Survival Rate of N172 Old Judge

[sandmountainslim]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I would guess there are at least 2 million T206s.

100,000 is probably a good estimate for OJs.

You could be right. When I got into T206 I figured they were like hen's teeth due to the age then I noticed I was having zero problem finding cards in my price range and realized they must have been produced in the multi millions

[oldjudge]

100,000 is way too much. There are roughly 2500 different poses, which would mean 40 copies each on average. This number might be right for the more common poses, but way high for most (some are unique or have less than five copies). My guess would be 30,000-40,000.

[ctownboy]

The question has to be asked then, how many do members of this board own?

Wouldn't that give a good estimate of what else might be out there?

Also, who owns (or maybe the top three to five collectors) the most N172's? Keith Olbermann?

I own none cards total (one pose, nine different players).

David

[Leon]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

100,000 is way too much. There are roughly 2500 different poses, which would mean 40 copies each on average. This number might be right for the more common poses, but way high for most (some are unique or have less than five copies). My guess would be 30,000-40,000.

Jay, I will never deny your expertise in N172. That being said, if I think of you and just 3-4 other guys, I probably get close to a third of the low number you said. My gut, from being in the hobby a few years, would lead me to believe the number is somewhere in the middle of your high estimate and 100,000. I am always the optimist in thinking there is a ton we have no idea about. And almost every month we hear about new finds of pre-war cards (if not Old Judges).....

[Tao_Moko]

We could estimate a population based on what's in circulation and documented through AH's, ebay, forums, shows, etc.. I think the real thing to look at is roughly how many surface annually and combine the estimated circulated qty and avg. documented new finds to determine what is a likey survival rate. The big unknown is how many were produced which will make projecting new finds difficult. The late eighties and early nineties sent everyone to their grandma's attic and a lot were exposed then. Ebay later brought more out of personal collections so I think we're going to see a steady but slow introduction of new finds.

My arbitrary guess is 60,000.

[Fred]

my guess is 54,326....

[barrysloate]

My guess is 40-50K. While there are certainly some OJ's still hidden away in somebody's attic, I wouldn't imagine that number would be huge. Sure, a few hundred here and there, but that's about it.

[sandmountainslim]

I wonder if OJ caused a card frenzy when they were released the way I have read that T206 did? Kids pestering smokers for the cards etc?
For some reason I think "Old West" when I see Old Judge cards and can't see many people holding on to them. Of course Im sure most of the cigs were sold back east instead of the western territories.

[Joe_G.]

One of my favorite topics.

Old Judge cards were immensely popular with the boys of the 1880s. I'd like to refer to an excerpt from Dave Jamieson's "Mint Condition". This is a "must read" for those curious about Old Judge popularity at time of production. Dave Jamieson did some fantastic research here which alone is worth the purchase of his book.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com...-distribution/

Goodwin's peak production of baseball cards would be realized in 1889. Records show that in that year they produced 168 million cigarettes. Ten count packs were common (higher counts less so) with perhaps ~20% (total swag on my part) of total production sold in US, packaged with an N172 baseball card (remainder containing N171, N174, N164, N165, possibly N162, and others). These numbers would suggest somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million N172s (pending take rates of 10 vs 20 count packs etc.).

Survival rate has not been very good. There are tough cards from every year of production, the cards were not produced in equal numbers. I believe there are many poses and even players (California League players for example) that have been lost to time. Population reports for the players that have survived range from unique to maybe 300-500 (on the high end, SGC has a population of better than 100 grade entries for Tim Keefe - split between 9 poses). I agree with Jay and several others on current population. I've looked at it from a couple different angles and I just don't see there being 100,000 cards surviving. While the most common players/poses could hit that average required to arrive at 100,000, most of the players/poses are far rarer.

There are a small number of significant collections. Several private and publicly held collections exceed 400 players with even less making a significant run at all the poses. I believe the top five collections in the world fall short of 10,000 OJs collectively. The next 20 holdings likely also fall under 10,000 OJs collectively. After that you are getting to the smaller team and other subset collectors or just a small random sampling with, on average, fewer than 100 cards. If I add all the numbers up and double them you could hit 50k cards but I believe that is a stretch. I like the range of 30-50k cards existent.