Last card you needed for a set?

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Posted By: Anthony

It seems like there is always one card that gives you problems when you are finishing up a set, and I've found it's never one I expected to be tough.I'm not counting cards that were expensive but available, but rather ones that just seem to come up less often than they should. Here's a few of mine:

'49 Leaf- Doby and Goodman.
'54 Red Heart- Snider. Pretty easy in Nr Mint, but once you're looking for a really nice example this one always seems to come up off center.
'54 Wilson- Jablonski, Groth a very distant 2nd.
'56 Topps - Valdieviso and Neal. Someone told me these two were swapped out on the sheet for the checklists. Neal just killed me.
'59 Topps- any of the "no option line" variations. Especially tough since most people don't know the difference and don't list them as such. Same with the '58 team checklists in alphabetical order
'63 Fleer- Clay Dalrymple. Can't imagine Mrs Dalrymple would be that interested in having this card, let alone anyone else. But it's in the set, and it wasn't easy to find.
'64 Giants- Romano. Brinkman a very distant second, along with Boyer.
'67 Topps- Colavito. I'd heard he's a very active buyer of all of his cards, but there must be 3 bazillion out there and it still took weeks to find. I suspect 12 got listed on ebay the week after I found mine.

Ever start a set you know is worthless and not that interesting just out of boredom? And then find out 1 card sat on your wantlist for months or longer? In this category I give you the '70 Kellogg card of Tim Cullen and the '70 Rold Gold of Tris Speaker.


What was the last card you found for any given set that surprised you?

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Posted By: D. C. Markel

For my registry sets:

1967 Topps baseball set it was #399 Al Worthington
1968 Topps baseball set it was #285 Dick McAuliffe

On my raw sets:

1970 Topps it was Deron Johnson
1972 Topps it was Marichal IA

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Funny Anthony but my list of cards I need in psa 8 or better is completely different in post-war basball.

Some of the toughest cards for me have been:

1949 Bowman--Drews-188; Edwards--206
1951 Bowman--Wright-271; Mayer--272
1951 Topps Blue--Garver-18 and Waitkus--51
1954 Bowman--Johnson-144
1956 Topps-Pirates Team
1958 Topps--Johnson-78(is someone hoarding the Johnson cards?),Klaus-89
1959 Topps--Shantz-222, Pierce AS-572
1962 Topps--Witt-287, Landrum

Jim

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Posted By: Marc S.

#153 Eddie Robinson in NM/MT condition.

A monster of a card to find, although #154 is technically much rarer in the same grade.

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Posted By: daryle

Here are a few of mine---

*1888 N28----John Clarkson in the condition that I wanted, Probably one of the easiest cards in the set but when I was putting the set together I could not for the life of me locate one in atleast VG/VG-EX
*1941 Play Ball---#72 Gomez
*1952 Topps---#325 Serena
*1953 Topps #229 Krsnich (finished this set in the days before I got a computer and ebay. Could not find this card, not even from major dealers)

Now 1 card away from the 1923 W515-2 Little Wonder Picture Series----#50 Maranville. Have been looking for 10 years now. Actually found the other card I needed last Friday at The National.

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Posted By: Leslie Westbrook

What is the "no-option line" variation of the '59 topps cards???

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Posted By: Anthony

In the '59 set, a few cards have a variation on the back regarding the players status- optioned to the minors, or traded. The cards with no mention of this transaction are much tougher.
The cards are #'s 316,321, 322, 336, and 362. All are common players. Additionally, card #40, Warren Spahn, can be found with 3 different variations- noting his birthdate on the back as 1921, 1931, or 1931 with the 3 obscured.

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Posted By: RayB

Anthony,
I can remember when building my 69' Topps set to completion the last card I needed in PSA 8 or better was Frank Robinson. It was a tough card to find nice but also a highly desirable one from the Orioles AL Championship team.
RayB

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Posted By: Anthony

Ray- did you go after the variations as well, or just the standard set?
Wait til you get deeper into the Leafs, you'll have about 25 that kill you!

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Posted By: Steve M.

Here are two of the five. I have all five but no scans of the others. All are now SGC graded. P.S. This was the first set I built from scratch and one of my post-war favorites to this day.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Steve- I remember buying packs in 1959, and the set is historic because it had the first run of rookie cards.

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Posted By: Jason L

"first run of rookie cards?"

thanks!

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

As a kid by the Fall of '49, I had many of these Bowman cards; however, I was never able to complete
the set. So, I decided that I would at least have all the Yankees in it. And, I kept spending my nickels,
buying packs. I still remember that moment when I finally opened a pack and there was George Stirnweiss.
My Yankee sub-set was complete.

When I returned to the hobby in 1977, I wanted to complete all the sets from my youth. The last card I
needed for my 1949 Bowman set was Preacher Roe.

TED Z

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Posted By: RayB

Anthony,
I seem to remember having all the Wl cards except Mantle which was a money issue at the time.
They were very challenging. I had mostly PSA 5,6,7 grade as I recall.

It was my childhood set so building it, again, in PSA form was very rewarding. It was the first PSA set I ever built.
RayB

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Posted By: Paul S

Jason,
I believe Barry (sorry Barry, don't mean to put words in your mouth) is referring to the fact that 1959 Topps included cards which were called Rookie Stars, as opposed to a card just happening to turn out to be of a player's first year in the majors, or at least his first card ever issued -- Bob Gibson being of the latter variety. There were 31 of them (I've posted two below.) I think out of all of them Ron Fairly ,subjectively, may have gone on to have the best career.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

Are in pre-1973 sets with those scarce series. One of the 1974 Topps Checklists -- I believe #273 used to show up on just about every want list of 74's I saw and in addition, 1979 Topps Al Fitzmorris #643 was a bear for me to find in 1979 to finish my set. And if you check; for some bizarre reason, that card is still very low on the PSA Pop report. It took me forever and a day to get the 1962 Topps Bill Skowron green tint card.

In the 1980's; back in my dealing days; and especially if from my past history; I either had a good supply of that card or knew it was not that expensive; I gave away many cards to those people who just needed one card to finish their set. That was usually for cards of $1 and under.

Don't ask the people who wanted the tough 66 and 67 Hi # Mets or 71 Topps Al Weis or the 61T Bill Skowron if I gave those cards away

Edited because when I posted in another thread; I realized what I wanted to add here and realized I had put the wrong year. All is good now

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: CN

The only card I need for the 1971 Topps set is the Pirates team I believe # 603. CN

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

none.....I have a complete collection of Topps Cubs from 1951 to current including all errore, card stock types, and variations. Took a long time to do, but it is fun.

Kmac

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Posted By: Bruce MacPherson

The last two post war sets I completed were 1953 and 1957 Topps. My last cards:

1957 - #407 Yankees Power Hitters

1953 - #2 Easter and #258 Gilliam (I was trying to put together a high grade set and for some reason I could not find these two anywhere).

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Posted By: Mike C

For about 12 years now, I have been needing (and still need), 1 card to complete my 67 Topps set - #561 Sandy Alomar.

The 67 highs are pretty tough, but I'll have to admit I haven't been trying too hard. It seems to escape my mind a lot.