Updating the Elusive Eight for an 8th time

This is the 8th time I’ve crossed something off this elusive card list.  I got a new card from COMC, amongst some other purchases:

1996 Topps Master of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

This was a legitimately elusive card.  I got the first card toward this set in 2012.  I got the 2nd-to-last card of this set 2 years ago.  I’ve been on the lookout for this Puckett card ever since and didn’t find it until a COMC search a few weeks ago.  It finishes the set, which is always a great thing!

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Here’s the updated Elusive Eight, just in case anyone has these cards available!  Remember – the pictures are the photos I have of other cards in the set.  Since I don’t have them, I don’t have actual photos yet!

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

This was one of 4 cards on the original Elusive Eight that has stayed on the whole time and I’m still yet to obtain, and to me is the one that might prove the toughest.  I’m guessing that whenever I turn over the full original list – it will be this card that gets me there.

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

Another EE original – I am surprised I haven’t found this guy yet.  The hunt continues…

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

This is another original list card that I just can’t seem to find.  As a retail-only set, these aren’t common by any means, but I’ve seen the other cards in this set so much more frequently.

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

This was on the original list, but unlike the others this is a card I could go out and buy now if I wanted to.  I just haven’t had the burning need to complete the Gypsy Queen set from 2013.  It’s not something I need to pounce on, but hopefully I get this by end of 2016.

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

So this card was on the 2nd list, and has been on there ever since.  I had 2 needs for this set, so couldn’t fit it into the original, so once I got one of the originals, this card and its counterpart replaced…

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

So technically this was on the original list, but not continuously on.  I think I’ve bumped it off two times.

1998 Hall Bound #1 – Paul Molitor

Ugh, I actually thought I bought this card on COMC in the same purchase as the Puckett Master of the Game.  It showed up and I realized it was the Chrome version.  D’0h!

2002 Topps Traded #1 – Jeff Weaver

This is the card I’m adding to replace the Cabrera/Kaline card above.  I’m going to do this going forward – keep 1 of these 2002 Topps Traded cards on my list.  See, it’s going to be the hardest base set of this Lifetime Topps Project for me to complete.  Topps short printed the first 110 cards and they now go for $3-$5 a pop.  I’m hoping this helps me focus on these.

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Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list.

1998 Milestones  cards #3 (Dennis Eckersley) & #4 (Juan Gonzalez)

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 3 very difficult cards to go

2003 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2004 Topps – 5 cards to go

2012 Topps – the Bryce Harper 661 card

Updating the Elusive Eight for a 6th & 7th time

This is the sixth time I’ve had the chance to cross off something on this elusive card list.  And this time, I got two cards through a purchase, which isn’t quite as exciting as a trade, but I’ve been stalking COMC, Beckett and eBay for this card and it finally popped up:

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-CK – Cabrera/Kaline

I still have one more card in this set, which has definitely proved to be “elusive”.

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

Same thing with this card – I’ve been looking for it for quite a while.  It’s not as expensive or rare as the card above, but it’s just been so long that I’ve been trying to get it – I’m glad it’s off the list.  Also, this one completes the set.

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Here’s the updated Elusive Eight, just in case anyone has these cards available!  Remember – the pictures are the photos I have of other cards in the set.  Since I don’t have them, I don’t have actual photos yet!

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

This was one of 4 cards on the original Elusive Eight that has stayed on the whole time and I’m still yet to obtain, and to me is the one that might prove the toughest.  I’m guessing that whenever I turn over the full original list – it will be this card that gets me there.

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

Another EE original – I am surprised I haven’t found this guy yet.  The hunt continues…

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

This is another original list card that I just can’t seem to find.  As a retail-only set, these aren’t common by any means, but I’ve seen the other cards in this set so much more frequently.

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

This was on the original list, but unlike the others this is a card I could go out and buy now if I wanted to.  I just haven’t had the burning need to complete the Gypsy Queen set from 2013.  It’s not something I need to pounce on, but hopefully I get this by end of 2016.

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

So this card was on the 2nd list, and has been on there ever since.  I had 2 needs for this set, so couldn’t fit it into the original, so once I got one of the originals, this card and its counterpart replaced…

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

So technically this was on the original list, but not continuously on.  I think I’ve bumped it off two times.

1998 Hall Bound #1 – Paul Molitor

I had been at 2 cards in this set for quite a while – and I found one of the cards on COMC, so I’m down to just the Molitor to complete this set.

