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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>I've somewhat decided to go as far as I can with an E98 set. I know there are quite a few tough cards in the set...and after doing some back searches on here have found what some of you feel are the toughies. Curious does anyone feel differently about any of the cards at this point? If anyone wants to get deep enough with what colors/player combos may be the most difficult I welcome that information as well.

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Posted By: <b>Rob</b><p>Dave, not to highjack the thread, but another question I have about this set is why does it seem like there are SO many examples of cards from this set with paper missing (or flaking off?) from the front? There seem to be plenty of low-condition cards from the set in general, but missing paper seems to be pretty common.<br /><br />Rob<br /><img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

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Posted By: <b>Steve Murray</b><p>Do you plan on trying for a Master Set all four color combos? That would be a daunting task. Just ask Tbob who is trying it for the e94's.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Vaughan, Tenney, Coombs, and Kling are considered quite difficult, and one collector who follows the set feels all the commons are tougher than the HOFers.

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Posted By: <b>Ted Zanidakis</b><p>Check-out this Coombs of mine. I've seen it start to disintegrate in the last few years. And, it's really a shame.....<br />since Coombs' cards are difficult to find.<br /><br />TED Z<br /><br /><img src="http://www.freephotoserver.com/v001/tedzan/coombse98.jpg">

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Ted- That is a shame. What is the card stored in? Could that be the issue? I'm wondering if the cards once slabbed are somewhat more protected, or is there still a chance a slabbed E98 could lose some flakes?<br /><br />Steve- Ha...no, not going after every color combo. I just find it neat to hear which ones are the toughes in which colors. <br /><br />I did just pick up Tenney from Toby last night...its trimmed but should still present well in a SGC authentic holder <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br /><img src="http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l111/asphaltman76/e98tenneyf.jpg">

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Posted By: <b>Bruce MacPherson</b><p>I agree that the commons as a group are tougher than the HOFers. Although Walsh is obviously tough and Matty cards do not come up too often. When I was aggressively collecting the cards, I found the Dahlen, McLean and Meyers cards to be tougher than expected. Other than those, Barry gives an accurate list.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>For some reason the E94s and E98s appear to be very condition sensitive, more so than the other caramel cards like e90-1, e92, etc. I have no explanation but I have bought 2 E94s which "imploded" upon release from the card holders and you must also be very careful with the corners as both sets have a tendency to have the color near the border corners "slide" or "flake" off.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Very nice pickup on the red Tenney. I still am in the group that thinks the reds are the toughest.

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Posted By: <b>Wesley</b><p>I believe Rob A. from this forum is closing in on a master set with all four colors.

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Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>In my experience (and my collection) blue and green seem to be the most common colors. I agree with TBob that red appears to be the toughest. And for some reason, E98s are extemely tough to find in nice condition (vg or better). I think putting this set together in Ex condition would be a bigger monster than the monster itself.<br />JimB

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Wesley- I think Rob has given up on the master set idea, in fact as I recall he was selling off his lesser condition duplicates. <br />Jim- I agree wholeheartedly, an ex or better set of E98s would be a major chore. Until Scott Mosley came along with his mind-blowing all green E98 set, I had the highest graded cards (SGC) of several players and the Vaughn and Coombs were only 50s, that's how tough these cards are. <br /><a href="http://209.50.177.156/sgcweb/PopRep2.aspx" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://209.50.177.156/sgcweb/PopRep2.aspx</a>

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Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>I got to about 107 or 108 out of the 120 cards for the 4 different colors of E98. I stopped because I still needed two Wagners, two Cobbs, two Lajoies, and a Mack. <br /><br />I did have all the Mattys, Tennys, Vaughns, and three Coombs which was quite a task. With my collection, I was constantly forced to trade off items to stay on track with the master set and I eventually gave up. I still have one E98 set. The hardest part of collecting the 120 cards is staying interested when I already had two E98 sets and wasn't able to persue other sets.<br /><br />Also, when I started, I could pick up groups of E98s for $30-$50 a piece. I don't think I'd be able to do that anymore. <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Anyways with player toughness, I agree with what everyone has already stated.<br /><br />All commons are tougher than Hofers. Matty and Mack are the toughest Hofers.<br />In order I would guess it goes from toughest to semi-toughest:<br /><br />Coombs<br />Vaughn<br />Tenny<br />Dahlen<br />Bridwell<br />McClean<br />Meyers<br />Mullin<br /><br />I found Green to be the toughest color to find, but the more I accumulated, the more all the colors started popping up with about the same frequency.<br /><br />E98 and E94 are not the same quality of paper as E95 and E96 and haven't survived the years as well.<br /><br />The example that Ted Z. shows is common unfortunately. I'm not sure if they all come from one group, but I;ve seen and owned many green E98s that have the same kind of damage as that example. <br /><br />Some examples show paper loss in spots where the candy originally touched the paper and many have orange stains from the product being packed close to the cards.<br /><br />Scott M's set must've been untouched for several decades and safely packed away somewhere. It's the nicest accumulation of E98s anywhere and very interesting that they're all one color.<br /><br />Thanks to everyone (Wes, Bruce, Tbob, Quan, Pete C, Alan, Brian McQueen and many others here) for helping me get as far as I did.<br /><br /><br />Rob<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Strange how different people think different colors are the hardest...I wonder if they were just randomly distrubuted by colors to begin with or if there was some sort of pattern? Maybe the first few months of production the greens were produced and then so on?

