What were some of your most difficult cards/sets to find 4 sale; perhaps took many years 2 show up?

Estil

Forgive me if I'm not explaining the title exact right... but you guys know how over the years I've been really excited about landing some really neat sets (I'm a set collector) that were relatively affordable (no more than a few hundred, at most, but often <$100) but extremely rare (in the early to mid 90s 10,000 or less (remember the Elites from 1991-93 or so?) of each card was exceptionally limited edition, especially the whole regular set in parallel insert form) and took many years to even show up for sale at all. Or sometimes (as I explain in one of my entries below) you'd think it wouldn't be all that rare...yet for whatever reason I had to wait years and years for even one complete set to even show up (singles and sometimes wax boxes would show up, but never any sets). To be clear, I'm talking about the cards/set themselves to be really hard to find for sale at all on Ebay or elsewhere...NOT "hard to find in a certain PSA grade" or something. So anyway here are my all-time biggest catches over the years:

1995-2001 Ultra Gold Medallion Sets (YES with all SP's) - I would say this would be my all-time best capture/acquisition/whatever. Sometime around the early part of the decade I think I was able to get the 1996-98 sets in one purchase, 1999-2000 a little later, and 2001 maybe a year or two ago. I managed to already get the 1995 GM set (I think) around late 2000s or so? But what's really neat is that a few years back I was able to get a really affordable "starter set group" of about half of the GM insert sets! The ones I'm still lacking are listed below...wow wouldn't that be quite a prize to finish a complete master set of 1995 Ultra GM?

1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection Set - This I just got a couple months ago...we really had to push our budget to the limit but we somehow were able to capture it (by "we" I mean me and my better half of course). I never thought in a million years I'd ever get a chance to get anything like this...there are only 6500 of each card (only enough for a couple in each US county) so to actually build a set without spending a fortune (especially if it was done back in 1994 before the Internet/Ebay) would be nearly impossible. It's also a really neat hi-tech looking Dufex set too isn't it? I guess not I got a good excuse to get the 1992-93 Pinnacle sets and their inserts someday! I don't yet have the five redemption only cards though.

1995 Score Platinum Set - You guys remember how excited I was to get this? As I should have! I was able to get it for a really good price and it's a gorgeous set with sparkling rainbow color fronts on each card and only 4950 of each were made. The only way you could get these was to get all the Gold Rush cards of a team (Series 1 or Series 2) along with the redemption card. 28 teams times 2 series means you needed to send away for 56 seperate team sets...pretty darn tough! Especially in 1995 when the Internet was only in its infancy.

1988 & 1989 Kentucky Collegiate Collection Sets - Now this one you'd think shouldn't be very hard to find. After all there are billions of those North Carolina ones with the Jordans that the infamous Shop-At-Home wrongly screamed were "JORDAN COLLEGE ROOKIES!!!!" (no, that doesn't count if the set is a "history of the team" theme and it came out several years after Jordan's UNC days). Anyway you'd think the Kentucky version wouldn't be that hard...sure you can find singles and sometimes wax boxes of 1989 but it took me several years just for a good 1989 set (and later the even harder still to find 1988 set) to even show up on Ebay at all. But it's worth it for any member of Big Blue Nation to have...especially one like myself who also happens to have two BA's (class of '03) from there as well.

Early-to-mid 90s Insert Sets Project - I think I've been working on this for the past, oh, 15 years or so? Naturally I started with 1994-95 Fleer & Ultra baseball because of the whole nostalgia thing (back then I could only get a few packs at a time and it was fun to see if I could get a really good insert...I only pulled maybe a few worth $10 at most though. But once I realized around the mid 2000's or so how affordable it is to get the insert sets of the early to mid 90s (for the most part) I thought why not see if I can master sets from that era? A few years later I decided to also try for the Fleer/Ultra football/basketball insert sets as well because the Fleer/Ultra inserts were by far the best designed I think. The mid 90s were the golden age of "insertmania" and with most of the sets being affordable...why not go for the master sets? They're the same cards as when the first came out right? I made a topic a short time ago at the For Sale/Trade section the insert sets I'm still lacking if you want to check it out.

So that's my stories, what about yours? Did you also have any highly coveted cards/sets that while probably relatively affordable...for whatever reason (whether they were really limited edition or not) seemed like they would never come up for sale at all. I'm sure with the above examples you guys will get what I mean.

doubledragon

Pretty much every freakin Joe Louis card.

Estil

@doubledragon said:
Pretty much every freakin Joe Louis card.

Did they even do boxing cards in his era? I know that one guy on here who showed off those really rare DiMaggio cards would certainly qualify...I think IIRC one of the cards is so rare the highest known condition is a mere PSA 3.

I think I even made a topic several years back about whether there are any lost baseball cards (were known to exist at one point but no surviving copies are known to exist...obviously 1/1's don't count)

doubledragon

@Estil said:

@doubledragon said:
Pretty much every freakin Joe Louis card.

Did they even do boxing cards in his era? I know that one guy on here who showed off those really rare DiMaggio cards would certainly qualify...I think IIRC one of the cards is so rare the highest known condition is a mere PSA 3.

