T207 Napoleon back confirmation thread.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by frohme

If you scrounge Net54 via your favorite search tool, you'll see a few conversations about the T207 Napoleon back over the years - as far back as 2002. In at least one of those threads from 2007 (http://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=87329) a survey of the known T207 Napoleon backs had a brief run (3 months, 14 posts). It topped out in October, 2007 at 89 known cards.

With that survey as a starting point, we should be able to make a significant dent in confirming as many of the remaining 66 cards as possible. After all, it has been almost 10 years - enough time for 9 more Red Cross backs to show up! The list below was copied verbatim from the last post from the 2007 thread. It will be update as confirmations come in. Most T207 collecters believe we'll get to at least the basic set of 150, if not all 155, with variations.

If you have scans of, or previous auction/eBay/etc... listing of any of those cards with the Napoleon back, would love to hear of it - time to complete (confirm) this subset checklist. This would also be a great time to show off your Napoleon backs if you have them! That said ... let's go!

Disclaimer: I have not looked at pop reports, preferring direct information at this point. (nor have I pulled info from more recent Net54 threads, like the pickup threads, etc...)

T207 Napoleon backs - working confirmation list of 155 Recruit-class card with their confirmation date. Each of the 89 cards from the previous list was given the date 10/16/2007. Unconfirmed list is small enough to separate it.

T207 Napoleon backs - Unconfirmed: 11

Bradley
Erwin
Graney
Mitchell, W
Northen
Sullivan

Variations
Austin (w)
Fisher (blue)
Livingston 'C'
Livingston 'c'
Mullin 'D'

As of 3/20/2020 - Confirmed: 144

TPG only confirmations

Ball 5/6/2016*


Post confirmations here, via PM to em, or email me at mikefrohme@yahoo.com. Thanks!

--
Mike

Good luck confirming them. The best way to do that is get the word out and be persistent.
.

[frohme]

Well, it has been four years since the last update to this thread - the removal of Bradley and non-TPG-only confirmation of Neal Ball in June/July 2022. Thought it would be a good time to revisit status and add comments/observations.

Confirmation still stands at 145 cards, out of the possible 155 cards usually seen with any Recruit-class back.

I separate the missing 10 into two groups:

The first group of five are those I fully expect to be found ... eventually:

• Erwin - Brooklyn
• Graney - Cleveland
• Willie Mitchell - Cleveland
• Northen - Brooklyn
• Sullivan - Chicago AL

The second group of five are all on the variation cards:

• Austin (StL) S Louis AL
• Fisher (Blue cap) - New York AL
• Mullin (D) - Detroit
• Livingston (small c) - Cleveland
• Livingston (big C) - Cleveland

To me, finding any of the unconfirmed variations would imply that they should all be found. As it stands, the lack of confirmation of the 'corrected' variations (as some would argue), has possible implications as to when the Napoleon cards might have been released with respect to the larger T207 release cycle(s).

There are generally perceived difficulties in finding players on certain teams with the Napoleon back. It seems Brooklyn, Boston (both leagues), and Chicago (both leagues) are notoriously difficult, though it varies a bit from player to player.

Having gathered 126 of the 145 confirmed cards in the Napoleon starting in about 2010, I don't expect to be able to complete the subset given the current state of things. They just don't show up and when they do, competition can be crazy. In addition, ~2/3 of the remaining ones for me are on the teams listed above, for each of which there are team collectors looking to complete their own runs.

Not unsurprisingly, I suspect, these team-related difficulties mostly mirror patterns seen with the anonymous factory 3 Recruit subset of 49 50 cards, where Boston (AL) - 12, Chicago (AL) - 8, Brooklyn - 6, Boston (NL) - 5 and StL (AL) - 5 account for 36 of the 49 50 known cards... with the Cubs being an outlier as they have no known Recruit cards with the Anon Factory 3 back.

So check your T207 backs and if you have any of the ones listed above, a note for confirmation to move this thread and our collective knowledge forward would be most appreciated.

-
Mike

[Leon]

Thanks for your research for the hobby, Mike.

(for those that don't know, Mike and I played little league together...small world)

Originally Posted by frohme

Well, it has been four years since the last update to this thread - the removal of Bradley and non-TPG-only confirmation of Neal Ball in June/July 2022. Thought it would be a good time to revisit status and add comments/observations.

