I have been working on this set for years. I finally have it complete and am trying to upgrade the set to VG or better. My question is, why do you see about 40 cards from the set frequently and the other 10 are almost non-existent? For example, on Ebay over the past 2 years, I have seen at least 10 examples of Capt. Kidd, Montbar, Jack Avery and others while you almost NEVER see Mary Reid, Blackbeard, Bart Roberts and a few others. Was this set possibly printed in series or are some cards short printed? After a few years of following these I have noticed rather at a show or auction you always see a handful of characters but rarely see a few others.

thanks, Chris

great accomplishment even completing this set to begin with.............one I have not undertaken yet........I have a few, but not that many..........as for the individual cards, I think all the A&G Stuff, for the most part, seems to be distributed pretty evenly. I don't know what could explain the differences in those numbers you reported other than the pirates in the set are 'real' people and maybe more people seek out Blackbeard (obviously), Mary Reid as a female pirate, and so on. I could see some of that similar to the N28/N29 Buffalo Bills & Annie Oakley's going for more than a wrestler or oarsman say..........don't know. Maybe someone more skilled in the N19 set can chime in...........

...about the theme-collecting thing perhaps skewing the number of cards available within a given set...N28 Annie Oakley is one example...and, the only N19 card I own is Mary Read, since she fits into my "reasonably attractive female pictures" grouping, and she's the only one from this set I'd keep...(the Anne Bonny image in N19 isn't real appealing to me)...maybe if there are enough collectors out there with similar eccentricities, it could affect the distribution we find, today?

I thought she was in your "hot pirate chicks" category, not "reasonably attractive female pictures"

...for another category...like I need to start any more new ones

...and am actually afraid to look too hard at N19, lest I see a dog in one of the tiny background pictures...would then have to have that one, too...this is the madness of topical collecting (a terrible spillover from philately)...

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...and I doubt that anyone else is interested, but I keep thinking of more Mary Read cards...the blonde hair job aside, Fleer certainly didn't try to glamorize this historical figure...