Your Toughest Card

[vintagerookies51]

No doubt my E107 Cy Young!

[Blunder19]

Post pics if you have them so we can see the gems that go with the story

[terjung]

Probably the E107 Kelley.

Closely followed by the E107 Clarke, E107 McGraw, and E107 Wagner.

[Runscott]

I'm a T206 collector, so ALL cards are common and easy.

hahahahahaha....hahaha...ha.............

[HRBAKER]

[glchen]

I think my W521 Ruth was my toughest find for the cards that I actually have. And I still need one with the maroon background (and perhaps blue also). This card is often mislabeled with the more common (but still tough) W519-1. There are plenty of other cards on my want list, but most of them are easy to find, but just too expensive for me.

[Mikehealer]

Not as tough some of the others posted, but fairly tough as a trio.

Nice Ju Ju.

[rsst206]

Here is my toughest

[birdman42]

Here are a couple. Didn't know the Ainsmith even existed until I saw it.

Bill

[Exhibitman]

For baseball, the 1935 Pebble Beach Clothiers Lefty O'Doul. I'd been collecting O'Doul pieces for years, and it took me until the 2006 National to find one of these. Mark Macrae, one of our members, had 2 of them at the show. Interesting story on this one. The back has a handwritten name ___ Dempsey. Turns out this card was once owned by Con Dempsey, a SF native who ended up playing in the PCL and in MLB. He has a card in the 1952 Topps set.



And for a boxer, this 1904 Jeffries-Munroe 2-sided Sporting Life cabinet card. Only one specimen is known. I'd seen it years ago in the Dreier collection and as a Jeffries collector [he is from Burbank] when it came up for auction I had to have it:

[Zan]

Pretty tough Greenberg issue from Cuba. Condition-wise these cards are a nightmare. Often these cards were affected by humidity, water damage, and even bugs eating through the cards.

Mine is pretty clean, but the back is pretty torn up, but does not take away from the eye appeal of the card.

[z28jd]

Searched at least ten years for a Mansfield Old Judge. Only made one year and only one player is shown on that team. Finally got it in the last REA. Only other time it came up for sale over that time span, it sold for $3200 in a PSA4, so while I would've liked to ended my search with that example, my high bid fell well short.

[CMIZ5290]

1953 topps mantle psa 9oc.....only mantle graded psa 9 with a qualifier, why pay $100k for a straight 9??