2002 Topps Traded #5 – Tyler Houston

This is the card I’m adding to replace the Cabrera/Kaline card above.  I’m going to do this going forward – keep 1 of these 2002 Topps Traded cards on my list.  See, it’s going to be the hardest base set of this Lifetime Topps Project for me to complete.  Topps short printed the first 110 cards and they now go for $3-$5 a pop.  I’m hoping this helps me focus on these.

 

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list.

1998 Clemente Finest Reprints #13

1998 Milestones  cards #3 (Dennis Eckersley) & #4 (Juan Gonzalez)

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2003 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2004 Topps – 5 cards to go

2012 Topps – the Bryce Harper 661 card

Updating the Elusive Eight for a 5th time – Finishing a set!

I could probably give some good advice on blogging.  I could tell you what it takes to keep a blog going for an extended amount of time.  I could tell you what things I think works, and mostly what I’d say is do what keeps it fun.

One specific thing I’d say is this – create a list of your (reasonable) most wanted cards and put it on your blog.  Because it will cause you to find some of those “most wanted” in various ways.  A blogger or two might have the card you need, and that’s happened for me.  But it also will make you search out those cards.  Which is what happened here.

1996 Topps Power Boosters #21 – Jim Scharrer

I’ll try to get the completed set post done tomorrow!  (*Never mind – will be later in the month – too much to do!)

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Here’s the updated Elusive Eight, just in case anyone has these cards available!  Remember – the pictures are the photos I have of other cards in the set.  Since I don’t have them, I don’t have actual photos yet!

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-CK – Cabrera/Kaline

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

I’m 2 cards away from the Combos set that was a retail-only insert in 2012 Topps Archives.

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list. 3 of them have been on the list at some point in the past, but were bumped to make room for the Power Boosters cards.

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2003 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2004 Topps – 5 cards to go

2012 Topps – the Bryce Harper 661 card

Updating the Elusive Eight for a 4th time – Rosemont Card Show

It’s funny how things work out.  I went to a big card show at the Convention Center in Rosemont last week.  My cousin was in town visiting.  He is in college, and came to Chicago to visit us and a cousin on the other side of his family who also lives near Chicago.  I dropped him off at their house Sunday morning – they were 5 minutes from Rosemont.  The discussion with my wife earlier in the week went something like this:

Wife: “Are you going to church Sunday?”

Me: “I have to drop Sam off, remember?”

So I did, and, what do you know, the convention center got in the way of my drive home.  After about 10 minutes, I kind of regretted the decision.  Not because I was missing church – I couldn’t have made it home by the time I’d dropped my nephew off anyways.  More that I had spent money on parking and admission, but probably wasn’t going to have enough time to filter through everything that was there.  I did find an honest-to-good dime box, and picked up 50 inserts.  They were mostly from 2015 Topps, with a few 2016 cards sprinkled in.  So that was 5 bucks, and I got a Mike Trout ML Debut insert for $2.  A total of 51 cards for 7 bucks (14¢ per card).  Not bad, but when you factor in the $15 parking and $10 admission – not nearly as good.  63¢ per card.  I guess that’s not awful, but I bet I could have gotten a similar deal on COMC or Sportlots and saved the time.

I almost left before hitting a few last tables in the back.  Glad I didn’t.  Because I found another cheap box – this one was a quarter box.  3 quarter boxes actually.  And as I was flipping through those boxes, I was actually a little sad because there were so many cards in the boxes that I now had but had experienced a lot of trouble tracking down over the years.  Cards like 1995 League Leaders.  1996 Topps ProFiles.  A few other cards from 1996-2002 Topps.  But I had all the ones I was seeing.  Until I got to the 3rd box, I only had about 4 cards.  And I had a buzzing phone from my wife wondering why I wasn’t home when they got back (she’s fine with my card escapades – what she’s not fine with is me not communicating them!).

But the 3rd box was something of a jackpot.  I found quite a few cards I needed, and there was 1 card from the 1996 Topps Power Boosters set.  It was this card:

1996 Topps Power Boosters #18 – Tony McKnight

I need just 1 more card from this set, and I have an eBay search for it.  The rookie portion of these cards are just really hard to track down.  They aren’t valuable or anything, but I just can’t seem to find them.  Probably because they’re all buried in dime boxes like this.  These cards have sat on my wantlist since I opened my 1996 boxes in 2012.  So almost 4 years.  That’s a long time!  And the luck that this specific one was the one here?  Well, it made the trip worth it!

