Hardest to Find Topps Card?

[JollyElm]

I was talking about variations with someone today when they mentioned how tough it is to find the 1967 Topps Ed Spiezio card (that I have in my errors & variations thread) with part of his name missing. That's definitely a near impossible card to find in any shape.

So, it doesn't have to be a variation per se, but what card or cards do you think are the toughest to find from Topps during the years 1957 to 1973?? Just Topps.

Let's lay some groundwork. I'm not talking about things like proofs. For instance, the 1967 Maris on the Yankees blank backed card or the trio of 1960 cards found with different teams on front. Those do not count. And I'm not specifically talking about the price of the card. For instance, someone might point to the 1969 white letter Mantle as being extremely hard to find, but in all honesty, there are plenty of them out there. They just cost a lot. I'm talking about cards that were part of the wide Topps distribution, but for whatever reason--being a variation or a SP or whatever--they are just ridiculously hard for you, personally, to find these days.

I will start by nominating the 1973 Al Kaline with a band aid on his forehead and the 1968 white letter #400 McCormick card.

[savedfrommyspokes]

For me, the 1969 567 no black outline is one of the toughest variations to find. Second for me is the 73 Kaline with the Band-Aid on forehead card....it has been tough for me to find also. Third toughest for me would be the 68 WL McCormick.....3 are currently listed on ebay now. I can not remember seeing a 69 567 variation show up online (ebay, comc, etc) in the past year...outside of Darren's BST thread this card seems to be nonexistent.

[Cliff Bowman]

The printing error versions of 1961 Jim Golden, 1963 Ken Retzer, 1967 Aurelio Monteagudo, 1967 Dick Nen, 1969 Pirates Rookie Stars, and a couple from the 80's, 1985 Jorge Orta, 1986 Terry Puhl. I only own one of these .

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

The printing error versions of 1961 Jim Golden, 1963 Ken Retzer, 1967 Aurelio Monteagudo, 1967 Dick Nen, 1969 Pirates Rookie Stars, and a couple from the 80's, 1985 Jorge Orta, 1986 Terry Puhl. I only own one of these .

Seems like the Golden card used to come up a lot more often on ebay than it does now a days. I have not seen copies of the Retzer or Nen cards, so it would be great to see scans if anyone might have them. Not too familiar with the Orta card either.

Below are my Monteagudo and 69 Pirates RS cards.

Is the missing position on the Nen card somehow related to the missing borders on the Monteagudo card? If so, is there another card in between the two that might also have border issues?

[ALR-bishop]

I guess we are just doing base set stuff and excluding Topps test set issued at retail but not nationally, right

Here are some I found tough. The 1959 Spahn and Sullivan variants are included only because I found the Spahn 1931 clear and Sullivan no circle and no period versions pretty tough

[BillP]

For me it was a decent 57 brooks robinson or 59 Gibson at a reasonable price.