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

[drc]

Talk to James Beckett for ideas. He was a statistics professor.

[Peter_Spaeth]

If there are 5000 Red Cobbs that means only 1 in 60,000 Americans, give or take, owns one; and since many collectors own multiples the number probably gets much higher. Does this sound right?

[FrankWakefield]

Peter, that sounds right... if red Cobb T206s are only owned by Americans.


But I suspect that a few are owned by non-Americans. And I agree that several folks own more than one.

So maybe 12 to 15 people in a city of a million own a red Cobb. Maybe 6 or 7 of those dozen or so have one of each of the 4 Cobbs.



I still think my low tens of thousands is about right. 12k to 15k... who knows?

[tedzan]

Sorry to disagree with you; but, a simple division of 300 Meg/5 K is very misleading.
First of all, 1/2 the population are women and 99.99% of them don't collect BB cards.
Then of the male population another significant portion of it doesn't fall into the age
brackets that would most likely collect vintage BB cards. When you boil it all down,
a fair estimate is that approx. 2000-4000 T206 collectors are out there. Some who
have (or strive to) complete this set and others who collect HOFer's or their favorite
players.

Yes, there are some collectors who have multiples of the Red Cobb, I have complete
sets of Piedmont, Sovereign, and Sweet Cap (Factory 30) which include 4 red Cobb's
between them. But then, I'm a very rare exception to the norm.

I think Scot Reader's 6000 estimate is very close to the actual red Cobb population.
And, his numbers on the other 3 - T206 Cobb's are very representative of what we
have repeatedly seen in T206 surveys.


TED Z