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Here’s the updated Elusive Eight, just in case anyone has these cards available!  Remember – the pictures are the photos I have of other cards in the set.  Since I don’t have them, I don’t have actual photos yet!

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-CK – Cabrera/Kaline

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

I’m 2 cards away from the Combos set that was a retail-only insert in 2012 Topps Archives.  These 2 cards have been added after I got the McKnight and the Juan Lebron card below over the past 2 weeks.

1996 Topps Power Boosters #21 – Jim Scharrer

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list. 3 of them have been on the list at some point in the past, but were bumped to make room for the Power Boosters cards.

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2003 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2004 Topps – 5 cards to go

2012 Topps – the Bryce Harper 661 card

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

Updating the Elusive Eight for a 3rd time – Sportlots

Before I go into the card I just picked up, there’s a great article today for you 1990s collectors on Beckett’s website.

That said, it’s appropriate I talk about a 90’s card I just picked up!

1996 Topps Power Boosters #17 – Juan Lebron

3 months since I started it, and this is a third card from my “Elusive Eight”.  That’s pretty good.  I think doing it has either a) brought a couple of these cards to some reader’s attention, or b) made me focus a bit more on going out and finding these specific cards myself.

This was a case of the latter, though I don’t think this was a card that was just sitting there for a long time.  I found this card on Sportlots while perusing the site recently.  Unlike my normal purchases on Sportlots, I just got this card and that’s it.  It cost me 99¢ for the card, and another 99¢ for shipping.  Considering how hard these rookie power brokers have been to track down – I’ll take that any day of the week!

LeBron did not make much of an impact on MLB – the highest he ever got with an affiliated organization was Double-A.  He’s probably best remembered for having his picture switched with Carlos Beltran in their 1995 Topps Traded cards.

I am down to 2 cards left in the set, and, somewhat surprisingly, still have 6 inserts left from 1996.  3 of those are on the Elusive Eight – 2 from this set and the “Masters of the Game” card I need.

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I’m not going to walk back through the remaining cards on the elusive 8 – because I’ve got another one in and will update when I get the chance to post about that card.

Updating the Elusive Eight for a 2nd time – trade with Dan from TCDB

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP9 – Alex Fernandez

Doing this Elusive Eight thing was extremely helpful.  I started this at the end of December, where I list 8 cards that have been really tough to track down.  Since then, I’ve found 2 of those cards.  I found the Jackie Robinson 2011 Heritage card that finished off the master set there.  And I just made a trade for one of the 2 Spectralite promos I needed from 1995 Topps.  Alex Fernandez is shown above.

I made the trade with Dan, who posted about the card on the Trading Card Database.  I don’t use that TCDB Adam from Addiction is Therapy tipped me off about Dan’s post.  Dan was great, he sent the card before I was going to be able to send my end of the bargain over.  I sent him a 1968 Topps card I had and a few cards from 2016 Topps once I’d opened my box.

These spectralite versions of the promo cards are really tough to find.  To repeat what they are, in 1995 Topps made a pre-production set of 9 cards.  Those 9 cards came in packs of 10, with an extra “spectralite” version that previewed what the 1995 Topps Cyberstats parallels.  This one was particularly frustrating, because Beckett has the wrong stock photo for the regular promo.  They used the spectralite version.  A lot of eBay sellers use the Beckett stock photo, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a seller about this particular card just to be sure they weren’t really offering the spectralite version.  Eventually, I figured out what was going on and stopper bothering.  Luckily, Dan came along and I’ve knocked another card off the list!  Thanks again for the trade!

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Here’s the updated Elusive Eight, just in case anyone has these cards available!  Remember – the pictures are the photos I have of other cards in the set.  Since I don’t have them, I don’t have actual photos yet!

1996 Topps Power Boosters #17 – Juan Lebron

1996 Topps Power Boosters #18 – Tony McKnight

1996 Topps Power Boosters #21 – Jim Scharrer

I’m taking off 2 cards from 2012 Archives Combos set to make room for 3 cards from 1996 Topps that have proven to be very tough.  The Power boosters set paralleled the first 26 cards in the 1996 Topps set with some serious shine added.  It’s actually reminiscent of the background effect Topps added for the 2011 Diamond Anniversary parallels, except these cards are also much thicker than the base cards.  I could have considered them parallels and thus outside of my collecting goals, but they were kind of in the middle between parallels and inserts.  So I decided to collect them.  The first 12 cards, which focused on all-stars from that era, was relatively easy to complete.  But the draft pick cards have proven very difficult to track down.

