Hi John,
I would select the same four that CU did for my Mt. Rushmore (interesting article by the way, thanks). The Brown isn't necessarily the toughest card to find but the black front is very susceptible to surface wear and the image is usually very blurry. I had several PSA 7's that were centered better than mine but suffered from either one or both of these problems. Eventually I decided to be more lenient on centering and look for a card that had a better image and less surface wear.
As for Bednarik, when you look at the rest of his cards in the price guides none stand out from other HoFers (1952 Bowman Large SP the exception) the way that the cards of Baugh, Graham, Unitas, Brown,etc...do. Bednarik's cards book for roughly the same amounts as Hirsch, Perry, Groza, Nomellini,etc...
That does not mean that things cannot change over time. When I was young and first collecting the NC Rockne and 1952 B Large Gifford would have made the Mt. Rushmore. At one point the Rockne was worth almost as much as the rest of the NC set (less Nags). Now, I would take just a Clark & Hinkle over a Rockne in similar condition. The Bednarik is a VERY tough card, especially centered, and it wouldn't shock me a bit that if we had this conversation sometime in the future that the Bednarik was right up there. Look at the 1948 L Satchel Paige. In the late 70's & early 80's the 1949 Bowman Paige was actually worth a little more. Now it's not even close. People come out of the woodwork when a 1948 Leaf Paige makes an appearance!
Nice Hannah auto DeBesse! How many HoF autos do you have? I'd love to do something like that but don't know enough about autos & would probably wind up w/ a bunch of forgeries. I would love to do it on 3x5 index cards.
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