Collector's Note: Krause's SCD Standard Catalog Of Baseball Cards, which does a bang-up job of doing it's best to catalog this bankruptcy issue, and coincidentally kicks the ass of Beckett. (after 8 years of so-called "research" - Beckett still cannot identify the base issues - selective incompetence?)
However,
the Standard Catalog does make one assumption that I disagree with. They price
the Numbers inserts based on what Pinnacle had planned to do. That is:
Issue as many cards as was relevant to the statistical "number". In
Frank's case we're talking 347 cards. But it's important to note that since
these cards were not issued, the numbers of the cards in existence do not match
or reflect the original intent. I've only seen two of these issues being sold
in public auctions and I infer the existence of at least five others held in
private collections, making a (speculated) grand total of 7 in existence.
I can't logically take the position that there aren't 347, just that
it seems highly improbable that there are that many running around. Ask yourself
this: How many have you seen? Don't you think, if there really were three-hundred
and forty-seven of these guys out in the market, we collectors would've seen
at least a few more trade hands in the last eight years?
So a pricing tier, even if only an estimate, based on the "proposed print
run" is incorrect. If you look in the Standard Catalog - Frank's Numbers
Promo is priced according to an issue run of 347, and other players are priced
according to their Numbers. As I said, I believe this to be incorrect based
on the actual number of cards actually identified across the many years of auctions
on eBay, Yahoo, various auction publications, and auction sites that I monitor.
I
believe a better, and more accurate, solution is to not list a price at all.
Instead placing a "n/a" or "subject to market" type disclaimer
for cards that are very limited.
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