T206 Back Scarcity, Pricing, and Other Tidbits

[53toppscollector]

Originally Posted by HobokenJon

Grazie.

You’re right about brown Hindu backs being overrated, of course. But they look so, so cool.

When I look at the numbers, the glaring candidates for most overrated are the Polar Bear Demmitt and O’Hara. I realize these subjects are less common than most Piedmont and Sweet Cap backs, and it’s also true that every 520 set needs both. But they are not rare. A Tolstoi Demmitt (N.Y.) is far rarer than a Polar Bear Demmitt (St. Louis), just as an Old Mill Magee is much scarcer than a Piedmont Magie error card. Maybe someday more Monster collectors will care.

I'm of two minds on the O'Hara and Demmitt. I mean, the only way to get that FRONT is to get a Polar Bear back, and there are a finite number of them available, thus, limiting the ability to get a complete 520 set to whatever the actual population is on those 2 cards. My counts from a few months ago have Demmitt at 292 and O'Hara at 269. There is a raw Demmitt on ebay now. Where I do agree though is that the Southern Leaguers, though expensive, are FAR less expensive despite their low population counts. For example, the 10 cards with the lowest TOTAL populations (all fronts/backs) are

O'Hara STL (269)
Demmitt STL (292)
Cranston (366)
Violat (379)
Helm (389)
Mullaney (391)
Ryan (411)
Hickman (422)
Perdue (423)
Greminger (426)

There are about 100 more copies of a Cranston compared to O'Hara STL. That is a difference....but is it that huge of a difference? You can pick up a Cranston in low grade for less than $150-200. O'Hara STL goes for like $3k-4k now.

Theoretically, the max number of T206 520 card sets is 269.....obviously there are likely a bunch of raw copies out there, and I suspect some of the cards have been crossed over so the 269 is close, but not exact. If we say 300, that means there can only be 300 sets of 520, which does make that card pretty important, all things considered. Assuming you care about a 520 set, of course

The idea of putting together a master set is really interesting. I assume David Hall gave up on his project because he started to hit a lot of the 1 of 1s and when he found who had the card and they said they wouldn't sell, he didn't want to wait 5 years to see if another copy surfaced.