I think I even made a topic several years back about whether there are any lost baseball cards (were known to exist at one point but no surviving copies are known to exist...obviously 1/1's don't count)

Yeah, a lot of Louis's cards are hard to find. Some from his era and a lot that came after he retired. A lot are out of my price range, but it's fun to fish for them, especially when you land a whopper.

countdouglas

In relation to the supply of uncut sheets of Topps baseball from 1975-1993 listed on eBay, it seems that you'll rarely see sheets for 1986 Topps baseball come up for sale. The design that year necessitates that half the cards be printed upside down, which makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy as a display piece. I don't know if this suppressed the popularity, and therefore the manufacturing and sales of uncut sheets from 1986 was less than the surrounding years, but they definitely were tough for me to track down compared to the other years I was searching for.

Estil

@doubledragon said:
Yeah, a lot of Louis's cards are hard to find. Some from his era and a lot that came after he retired. A lot are out of my price range, but it's fun to fish for them, especially when you land a whopper.

Oh I totally understand! It's hard for even a king to land a Whopper!

https://youtu.be/tx_-ZANCSBc

From deleted part: You guys better not sell these autographs on Ebay!

Tere1071

Here are some Heritage cards I've been waiting for:

2008 Pedroia logo variation; Pedro Martinez and Neftali Feliz b/w portrait variations.
2012 Carlos Pena error; Corey Hart color swap
2013 common Washington Nationals Throwback
2014-15 Throwbacks

I know many others could be cited, but this is what I am collecting currently

Estil

Just how hard is it to get them? Like, are they serial numbered, really high pack seeding odds...?

The Heritage cards do look quite fascinating but I don't think I could ever afford to get all caught up on them (even just the regular sets?), not even close. Still next year will be the 1971 Hertiage which has always had a soft spot in my heart....the original set I mean.

tulsaboy

@countdouglas said:
In relation to the supply of uncut sheets of Topps baseball from 1975-1993 listed on eBay, it seems that you'll rarely see sheets for 1986 Topps baseball come up for sale. The design that year necessitates that half the cards be printed upside down, which makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy as a display piece. I don't know if this suppressed the popularity, and therefore the manufacturing and sales of uncut sheets from 1986 was less than the surrounding years, but they definitely were tough for me to track down compared to the other years I was searching for.

Do you actually have 1986 uncut sheets? I haven't ever seen one.
kevin

countdouglas

@tulsaboy said:

@countdouglas said:
In relation to the supply of uncut sheets of Topps baseball from 1975-1993 listed on eBay, it seems that you'll rarely see sheets for 1986 Topps baseball come up for sale. The design that year necessitates that half the cards be printed upside down, which makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy as a display piece. I don't know if this suppressed the popularity, and therefore the manufacturing and sales of uncut sheets from 1986 was less than the surrounding years, but they definitely were tough for me to track down compared to the other years I was searching for.

Do you actually have 1986 uncut sheets? I haven't ever seen one.
kevin

Yes, I lucked into a listing for a complete set of 6 sheets and quickly pounced on it, very similarly, I'm sure, to @doubledragon on Joe Louis cards. It's the only time I've seen a complete set anywhere, and 3 of the 6 sheets I had never seen listed individually, ever.... When I get around to it, I'll take some pics and update one of my previous threads that I started about uncut sheets. It may not be until after the weekend.

RedHeart54

1995-96 Topps Home Grown Canada Steve Yzerman. I'm convinced this is a short print. It took me just until last year to have ever seen an image of this card. (For a while I thought it was just mistakenly place on the set's checklist.) A couple have come up on eBay since but I was of course outbid.

bishop

Topps 1955 Stamps
Topps 1955 Hocus Focus Baseball
Topps 1961 Dice
Topps 1966 ( not 67) Punch Outs
Topps 1967 Stand Ups ( not 64)
Topps 1970 Cloth
Topps 1971 Rookie Artists Proofs
Fleer 1923 Baseball set

1951WheatiesPremium

1946-47 Propagandas Montiel
1951 Wheaties Premium Photos

(See signature line)

70ToppsFanatic

1970 Topps 464 Bench AS PSA 9

ahopkins

Well, for me, it's this

I had myself pretty convinced I'd never see one again after I'd seen one a few years ago. Landed it for a song....

Estil

I bet to get it in uncut sheet form was really quite a prize!

Yet another reason I chose to put the Ultra GM sets at the top of my list...I often go on Feebay to look for the regular sets from 1996-97 or so to go with them...apparently even the regular sets hardly show up! And the 1996-97 regular Fleer/inserts also seem to be quite a bit harder to find than the previous years. I don't suppose Fleer did a major cutback on their card production those two years? It sure seems like it!

Tere1071

@Estil said:
Just how hard is it to get them? Like, are they serial numbered, really high pack seeding odds...?

The Heritage cards do look quite fascinating but I don't think I could ever afford to get all caught up on them (even just the regular sets?), not even close. Still next year will be the 1971 Hertiage which has always had a soft spot in my heart....the original set I mean.

The chrome Heritage cards and autographs are numbered; the SSP cards that appear as regular issues are not. There has been some guessing as to how many have been produced, but no one is quite sure. To be sure there are SSP cards sitting in unopened packs out there, but it can be an expensive gamble to seek out those missing numbers. However, one can purchase a base set for a reasonable price and a 1-725 set can be purchased without breaking the bank usually during the months of November and December.

The 1971 set is one of my all-time favorites as well. I collected them from the packs and later as an adult I put together a complete set, long since gone. I will also buy the Heritage version, and depending if the pockets are deeper than normal , fill it with the non-chrome or autograph SSP variations. Good luck!