#1 Benny Bengough

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I think that all that is said above is correct, but not complete.

The answer is that it DOES carry over to lower grades.

The top of the pile getting the most wear theory is sound. True. Folks who've seen piles and piles of Goudey cards are well familiar with how the corners and edges wear away... we've seen Goudeys that were almost round. Lots of wear. Some Goudeys were lost to the WW2 paper drives. Some mom threw away. Some were saved. Some of the saved ones were quite worn. But the truth is that some of the worn ones were thrown away. And the card most likely to get really worn and pitched is that one with Benny's great catcher's pose. I think if all of us brought all of our Goudey cards to some huge building, and spread our cards out by number, we'd collectively have fewer of Benny than many of the others. I think his print numbers were the same, just that some of the really worn ones were trashed.

Frank.