Confirmation still stands at 145 cards, out of the possible 155 cards usually seen with any Recruit-class back.

I separate the missing 10 into two groups:

The first group of five are those I fully expect to be found ... eventually:

• Erwin - Brooklyn
• Graney - Cleveland
• Willie Mitchell - Cleveland
• Northen - Brooklyn
• Sullivan - Chicago AL

The second group of five are all on the variation cards:

• Austin (StL) S Louis AL
• Fisher (Blue cap) - New York AL
• Mullin (D) - Detroit
• Livingston (small c) - Cleveland
• Livingston (big C) - Cleveland

To me, finding any of the unconfirmed variations would imply that they should all be found. As it stands, the lack of confirmation of the 'corrected' variations (as some would argue), has possible implications as to when the Napoleon cards might have been released with respect to the larger T207 release cycle(s).

There are generally perceived difficulties in finding players on certain teams with the Napoleon back. It seems Brooklyn, Boston (both leagues), and Chicago (both leagues) are notoriously difficult, though it varies a bit from player to player.

Having gathered 126 of the 145 confirmed cards in the Napoleon starting in about 2010, I don't expect to be able to complete the subset given the current state of things. They just don't show up and when they do, competition can be crazy. In addition, ~2/3 of the remaining ones for me are on the teams listed above, for each of which there are team collectors looking to complete their own runs.

Not unsurprisingly, I suspect, these team-related difficulties mostly mirror patterns seen with the anonymous factory 3 Recruit subset of 49 cards, where Boston (AL) - 12, Chicago (AL) - 8, Brooklyn - 6, Boston (NL) - 5 and StL (AL) - 5 account for 36 of the 49 known cards... with the Cubs being an outlier as they have no known Recruit cards with the Anon Factory 3 back.

So check your T207 backs and if you have any of the ones listed above, a note for confirmation to move this thread and our collective knowledge forward would be most appreciated.

-
Mike

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Leon

Thanks for your research for the hobby, Mike.

(for those that don't know, Mike and I played little league together...small world)

I can imagine you two in the dugout, Mike digging out a prewar type card from the back pocket of his uniform to swap Leon for a Broadleaf T207 on Mike's wantlist.

Brian

[frohme]

Originally Posted by Leon

Thanks for your research for the hobby, Mike.

(for those that don't know, Mike and I played little league together...small world)

Thanks, Leon - ahhhh to be back in those days, knowing what we know now...

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

I can imagine you two in the dugout, Mike digging out a prewar type card from the back pocket of his uniform to swap Leon for a Broadleaf T207 on Mike's wantlist.

Brian

That was good for a laugh, Brian - well played.

[frohme]

Have an update based on a run-through of SGC's pop-report for T207 Napoleon ... which I've been through before, but not recently... I hesitate to use Pop Reports in general, and though SGC is the only one that covers the T207 backs (AFAIK), they're not always good at getting them right. That said, I'm including the results here for completeness (with questionable accuracy)... i.e. take from this what you will.

Of the 257 Napoleon's recorded as of today (14 Nov, 2024) ... 124 different poses are present. Ferry leads all comers with 7 copies, Collins and McGraw are close behind with 6 and Wiltse and Zeider are nipping at their heels with 5. The most telling numbers are that 47 poses only have 1 copy graded, with another 42 only having 2, for a combined 89 of the 124 poses.

There was one surprise, as there is a graded copy of Erwin - presently unconfirmed - reducing the number unconfirmed by 1. He is now marked with a * as was previously the custom. None of the 'corrected' variations was present in the report, nor any of the other 4 unconfirmed poses - Graney, Mitchell (Willie), Northen, Sullivan.

[frohme]

Adding confirmation of Jack Graney, with input from a board member - thanks for the photos, Tom!



Graney takes the unconfirmed T207 Napoleon list down to just 8 or 9, with 5 of those being the 'corrected' variations...with Willie Mitchell, Northen, Sullivan as the true holdouts at this point. As ever, any and all input warmly welcomed!

Thanks!
--
Mike

[frohme]

From REA Lot 576 last night ...

Not my card ...


So only Willie Mitchell and Northen are left as the non-variations, though visual confirmation of Erwin from the SGC pop report is still needed. No other changes - all 5 of the 'corrected' Recruit variations are still unconfirmed. Count is now 147/150 (or 155) confirmed.

--
Mike