I surveyed close to 25,000 graded T205 cards, here are the results (full data added)

[53toppscollector]

Originally Posted by h2oya311

James - very interesting research idea. Thanks for sharing your results with us. I knew the Piedmont 42s were rare, but didn’t think they were “Drum” rare. I’m still a little peeved that I sold a huge lot of T205s a few years back via an AH and mentioned that there were several Piedmont 42s in there (probably 30-40% of the 80 or so but they still chose to lump everything together as one large lot. If only I could turn back time…

Therein lies the conundrum. The market for T205s just doesn't exist in the same universe as T206. T206s are much much more populous and available, and they command better prices across the board than T205s. The demand/desire for T206 is why T205 prices arent close. I've picked up a bunch of American Beauty/Cycle/P42 backs for between $20-30. That would be unheard of for T206. I wonder at some point if T205s will gain in popularity, but I have my doubts, even though I think the set is majestic and incredible.

[Musashi]

Well at least this seems to confirm my theory that I should jump on Piedmont 42's whenever I get the chance -especially when they're buried in group lots. Someday, the market will catch up.

[53toppscollector]

Originally Posted by Musashi

Well at least this seems to confirm my theory that I should jump on Piedmont 42's whenever I get the chance -especially when they're buried in group lots. Someday, the market will catch up.

Even here, it really comes down to relative scarcity, which is a topic Luke talked about a lot on his site for T206s. If you look at the grouping of cards above with 5 backs, you see this grouping (not short prints but less commons, whatever you want to call them) are all much more populous when it comes to Piedmont 42s. For those cards, the average number of Piedmont 42s per subject is around 10. If you remove those 11 subjects and look at the other 63 subjects that have a Piedmont 42 back, the average per card is only 5 per subject. I found that 28 of the 63 had between 1-3 copies of the P42. Why are those 11 fronts so unique with having an outsized portion of their backs being Piedmont 42s? I'm not sure.

[Leon]

Great research. Thanks for sharing!
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[brianp-beme]

Even though my preferred way of collecting, T205 cards included, is ungraded, I love seeing the results of all the work you have done. Thanks for sharing!

Zack "Broadleaf" Wheat came to see what all the fuss was about, and even 3 of his friends stopped by and were blown away by all the T205 information available.


Brian

[Misunderestimated]

Thanks So Much For Sharing Your Results !

[notfast]

This thread is a great read. Thanks for posting.

Now I just wish I could find someone wanting to move a low grade p42 Cobb.