T3 Turkey Red Scarcity List

[FrankWakefield]

"A survey was taken in 1981. Eleven collectors of T3's were polled. Combined, they owned 725 T3's and 76 T9's. The following observations were made... Of the 11 collectors polled only two had card #114, Rhoades. There were at least six of all other players."

Lew Lipset - The Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, Volume 3.


Those collectors were collecting toward completing a set, searching for one of each, not accumulating duplicates.


I'm not saying that the Rhoades card is scarce. It is nowhere near T206's Wagner, Plank, Magie, or the Polar Bear cards of Demmitt and O'Hara; nowhere near as tough as E90-1's Mitchell; nor T207's Lowdermilk; nor T210's Jackson or Stengel.

Mr. Lipset notes that the series 2 backs that omit the premium offer and mailing address are much more difficult to locate than the other backs, but that (at the time of his printing) there is only a small price premium. And, Mr. Lipset says "There are no great rarities in the T3 series... "

Having said all of that, tracking down a T3 Rhoades is a chore. I was after one 14 years before I almost got one, a west coast dealer sold it out from under me, knowing that it was on my short want list he had, he said he just didn't bother to check the list. 4 more years and I snagged one.

I think if we surveyed all board members we'd find that there are more of us that don't have a T3 Rhoades than there are that do. And I think our population for them would not reflect the reality of what's out there. I have about 4 T3's. Rhoades is the only one I'd sought for years, the others I gathered in because of the opportunity at the moment. That would be the deal for several of us here. If we surveyed all of our T206 holdings, the folks that collect a team, or HOFers, or a particular HOFer would skew our survey so that it didn't reflect the proportions of all cards. I'll dig around and see if I can find a scan of mine, or dig down to the card itself and scan it. In the meantime, for those who say that finding a Rhoades card isn't so difficult, I look forward to seeing theirs. I think Mr. Lipset had it about right...

[Bicem]

I stand by my statement.

[Bicem]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Having said all of that, tracking down a T3 Rhoades is a chore. I was after one 14 years before I almost got one...

14 years?! Did you try looking?

How many have sold publicly in the past five years? 4 or 5? To me, that is a lot, regardless if board members have them to post or not.

[Rob D.]

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[FrankWakefield]

Well Jeff, you continue to think there's lots of them out there. I won't think that. Tony can think what he wants.

I'd reckon more than 4 or 5 Wagner T206's have been sold the last five years, that doesn't mean that there's lots of them out there to me.

Final time; I don't think any of the T3s are rare. I think if you stacked them all up in piles, the pile of Rhoades cards would be the least tall. The cards where multiple teams are listed (eg Tenney) and the action piles wouldn't be very tall, either. I'm not counting transactions, nor am I counting how often a particular card has been graded by someone... I'm counting cards. And of the T3's, Rhoades cards are less plentiful than the others. Will still await folks posting their Rhoades cards that they actually have.

[drumback]

I would consider adding Smith to the list of tough ones. Otherwise, It's Myers, Bescher, Bransfield, Paskert, Rhoades, Tenney and Wilson. When I put my set together, the last one I was able to track down with decent eye appeal was Myers.

Also, I'm not totally convinced they weren't all printed in the same quantity. In the advertising, if I recall correctly, the company reserved the right to send an alternate card if they ran out of the one requested by the customer. I believe they may have resorted to this regularly. How else can you explain the fact that there appear to be only three times as many cards of Cobb as there are of your average common?

If a similar promotion were started today, and two of the players were, say, Albert Pujols and Billy Butler, would you only get three times as many requests for Pujols? It would probably be something more like 10 to 1, or 20 to 1. Cobb was at the peak of his career. His ratio over someone like, say, Bill Burns should have been more in the 20 to 1 ratio than the 3 to 1 ratio. Same with Matty, who was probably the most popular player in America in 1911. But according to the PSA population report, which I admit I also haven't seen in over a year, Cobb's ratio over Burns is something like 3 to 1. Matty's is even less than that. Also, consider that since Cobb is much more valuable than Burns, he is likely to get graded at a much higher percentage of his total number of cards printed than Burns. That would make the difference between them even smaller still.

If this is true, the question then becomes, what happened to all of the common cards printed but never requested or shipped out? Most likely, they were destroyed. Otherwise, they would have eventually made their way into the collecting public, and there would be just as many Burns as Cobbs on the market.

Here's a weak scan of my Rhoades (PSA 2).

[Bicem]

Craig once showed me a pic of like 5 Rhoades cards he owned fanned out across each other, it was pretty cool, maybe he'll share that one.

[majordanby]

Here's the rhoades i once owned. i think i sold it around a half year to a year later because of financial hardship. it sold below my purchase price, which was obviously disappointing.