plentiful. This drastic of a split between Piedmont/SweetCap is not universal. Within the SweetCap breakdown at PSA of those 59, 30 of them are Factory 30, while only 4 are Factory 25. As noted above, this is inexact, because there are likely a bunch of SweetCap Kroh's that just say "Sweet Caporal" and don't have a factory designation. But, it is clear that Factory 30 is more plentiful than Factory 25.

You will see that almost universally, where Factory 30s outnumber Factory 25s by a fairly wide margin.

To illustrate the 350/460 Series scarcity

Latham: 124 Piedmonts, 96 Sweet Caps. Of those 96, 7 are Fac 25, 31 are Fac 30, and 9 are 42OPs.

Lake w/Ball: 162 Piedmonts, 114 SweetCaps. Of the 114, 5 from Fac 25, 47 from Fac 30, 7 are 42OPs