Out of the 3 cards listed, only Tony McKnight ever made the Big Leagues.

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list. 3 of them have been on the list at some point in the past, but were bumped to make room for the Power Boosters cards.

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2003 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2004 Topps – 5 cards to go

2012 Topps – the Bryce Harper 661 card

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-CK – Cabrera/Kaline

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

Updating the Elusive Eight

I didn’t expect to be updating this so quickly, but maybe it’s karma!  As soon as I created the “Elusive Eight”, one of the cards that I just couldn’t seem to find showed up on eBay for $12 shipped.

This is one of the Jackie Robinson variations from 2011 Heritage.  These were very tough pulls, and I’ve had a helluva time finding this particular card.  This is huge, because it completes my master set for 2011 Heritage.  Look for a bunch of “completed” posts when I find the time!

So this means I have to add a card to the Elusive Eight!  As a reminder, these cards are listed on the side of the blog, just below the picture of Rickey Henderson’s 1980 Topps card.  Also as a reminder – since I don’t own these cards, I don’t have scans :).  So I either didn’t scan anything, or attached a scan of another card from that set.  Also, I decided to bump the lowest card on the totem pole for the time being – which was the 2012 Ginter Giants of the Deep.  I’m 2 cards away from the Combos set that was a retail-only insert in 2012 Topps Archives.  So here’s my updated list of 8:

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-CK – Cabrera/Kaline

2012 Topps Archives Combos – #58-YE – Yaz/Ellsbury

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP9 – Alex Fernandez

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list:

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale (was on the list, but it just got bumped)

1996 Topps Power Boosters – 3 cards to go

1995 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2003 Topps Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

The Elusive Eight

Toward the end of last year, I posted my new blog feature.  I went through the 8 cards I purchased on Black Friday that had been the toughest to find.  Today, I’m following up with the cards I still need.  This is going to be centered around the cards in my collection that seem to be taking me the longest to find.  I’ve seen a number of bloggers do something similar. It helps put focus on the tough stuff.  A few ground rules:

• Eight sounds like a good number.  The “Difficult Dozen” seems like too much.  “Formidable Five” could work, but seems a bit too small.  So mine is called the “Elusive Eight”.
• To make this list, the cards have to have been on my wantlist for at least 1 year.  Even if it’s a rare card, if I haven’t been looking long, and that’s not the point of this list.
• Finally, there needs to be 3 or less (preferably 2 or 1) cards left in the set the card pertains to.  I have some really rare sets on my wantlists like Heritage Bazooka, or various Box Topper sets.  I could put all those cards from lists on here, because they are hard to find.  But, again, if I’m not getting close to finishing the relevant set, who cares!

I could make exceptions on the last one, but we’ll see as we go.  I made no such exceptions in the initial list below, though.  Since I don’t have these cards – I don’t have scans of them.  Where I could, I used old scans of other cards from those sets.

These cards will be on the side of the blog, just below the picture of Rickey Henderson.

2012 Allen & Ginter Giants of the Deep #14 – Bottlenose Whale

No pictures for this, but I am down to 1 card left in this set.  To be honest, this was the weakest one of the 8.  I would rather put the 2 cards from 2012 Topps Archives Combos, but I can’t do that without bumping one of the 7 cards below.  And this is a set I would really like to finish up.

2012 Topps Archives In Action #82IA-JE – Jacoby Ellsbury

Speaking of retail only inserts from 2012 Topps Archives (see the middle card), I have been down to just this card for well over a year!  I just can’t seem to find it.  I’ve found 9 of the 10 cards, including Griffey, Ripken and Clemente who are far more expensive.  But I’ve been unable to find Ellsbury from this set.

1998 Topps Focal Points #11 – Chuck Knoblauch

I’m down to 1 card left for this insert set from 1998.  It’s Chuck Knoblauch – again, not the most expensive guy from the set.  But I just can’t seem to find him.  This is part of my Lifetime Topps project, which gives it a little more weight.  Hopefully I can find this at some point this year!

2013 Gypsy Queen #218 – Adam Wainwright

This is an SP, but I’ve been thisclose to finishing off the Gypsy Queen set for a while now.  I’ve found this card, but not for a reasonable price.  Obviously finishing off a full set carries more weight than most standard insert sets.

