On the trail of the Lonesome Pine

Who would have ever believed a generic photo of the Lone Pine would finally push me past the Bill Berry long-standing record of 77% completion within a block of 100 Sanborn RPPCs?

Apologies for this view, recycled from Sanborn's pre-Sawyer days and likely first released under this newly-assigned alphanumeric code about the time the actual Lone Pine out on High Drive lacked most of its needles and branches and was soon to blow away, one likely reason this particular card sold so poorly.

The significance of the shot is minimal, the significance to my collection is palpable, as in my heart started palpating when it showed up on Ebay, because it meant, once I acquired it, I had pushed the needle in the R-1500 block in my collection from 77 to 78, thus besting a record I didn't think would be surpassed in my collecting lifetime, that of Bill Berry's acquisition of 77 out of 100 potential views released by Sanborn, albeit in a different block.   (For non-collectors, acquiring any more than 50 out of 100 in a block is a true accomplishment in the Sanborn world, because within any given block, it was unlikely for Sanborn to print more than 50 different views in numbers greater than 500, and quite likely 25 of these views in the block wouldn't sell, thus wouldn't justify a reprinting, meaning the initial print run of 25 for these 25 views might be the entire print run.  Ask yourself how many copies of a 2-cent postcard printed 25 times back in the 1940s would be expected to be around in our disposable society 80 years later.)

So the record of 77 in the R-800 block still stands, but it gives me hope that even that cluster, which sees me lagging well behind 77 to the point of embarrassment, may someday find another person at its summit.

If none of this means anything to particular readers, I'm not sure I care.  Victories in the Sanborn collecting world are hard to come by, and most people don't collect Sanborn postcards of the area because it is too difficult and time consuming and requires actual work or unlimited funds.  The unlimited funds part is not how this milestone was achieved, in fact, the record of this purchase price will still be searchable in Ebay's "sold" archives for the next few months, because there aren't a lot of "Lonesome Pine" Colorado postcards clogging the system.  It was known as the Lone Pine to locals, and only Sanborn and a couple other outsiders insisted on lazily referring to it with a pop culture name.