T206 Joe Doyle Question (or "The Uncommon Common")

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Posted By: Art M.

A slight correction to the Larry Fritsch story from the early 1980's.
True, Larry did run ads in the hobby papers offering to buy ANY T206 Doyle card for $3.00 each after finding this variation in 1980. And the Doyle cards did pour in by the hundreds, but none were the Doyle, N.Y. Nat'l variation.
While this scenario would seem to make the Doyle, hands over head, pose a less common card it would also follow that the Doyle portrait, Doyle batting, and Doyle throwing would be as tough since Larry was buying ALL Doyle cards. And they are not.
I have always believed that the Doyle, hands over head pose is tougher to find because:
1. Popular card for counterfeiters.
2. The caption for this card was changed during the print runs. Same for the Magie/Magee and the few other changes that were made. For sake of argument, lets say that 5000 of each card was to be printed. Maybe 20 sheets with Doyle cards got out with N.Y. Nat'l. and then the change was made and the remaining 480 sheets came out with N.Y. So there would be as many "Doyle, hands over head" cards as the others but they would be divided between the N.Y. version (98% maybe) and the N.Y. Nat'l. (2% maybe).
So any card printed along with Doyle on the sheet would have 5000 copies, but the Doyle (common) and Doyle (rare) would have to be combined to total 5000.
I hope that makes sense.