T206 — The Virtual Monster

Submission Policies

• PSA certifications are verified automatically at submission against the PSA public registry
• SGC certifications are accepted pending brief administrative review against the SGC registry
• BGS, CSG, and other third-party graders are accepted pending administrative review
• Raw (ungraded) cards are accepted with front and back scans at 300 DPI minimum
• Submitters are credited by their chosen handle for bringing the example to the record; credit reflects documentation, not ownership
• You do not need to own the card to submit it — a cert number that can be verified against the PSA or SGC registry is sufficient for graded submissions
• If a cert has already been confirmed in the archive, subsequent submissions of the same cert number are blocked as duplicates
• When two graded submissions carry equal grades, PSA and SGC are ranked above other graders; at equal grade and grader, the earlier submission date holds Finest Known — first to document is first in the record
• Qualified grades (OC, MC, ST, MK, PD, etc.) are ranked using the PSA Registry deduction scale: grades 4–9 with any qualifier are treated as two points lower for Finest Known purposes; grades 2–3 lose one point; grades 1 and 1.5 are unaffected — a PSA 8(OC) ranks as a PSA 6
• Suspected forgeries or authentication concerns are flagged and reviewed by the administrative panel

Checklist Philosophy

• A combination is marked Confirmed when at least one graded submission with a verifiable cert exists
• A combination is marked Attested when submitted with front and back scans but no grading cert; scans alone do not upgrade a combination to Confirmed — only a submitted and verified cert number does
• A combination is marked Reported when present in the Bill Brown checklist but not yet submitted to this archive
• Combinations outside the Bill Brown checklist are not assumed to exist by default; they may be submitted through the Attested pathway and, if confirmed with a valid PSA or SGC cert, are added to the archive immediately
• New combination discoveries submitted with BGS, CSG, or other third-party certs are accepted pending administrative review before Confirmed status is granted
• Back variations (factory numbers, series text) are treated as distinct combinations
• The Graded Finest Known title is held by the single highest-graded confirmed submission per combination and updates automatically whenever a superior example is documented
• The Raw Finest title for each combination is determined by community vote — one vote per registered collector per combination. Where no votes exist, the earliest submitted raw example holds the title by default. Casting a vote for a different submission transfers the title immediately

Curatorial Decisions

The Virtual Monster's checklist is anchored to Bill Brown's T206 Super Set Checklist, the most widely respected community reference document. Several edge cases required explicit decisions:

• Ty Cobb back — excluded. The Ty Cobb cigarette brand back appears on exactly one card (Cobb's red portrait) and is widely regarded as a novelty rather than a standard advertising back. Because it does not appear in Bill Brown's checklist, it is excluded here for consistency. Collectors who wish to document a Ty Cobb-backed Cobb may note it in their submission's comments field.
• Blank backs — treated as printing errors, not a back variety. Cards with no back printing are production defects — unintended byproducts of the manufacturing process rather than a deliberate advertising configuration. They are not catalogued as a distinct back in this archive. Blank-backed cards may be submitted and will be noted in the combination record, but they do not generate a separate checklist entry.
• Old Mill Southern League Brown ink — treated as a printing anomaly, not a separate back. The overwhelming majority of Old Mill Southern League backs are printed in black ink. The rare brown-ink variant is generally considered by advanced collectors and major auction houses to be a press artifact rather than an intentional back variation. Cards bearing this characteristic may be submitted and will be flagged as a brown-ink variant within the Old Mill Southern League entry, but they do not constitute a separate combination for Finest Known purposes.

These decisions are not immutable. If community consensus shifts — or if compelling new scholarship emerges — the curatorial stance can be revisited. The goal is a stable, defensible baseline, not the last word.