T206 Old Mill Backs

[wazoo]

Although, I'm not sure if I could consider Brown Hindu a Top 10 back over the Piedmont 42 back. I find it extremely difficult, and it's taken me many years to finally pick up 2 examples. Also, you do not find them too often. If you do an eBay search, you'll find that there are 2 for sale as of now. I believe there are 20+ Brown Hindus on eBay. Of course, it all depends on who's selling and what not, but in my opinion, I believe the Piedmont Factory 42 is a Top 10 back compared to Brown Hindu.

[freakhappy]

Originally Posted by wazoo

Although, I'm not sure if I could consider Brown Hindu a Top 10 back over the Piedmont 42 back. I find it extremely difficult, and it's taken me many years to finally pick up 2 examples. Also, you do not find them too often. If you do an eBay search, you'll find that there are 2 for sale as of now. I believe there are 20+ Brown Hindus on eBay. Of course, it all depends on who's selling and what not, but in my opinion, I believe the Piedmont Factory 42 is a Top 10 back compared to Brown Hindu.

Great point Waz! It is hard to judge just on what is for sale right now, but it does seem that Piedmont 42 does not get the credit it deserves for being a tougher back.

Scot, thanks for posting that...I saved it to my favorites! T206resource.com has been very informative and has been a great reference.

[sreader3]

Waz,

P42s are difficult, but not quite as much as it may seem. Many sellers of P42s don't know what they have and don't advertise the card as a P42. Just three days ago a seller put a Leifeild (Batting) P42 on eBay in G-VG at a BIN of $24.99 (check out eBay Completed Listings). This happens several times a year. On the other hand, Brown Hindus and other scarce backs are almost always advertised as such. This leads to a perception that P42s are a little more difficult than they are in fact.

Also, setting difficulty aside, many collectors would rather own a Brown Hindu than a P42 because they perceive brand differences as more important than factory differences. Plus, many people just love the look of the Brown Hindu back.

Don't get me wrong. P42s are difficult and deserving of a considerable premium. But many people would pay more for a Brown Hindu for reasons stated.

[wazoo]

Great point as well. I think both are beautiful looking cards, and I am very happy to own both backs. I totally feel that the eye appeal of a Brown Hindu, regardless of the condition (mine is a beater), is another reason why they get more attention. I feel that Piedmont 42's do not get enough attention, and in a way, I am happy with that....for now! It's true though, many of them go unnoticed, and that is the fun of acquiring them.

Back to Old Mills though...I find them as an in between back. As if they do not get much attention, but when they are spotted, people take to them. I personally like the design of the Old Mill back, that is why I like to acquire them. I just feel that recently, that not a large amount of cards are backed with Old Mill backs, making them a nice piece to any t206 collection. That being said, they are not impossible to obtain.

[mrvster]

hands down piedy 42's are where they should be behind carolina bright, very tough back....i know who won the $25.00 one, lucky ducky, and no it wasn't me, but went to an "eagle eye" good guy

[White Borders]

A couple things:

First, I pretty much agree with Jim and Scot's comments.

Second, be careful with population reports. There are two Merkle subjects in the T206 Set: Merkle Throwing and Merkle Portrait. For T206 Old Mill, yes SGC shows a pop of 7 for Merkle Throwing. But it also shows a pop of 6 for Merkle with no subject description, with the highest graded of these being an SGC 80. For other backs, it does show some being Merkle Portrait. So if these Merkle No Description were really Merkle Portrait, wouldn't they most likely be listed as Merkle Portrait?

Merkle Portrait could possibly be found with an Old Mill back, but it has not been confirmed on either T206Resource or Ted Z's Old Mill Backs Survey. PSA does show a pop of 2 Merkle Portrait with an Old Mill back, compared to a pop of 7 Merkle Throwing with an Old Mill back, but this may be an error. So I'd say most, if not all of the SGC Merkle No Description are actually Merkle Throwing.

This is not a knock on Wazoo, as he does state that SGC is limited. Nor is it a knock on SGC. Rather it is a caution on interpreting pop reports. PSA offers a similar conundrum in that of the population of nearly 150,000 T206, about 63,000 are listed as "Unknown Back".

So on one hand, a portion of the SGC T206 population has a known back, but no description for the subject. And on the other hand, PSA has a subject description, but the back is unknown.

Third, I am finding it possible to cross-reference between SGC and PSA pop reports, and along with data from the wild (ebay, auctions, BST, etc), knowledge of which subject/back combos are possible, and statistical methods, to begin modelling an estimation of the T206 backs population distribution. I've been at it for quite a while, and it will probably be quite a while still until I'm ready to discuss what I'm doing and present results, but I will throw out the attached graph as a "teaser". (caveat: Further research will most likely result in a change in the order across the horizontal axis (such as the American Beauty backs probably shifting towards the right) as well as the relative population distribution curve. But it does demonstrate what I am working towards.)

Best Regards and Happy Collecting
Craig

[wazoo]

Thank you very much for clarifying that. It's true, I was making too much of an assumption. Either way, it is a high graded OM so I'm pleased. Anyways, wonderful detail and great "teaser" chart.

[goodtricks]

Great info here. Thanks for the links!

[t206blogcom]

Always felt Old Mills were underrated...

[frohme]

On the Old Mill topic, does anyone feel there's any variation in relative scarcity across the various T206 series? I ask because in my recent (now defunct) pursuit of the set of all Pirates, it seemed that in the Old Mill cards, the 150/350 series cards were tougher than their counterparts. Not significantly, but enough to be noticeable.

I found the 350 and later series to generally be easier than the the 150/350, and found Gibson, Clarke (port), Leach (port) especially tough - was missing only the latter two when I stopped.

Anyone have thoughts, pro/con feelings?

Thanks
--
Mike