What's the rarest card you own?

[akleinb611]

My collection is all over the place, so I probably have a lot of pieces that are pretty rare - although in my defense, I don't really think in those terms. Maybe the fact that I don't own any graded cards keeps me from thinking in terms of pop numbers or registries.

Anyway, one item I have that may be one of a kind comes from the criminally under-collected M113/M114 set, the Baseball Magazine premiums. Fellow board member Doug Goodman and I seem to be the only collectors of this set who are making a run for a complete set - and I do have one piece he acknowledges he's never owned or even seen.

I attended the third National, the one held in Parsippany NJ and organized by Lew Lipset. That was back in 1983. While there, I ran across a dealer who had a number of M113's (the oversized ones that are usually found trimmed), all of which had been glued to poster board and trimmed close to the picture borders. I think I paid about $20 for a group of six, which included several very nice Hall of Famers (McGraw, Jennings, and the magnificent "Walter Johnson's Pitching Arm). Also included were a few commons, including Vic Saier.

For those of you who don't closely follow Dead Ball Era baseball, Vic Saier was a slightly above-average first baseman with the Cubs in the years leading up to the First World War. His career was essentially over by the time he was twenty-five, but he had a couple of good years that would have explained his inclusion in the M113 set in 1913.

Except that no checklist, no review of the set, no compilation of the issue, has EVER referenced or uncovered the issuance of a Vic Saier photo in the M113 set.

Except for the one that I have.

It's probably not all THAT valuable, given how few people collect this set seriously. But I do take a certain pride in having an item that nobody else has (apparently).

Alan Kleinberger