Is this card really rare enough for this price?!

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

The American Caramel E90-1 card of Johnny Siegle is not as plentiful as other E90-1s. The card incorrectly spells his name Seigle.

Siegle was from Ohio, a right-handed outfielder, he played part of 2 seasons for the Cincinnati Reds, appearing in 17 games at the end of the 1905 season, and in only 22 games in 1906.

There aren't many card sets that had a depiction of Siegle.

Volume 2 of Mr. Lipset's wonderful Encyclopedia has a listing of E90-1s, setting out some that are 'extremely rare', 'rare', 'very difficult', and 'difficult'. Mr. Lipset has Siegle's card in the 'very difficult' catagory. Some price guides don't reflect that positioning. The Standard Catalog does give the Siegle card a very slight price boost above the common cards, but in my estimation it is not quite as much of a differential as it should be.

Mr. Lipset published this 2nd volume in 1984. In recent years I've had a handful of wise, experienced collectors share with me their belief as to the difficulty of some of the E90-1s, and with that information I think Mr. Lipset's catagories are close to correct, but that a few of the cards should be moved a bit. I think the Siegle card would remain 'very difficult'.

So while I think the price is high, it isn't outrageous. I suspect it was bought by someone attempting to assemble an SGC set. It's a nice card.

Collectors of E90-1s would benefit from having Mr. Lipset's encyclopedia. Information is power.