John Titus-Itus

[calvindog]

SWEET, MY CARD IS RARE!

[refz]

I enjoyed this topic and man...this card situation is out hand for what it is. I even find hard to cough up $100+ for a 1 grade or equivalent joe doyle.

[sreader3]

Titus is not scarce. He is tied for 366 out of 524 on the difficulty spectrum in my study of over 100K Internet sales of T206s from 2008-13.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype.

Sorry for those who bought in.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by calvindog

SWEET, MY CARD IS RARE!

Jeff, I love that Donlin.

[sreader3]

Collectors over time have been remarkably astute in figuring out the relative scarcity of T206s. So, for example, Dahlen (Brooklyn), Elberfeld (Washington) and the Southern Leaguers (and a few other toughies) command solid premiums because they are REALLY difficult.

Then there is Mr. Titus. Cool mustache, but the card is a 350-only subject THAT IS NOT MUCH TOUGHER THAN THE MOST PEDESTRIAN CARDS IN THE SET SUCH AS MADDOX, DOWNEY (FIELDING), MILLER (PITTSBURG), GANZEL, DYGERT, LENNOX, and I could go on.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype. He is not "scarce" if one's view of scarcity is the number of examples extant. He is only "scarce" if one takes into account hoarding and hype.

[Pat R]

Titus is all about hoarding and hype. He is not "scarce" if one's view of scarcity is the number of examples extant. He is only "scarce" if one takes into account hoarding and hype.[/QUOTE]

+1 and a little research shows who the main hoarder is.

[philliesphan]

I purchased it ~a decade ago, but I have a really nice Carolina Brights John Titus card. Since then, both rare backs and John Titus have exploded. Wonder if that would mean a spectacularly crazy price for the card?

[wonkaticket]

Originally Posted by Pat R

+1 and a little research shows who the main hoarder is.

I hope its Tom Selleck.



I agree the card is neat just glad I don't have to buy it today...because the prices are a bit silly on this one.

[bobbyw8469]

reminds me of the dot.com bust. What is going to happen when this one person stops collecting the Titus card?? lol.....

[VoodooChild]

My only issue with this whole thing (and the reason I overpaid by 4X for one) is that we do not know what the reason is for the "hoarder" to be doing this. Just a quick ebay sold search shows that he's won like 90% of the recent sales and was underbidder on the others. At this point, he knows what is going on and just doesn't care. He continues to spend thousands of dollars and drive the market up on himself.

I said this in my inital post to this thread a while back, but I rememer reading from someone that knows him that he has some "special project" going on. We don't know what that is and he obviously doesn't care how much it costs. I like to imagine him in a dark basement creating some sort of mosaic wall display out of the cards like a mad scientist. What if he is busting them out of slabs and pasting them to a canvas or something or even worse cutting them up in some sort of way. I doubt it but again we just don't know.

Yes, I am "educated" enough in the T206's to know that Titus is not really rare. But if he has some sort of lifelong project going on, his hoard my never see the marketplace in our lifetime. Maybe he'll will the project to his relatives, again who knows. So my question is still - without knowing the intent of the hoard (and at this point it doesn't appear to be financial or for profit) and if the cards will ever be available, doesn't that justify buyers treating the card as rare/tough and spending accordingly?

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by sreader3

Collectors over time have been remarkably astute in figuring out the relative scarcity of T206s. So, for example, Dahlen (Brooklyn), Elberfeld (Washington) and the Southern Leaguers (and a few other toughies) command solid premiums because they are REALLY difficult.

Then there is Mr. Titus. Cool mustache, but the card is a 350-only subject THAT IS NOT MUCH TOUGHER THAN THE MOST PEDESTRIAN CARDS IN THE SET SUCH AS MADDOX, DOWNEY (FIELDING), MILLER (PITTSBURG), GANZEL, DYGERT, LENNOX, and I could go on.

Titus is all about hoarding and hype. He is not "scarce" if one's view of scarcity is the number of examples extant. He is only "scarce" if one takes into account hoarding and hype.

+1, I agree with Scot as far as the examples that are being sold recently, lots of cards out there. The irony is, however, population reports of cards graded PSA 7 or higher are extremely low.