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Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>Dave,<br /><br />I've thought a lot about that.<br /><br />The only EVIDENCE we have stems from the fact that E98s with Old Put stamps on the back only come with Red backgrounds (and a couple blue). Many of us of course have different theories on when the stamp was placed on the card, but it still suggests that it's possible that each color background could've been distributed with a different candy (or tobacco) product.<br /><br />We won't know for sure until we find some documentation, but I believe that it's possible E98s were left anonymous on purpose so that several different smaller companies could use the cards to support their individual products. We know that some of them were packaged with candy because we've seen the stains, but perhaps some were given out by hand in retail shops (like the Old Put stamped cards). <br /><br />I've attempted to correlate which E94 overprints (if any) correspond with certain color backgrounds on the fronts, but the sample is so small it's hard to find anything concrete.<br /><br />Rob<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Brian McQueen</b><p><br />This is yet another of my favorite sets so I thought I’d chime in. Terrific cards all-around and one that I’d describe as very “middle of the road” in terms of difficulty so it’s a nice one to start in hopes of completion. The cards are slightly tougher to come by than e93s, e102s and e101s yet are not quite as challenging as the next wave of sets (where cards begin to get really difficult and completion may be next to impossible) which include e97, e94, e103, e106, etc…While specific cards may be tougher to come by, I’d consider this set easier to put together than e101 and e102 though just as long as you have the money for Cobb, Wagner, Matty, Young, Mack and on and on.<br /><br />One thing about this set that I always liked is that there are quite a few players in this set (ie…Dahlen, Coombs, etc..) that you don’t see in too many of the other caramel sets out there. Many of the poses are unique to this set as well. A couple favorites of mine include the “Walsh swinging away”, “Mack on the toilet”, and the “Matty wind-up” pose.<br /><br />In identifying “set toughies” for this set, I used to think that it was simply Tenny, Coombs and all the others that people have already mentioned. Yet from what I’ve seen, it really does appear that most the commons are difficult and as a whole, are significantly tougher to find than the HOFers. I think a couple of the players like Mullin and Ford do come up a little more often but with this set, it’s a lot easier to list the commons that WON’T give you a hard time. However, the good news is that even the worst of these can had with some persistance. I’ve seen all the toughest ones available several times apiece in the past few months. A lot of the HOFers, including the pricy ones, seem to come up much more regularly. <br /><br />In terms of color availability, I never thought one color is significantly more difficult than any of the others. Green may hold a slight edge but I always thought things were pretty equal. When I collected the set, I went after oranges and seeing a bunch of those lined up on a webpage together looked really impressive! I don’t believe any “printing anomalies” exist in this set, as they do in e94, e90-3, etc…, where a card has turned up with a totally different color to it other than the standard four. There are a couple that have turned up with an Old Put overprint on the back though.<br /><br />One drawback to this set is that the top-tier HOFers go for quite a bit. So if you get to the end of the set and you’re needing a Cobb, Wagner and Matty, do be aware that you may be coughing up ten grand just to get these final three cards in non-beater condition. This was sort of a deterrant to me when it came to finishing off the set. It wasn’t a challenge finding these really, just being willing to put forth the cash. This can be considered a drawback towards completing MOST sets though, so you really shouldn’t hold it against this one.<br /><br />Hope this helps,<br />Brian<br />

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Posted By: <b>Scott Mosley</b><p>Rob said:<br /><br />"Scott M's set must've been untouched for several decades and safely packed away somewhere. It's the nicest accumulation of E98s anywhere and very interesting that they're all one color."<br /><br />Hi Rob,<br /><br />Thanks to you (and others) for the compliments on the set.<br /><br />I have mentioned this before on N54 but since the subject was raised above, yes, I know the provenance of the E98 set that I have and that it came from the original collector.<br /><br />The cards were kept for decades in a T206 period Piedmont Cigarette slide shell box and the box, in turn, was placed along with other cigarette boxes holding cards into a cigar box and stored away along with several other cigar boxes which held cards in this manner.<br /><br />Scott<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>Scott,<br /><br />It's still hard to believe that the cards are that nice after 97 years or so!<br />Any idea where the original collector was from??<br /><br />Brian,<br /><br />Good point about the color variations compared to other sets, but I guess we never know. I have seen a legit blank back E98 somewhere along the way so I guess anything's possible. <br /><br />Rob

