Opinions welcomed and requested on the number of t206 Cobbs in existence.

jbbama · #1 07-16-2009, 09:23 AM

Thanks guys............it would be tough to know the amount of raw cards still out there, however , i could get an idea of some numbers by accounting for the graded issues of each Cobb from (PSA, SGC,BVG). Just a thought?

T206Collector · #2 07-16-2009, 09:40 AM

That is what I was talking about. From Scot Reader's book:

Thus, if one assumes that roughly 200 of each of these rare subjects remain in existence, and further assumes that survival rates for these subjects conform with those of other subjects, the surviving quantity of a typical 350-only subject is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000. Finally, assuming for the sake of rough-and-ready calculation uniformity of survival among series, the total number of T206 specimens in existence today is estimable in the general vicinity of 1.6 million. Of course, if there are 400 examples each of Demmitt (St. Louis) and O.Hara (St. Louis) extant instead of 200, the presumed number of T206 cards with us today doubles to 3.2 million, or about 6,000 per subject on average, under this same analysis.

In any case, of the likely hundreds of millions of specimens initially produced, it seems highly probable that the number of T206 cards in existence today is in the low singledigit millions, or a few thousand for a typical subject. This is quite possibly less than one percent of the original production, with the vast majority of these survivors being in lower grade.

If Red Cobb's were double-printed, you'd be at about 10,000 for those. And then you could deduce from relative scarcity how many of the others might be there. Again, this is all rife speculation, but I like his analysis.

You can read the whole darn thing here (and yes, it takes into account relative numbers of cards graded by PSA, etc.):

http://www.oldcardboard.com/t/t206/I...-3-edition.pdf

barrysloate · #3 07-16-2009, 09:42 AM

12,000 seems high...I'll guess half that number, or 6000. It is based on nothing scientific.

tedzan · #4 07-16-2009, 10:26 AM

PAUL M

With all due respect....I have read and re-read Scot's book several times....and, have contributed to it.

Now, you cite this in your above comments......
" the surviving quantity of a typical 350-only subject "

Scot was specifically referring to his estimate of the surviving quantities of the Demmitt & O'Hara (St Louis vars.),
which are in the 350-only subject Series. He did not refer to any of the Cobb's.

And as you know, none of the four Cobb's are in the 350-only Series. For those who aren't sure......
The Green and Bat On Cobb's are in the 150/350 Series.
And, the Red and Bat Off Cobb's are in the 350/460 Series.

Furthermore, the Red Cobb leads the "T206 pack" with at least 24 different T-backs; therefore, any attempt to
extrapolate how many of this Cobb are available by using normal T206 estimates is a virtually impossible task.
This T206 Subject is in a class of its own.

TED Z

T206Collector · #5 07-16-2009, 10:51 AM

...baseball card populations that can't be proven one way or the other. But it is fun to guesstimate.

Given that you are willing to put a 2:1 ratio down for Red:Green Cobbs, why wouldn't you also try to extrapolate total population?

"With all due respect....I have read and re-read Scot's book several times....and, have contributed to it."

Also, if it is a measure of competency here, I have read, re-read, re-re-read and contributed to Scot's book as well. I also sent him $25.00 when he first came out with it because I felt like I shouldn't get such a cool book for free.

FrankWakefield · #6 07-16-2009, 02:02 PM

Speculation from all of us, no way to ever know... but general guesses based on our experience would have some of us thinking there are tens of thousands of Cobb T206s, not hundreds, but tens. I'd think the very low tens... And when you add up all of the pop reports on the slabbed ones it is a certainty that there are fewer slabbed Cobbs out there than the numbers suggest. Some have been broken out and remain that way, some have been reslabbed. That renders those hard population report numbers inaccurate.

fkw · #7 07-17-2009, 11:10 PM

Ive always heard and thought a good guess is about 2,000-3,000 of ea. card out there. The "green" and "bat on" would be in the 2,000 range and the "red" and "bat off" in the 3,000 range IMO

This is not fact just a guess based on an estimate that there are about 1,000,000 T206 cards surviving today.