1996 Topps Masters of the Game #15 – Kirby Puckett

This is actually much harder to find than the Focal Point card above.  I just checked, and this card has never been listed on COMC.

2011 Topps Heritage Jackie Robinson Story Variations #143B – Jackie Robinson

I could really make a big case for this card being #1 on my list!  I have been after this card for almost 5 years!  When Topps made 2011 Heritage, they reprinted the Babe Ruth Story subset to be cards #135-144.  But they made special Jackie Robinson variations that came at really high odds.  In my opinion, they should have flipped that and put the Robinson cards in the regular set, and then doing the Ruth cards in a chrome version or something.  But that’s not the point.  These were rare cards, and I’ve been buying them since I first purchased 2011 Heritage cards.  I had 4 of the 10 cards in 2011 when the set came out.  I got 3 more early in 2012.  Since then, they’ve just been hard to find.  And this one has been really elusive.  I almost never see it on eBay!  There has been one on Beckett’s marketplace, but the seller is asking 50 bucks for it.  That’s too much.  I’d pay $20, which is more than I should, but since I just can’t find card #143, I would do it.  I hope to find it this year!

There isn’t one “most” elusive card, because the winners are 2 cards from the same set.  The most elusive 2 cards for me are….

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP5 – Travis Fryman

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP9 – Alex Fernandez

Like the card shown above, which was on the “obtained 8” from the last post, these cards have to be at the top of the list.  These cards are really tough to find.  To repeat what they are, in 1995 Topps made a pre-production set of 9 cards.  Those 9 cards came in packs of 10, with an extra “spectralite” version that previewed what the 1995 Topps Cyberstats parallels.  It’s nearly impossible to find these parallel versions, and I’ve gone to significant lengths to do so.  I’ve bought 3 promo packs blind (no ability to see the extra card) in eBay auctions.  I’m now down to just 2 cards, but a part of me thinks I will be searching for these for a long time.

Here are some other cards that would be knocking on the door to make the list:

2012 Topps Archives Combos – Cabrera/Kaline, Yaz/Ellsbury

1996 Power Boosters – 3 cards to go

1995 Topps Traded – 5 cards to go

2003 Nolan Ryan Record Breaker – 5 very difficult cards to go

2001 Topps MVP redemption set – a very expensive set, I have about 10 of the 25 cards

The Obtained Ocho

I hope everyone had (and is having) a great holiday season!

In honor of the best time of year (at least the best time of year when it’s cold) – I’m going to start a new feature on this blog, and this post is the first post for that feature.  This is going to be centered around the cards in my collection that seem to be taking me the longest to find.  I’ve seen a number of bloggers do a similar feature where they put extra emphasis on a few cards from their wantlist.  Eight sounds like a good number.  Not too many – putting 12 cards on a list like this would probably not be much different from just being on my wantlist.

I’m going to call mine the “Elusive Eight”.

But that’s not today’s post.  Because today’s post is about the eight cards that I maybe would have put on the list earlier this year.  But I made a bunch of purchases on Black Friday, so I now have these cards.

I’m going to call these the “Obtained Ocho”.

Most of these are going to lead to completed set posts sometime in early 2016.  Here’s those cards, in order of how excited I was to finally find these cards.

2000 Topps Perennial All-Stars #6 – Nomar Garciaparra

I got this one from COMC.  This card I’ve been hunting for quite a while, but not as long as the two below.  But finishing up a card set from 2000 is still pretty good.

1998 Topps Interleague Mystery Finest #16 – Tim Salmon

The Elusive Eight will have 2 criteria when I get it started in the next few days.  It will be cards that I’ve been hunting for a long time, and I should be very close to completing the relevant set.  This certainly meets the first criteria; I first posted about 1998 Topps in late August 2013.  It’s been 2+ years that I’ve been trying to finish off this insert set.

The other criteria is that it can’t be more than 2 or 3 cards from the same set.  This card meets that criteria quite as well – it was the only one I purchased, and it finished off the set for me.  I got this card from Beckett Marketplace.