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Posted By: <b>Scott Mosley</b><p>Hi Rob,<br /><br />Yes, the gentleman was born, raised and lived all of his life here in the Philadelphia area. He never married and was a collector/pack rat all of his life.<br /><br />There were tons of non sports cards, postcards, books, news paper clippings, etc. that we acquired along with the Baseball cards when he passed away back in the mid 1970s. <br /><br />My father and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>So...a dumb question here....what do you guys consider mid grade and what do you consider high grade for E98's?

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Posted By: <b>Brett</b><p>I stopped collecting e98s months ago because the prices were getting rediculous like the e93s were. I started collecting them when you could buy poor condition commons for $25-$35 on ebay. I've noticed alot of flaking on these cards and alot of them seem to be printed on an angle for some reason. I guess being printed on thin paper doesn't help... I was lucky enough to win 1 e98 Young in nice shape for a PSA 1 and 2 e98 Mattys (GAI authentic and 1 thats not graded) on ebay in poor shape for what I thought was a steal. I've stopped collecting the e98, but I still look for e98 Mattys because its my favourite caramel card. The image on the card is really neat looking in my opinion <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14> heres a link my caramels. I sold all the e98s except for the Lajoie and the 2 Mattys and i also sold most of the e93s. Note the flaking on the e98s. I didn't add my orange Matty to the website and I haven't added most of my t206s yet... <br /><br /><a href="http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q98/BaseballCaramelsGuy/" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q98/BaseballCaramelsGuy/</a><br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>I was a little surprised last night on ebay to see the Chase go for as much as it did. Congrats on that Barry....and I see it went to a board member as well. Is it because Chase is seen a little less? Just wondered about why the premium there?

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Posted By: <b>Bruce MacPherson</b><p>I remember that Chase. It was in my collection for years before I got an upgrade. You can add Chase to the list of tougher cards in the set - hence the high sales price. BTW, I would consider a solid SGC 40/PSA 3 set to be midgrade for this issue. Anything EX or above is high grade to me.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>It surprised me a little bit too, but I think it's the norm to see tougher high demand cards do better than one expects.

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Posted By: <b>Mike</b><p>I won the E98 Chase. The reason I paid so much was that I'm trying to put together a complete Chase color E98 set. This is my second as the other being a PSA 2 green background. So if anyone has the blue or red, let me know as I'd be interested in buying them. Thanks,<br />Mike Gray<br />gray766@hotmail.com<br />

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>I think SGC 30 is mid grade for this set. When you consider my SGC 50 Vaughn was for many years the highest graded and is now the 2nd highest, and factor in SGC's policy of being brutal on grading caramel cards, SGC 30s with nice eye appeal are mid-grade.

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Well congrats on the pickup Mike. I had my eye on it....pretty nice Chase for the grade.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>It looks nice for an SGC 10. There was just a little paper loss on the reverse.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>I wonder if 50 years from now (I'll be long gone) cards with great fronts and tiny bits of paper loss will be far outselling creased cards with much less eye appeal but no paper loss? I think they will. I think the grading companies have trained us to reject cards with back paper loss and instead to buy creased cards with complete backs, especially when they give both cards the same grades. I also think that 50 years from now cards which are slightly trimmed will far out distance poor, fair and even good graded cards. The advent of opening up grading and slabbing the cards as "authentic" is just the first step.<br />Just my 2 cents worth.

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Posted By: <b>Mike Ernst</b><p>For what this is worth--in 1976 (or 77?) I bought about 110 Caramel cards from an antique dealer in central Wisconsin. Of those, 55 were E98's. The color breakdown was this:<br />27 red<br />8 orange<br />14 blue<br />6 green. <br />The purchase amounted to one complete set, and among the duplicates (24) were 3 Cobbs. There was only 1 Wagner, 1 Matty, 1 Cy Young. There were duplicates of Vaughn, Tenney, Mullin, etc., and only Evers in addition to Cobb had 2 duplicates. No duplicate Coombs, or Dahlen, either. <br />This is a much more enlightening and upbeat thread than many we've had--this is what keeps me hanging around and mostly lurking.

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Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>Mike,<br />What a great find! Thanks for the info. Just curious, what kind of condition were they in?<br />JimB

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Mike- Do you still have the cards and if not did they eventually go on ebay, private sale, trades, etc?<br />Bob

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Posted By: <b>Mike Ernst</b><p>Still have the majority of them--soft corners, only Matty is creased, no flaking at all--caramel stains on the backs of all of them--several with small bits of paper loss on back, no paper loss on any of them on the front.<br />All raw--never have had a card slabbed in my life. Probably mostly 3's.

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Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>I wonder if the relatively high number of E98s with paper loss is related (at least sometimes) to being packaged with caramel or some candy. Maybe people tried to scrape off caramel that was stuck to the back of the cards and it tore a bit of paper off. Just a thought. I see more small areas of paper loss on E98s that most any other type of E card. Could have something to do with the product and/or packaging.<br />JimB

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>So Jim, in that scenario a kid would buy a piece of candy, yank the card off the caramel with little bits of paper still stuck to it, and then put the candy in his mouth! Didn't they know about hygiene back then?

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Wow Mike, would love to see some scans of those if you ever get a chance.

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Posted By: <b>skydash55</b><p>Hi guys....I've been looking at his post.I seem to have all of these cards except the Tenny. What other non-HOF's are considered difficult to find??

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Posted By: <b>Brian Weisner</b><p><br /> Hi Skydash,<br /> You have most of the tough ones, as well as most of the Hofers. <br /> Talk to you soon. Be well Brian

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Posted By: <b>Brian Weisner</b><p><br /> Hi Mike,<br /> I had always heard that red was the toughest color to locate, but your "find" would indicate otherwise. However, the recent "Skydash Collection" has the following breakout which looks completely different: <br /><br />18 Orange<br />13 Green<br />8 Blue<br />6 Red<br /><br />I wish we knew how they were distributed.....<br /><br /><br />Be well Brian

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Posted By: <b>Bruce MacPherson</b><p>I found an old spreadsheet from when I was aggressively collecting the set. My breakdown (before I sold most of my dupes) was similar to the Skydash find, but green was my predominant color. I suppose Mike had all the reds.<br /><br />Green - 25<br />Orange - 19<br />Blue - 15<br />Red - 8

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Posted By: <b>Dave F</b><p>Well with so many on the board that collects these that seem to favor orange...glad I prefer the blue <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

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Posted By: <b>quan</b><p>honestly with all the breakdowns and distributions i think all the backs have about the same number, there are no tougher backs just a preference toward one...mine's green or blue so of course i always see orange or red way more.<br /><br />i also don't agree with the notion that commons r tougher than hof'ers. my thinking is only set collectors would buy commons, therefore once the collector acquires them the commons tend to stay tucked away longer...whereas casual/type collectors would gravitate toward the hof'ers so they exchange hands more often.<br /><br />there could be something said about coombs/vaughn/mack/walsh being seen less often, but with the ebay age i've prolly seen 3-5 examples of each the last year+ (and these are "new" cards from random people not the "recycled" from collectors) so I don't consider them that tougher than the rest. Other e98 collectors may disagree but I've always thought the Clarke is a tough card while finding a Matty is relatively easy, it's all about when a particular e98 we need show up.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Quan- have to disagree old friend, Vaughn and Coonbs are still the toughest 2 with Walsh easily the toughest of the HOFers. Also, finding a red Coombes or a red Vaughn or a red Walsh is almost impossible.<br />tbob<br />tbob

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Posted By: <b>skydash55</b><p>"Also, finding a red Coombes or a red Vaughn or a red Walsh is almost impossible".<br />Well...not almost:)<br />

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Posted By: <b>quan</b><p>remember i sent you a ripped red coombs that i bought at the ac national ($35!) a couple years back. i think sgc gave it a 10. there was a recent beat up walsh also.<br /><br />from skydash it seems like there will be more...can't wait to check out the nice cards in the upcoming mastro.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>The Skydash collection is going to add a lot of high quality material to the marketplace.

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Posted By: <b>robert a</b><p>Quan,<br /><br />I really think with most sets that Hall of Fame players are easier to find than common players if not only because people were more likely to hang onto popular players. I honestly think Cobb and Wagner are the most common E98s.<br /><br />Rob

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Posted By: <b>quan</b><p>rob ur correct, kids way back would likely keep a famous more than a common, i forgot about that angle.

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Posted By: <b>JimB</b><p>Barry said,<br />"So Jim, in that scenario a kid would buy a piece of candy, yank the card off the caramel with little bits of paper still stuck to it, and then put the candy in his mouth! Didn't they know about hygiene back then?"<br /><br />Barry, We know that the cards touched the caramel from all the staining. Why is it so hard to imagine that they were so sticky that sometimes separating them caused paper loss?<br />JimB]<br /><br /><br />P.S. I agree with Quan that the Clarke seems to be a tough HOF along with Mack and Matty. I also think QUan's theory about why HOFs seem more common in general than HOFs makes sense.<br />