2011 Allen & Ginter Glossy Exclusives #AGS5 – Anthony Rizzo

This was a card I got from a Sportlots dealer.  I’ve been trying to finish this set off for a while – the Ginter Glossy cards came out as a bonus for the glossy factory set in December 2011.  That’s a long time, though it’s not like I haven’t seen this card around.  I was just unwilling to pull the trigger because I couldn’t find a decent price.  I finally found one on Sportlots for $5, which wasn’t great, but was fair.  I also purchased 2 cards for this set earlier this year, so it hasn’t been down to 1 card for all that long.  Still – a very good purchase to knock this off the wantlist.

2011 Goodwin World Travelers #ET7 – Great Pyramids of Giza

2011 Goodwin World Travelers #ET21 – Na Pali Coast

This was 2 cards needed to complete a set.  I got one of these cards from Beckett Marketplace, another from Sportlots.  They each cost about $5.  I’m happy to be done with this 50-card, multi-year set.  The World Traveler postcards came as box toppers in 2011 and 2012 Goodwin Champions.  I bought my 2011 Goodwin boxes back in July or August of 2011 – so I’ve been trying to finish this set for longer than anything on this list.  And I’ve been sitting on just these 2 for over a year.

But the real reason these cards are nearer to the top of the list has to do with what it’s been holding up.  This didn’t only finish one master set – I’ve been waiting on completion of 2 master sets for these cards.  You see, the World Traveler set spanned 2011 and 2012, so I haven’t been able to post “completed insert set” for this.  And since it’s been the only Goodwin insert set in 2011 or 2012 that I hadn’t finished – it was holding off posting about the completed master set as well!

I haven’t been to the Great Pyramids, but I did go to the Na Pali Coast on Kaua’i during my honeymoon.  It’s as beautiful as the pictures above make it seem.

1995 Topps League Leaders #LL44 – Chuck Knoblauch

OK, so this one is probably less rare than any other card on this set, but it’s near the top for a few reasons.  First, it’s very central to my Lifetime Topps project.  It was the last League Leaders card I needed for almost a year.  And, finally, I was just shocked at how difficult it was to find this card!  I had an automatic eBay search set up.  It looks like it’s only sold once in the past 2 years on COMC.  And I checked Beckett and Sportlots fairly regularly.  I finally found one on Beckett’s Marketplace.  Despite the fact that I didn’t get anything else from that seller, I was fine to pay $2.50 shipping just to get this elusive card!  It has been 20 years, but I just didn’t expect a card from this set to be so tough to come by!

One more thing to add – I think the Knoblauch card may be the best in the whole set.  The dust flying up really goes well with that design.

1995 Topps Pre-Production Spectralite #PP4 – Sandy Alomar

In almost any list this would be the card I’m most excited about.  It was tough to knock it down to #2.  These cards are impossible to find!  For those who don’t know, in 1995 there was a promo set of 9 cards created.  However, those 9 cards came in packs of 10!  The extra card was a “spectralite” version that previewed the technology used on the 1995 Topps Cyberstats parallels.  While the regular cards aren’t that difficult to find, it’s pretty damn hard to find these parallel versions.  I’ve gone to pretty significant lengths to find these.  Earlier this year, I actually bought 3 promo packs blind in an eBay auction, in hopes that I would randomly find at least one I needed.  That worked – I got my 5th card of the set.  It’s also been very challenging to find the Mike Piazza, because the picture has a dark background.  I’ve had many scans where I couldn’t tell – it might be the spectralite version of Piazza.  I did get that card earlier this year.  So I was down to 3 cards left, and after this card popped up on COMC a few months ago, I pounced on it.  I waited to have it shipped until the Black Friday promotion.

And the most elusive card this year….

2011 Topps Heritage NSCC Promo #DC2 – Dee Gordon

This card isn’t part of my Lifetime Topps Project, and it doesn’t even finish the 2011 Topps Heritage Master set (though it puts me one card away).  However, it did finish off these promos for me.  The 5 cards to this set were given out at the 2011 National Sports Collector’s Convention in Chicago.  I didn’t live here yet, so I didn’t attend, and I didn’t get these cards.  This card beats out the Spectralite promo because it’s been just as difficult to find, and it’s super rare.  I have been looking for this card specifically for a very long time (I was able to find the other 4 more easily than I would have thought).  I think I did see an extremely overpriced version at some point, but this I found from a Beckett Marketplace seller for $12.  That’s not cheap, but I would have probably paid twice that because I just haven’t seen it much.  Add to that – 1962 Topps is probably my favorite Topps set, and 2011 Heritage is thus my favorite retro set.

In early 2016, I’m going to figure out the 8 cards to put on my first “Elusive Eight”…