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brian pIn my estimation (as well as other long-time collectors) the 1918 Zeenuts are the toughest year to come by of the Zeenut run. This is possibly due to paper shortages following the War. The 1918's just seem less plentiful overall. There are other tough years in the Zeenut run, such as 1913, 1915, and 1937-38 which offer just as much a challenge for the collector, and almost all the years have anywhere from one to a couple of dozen that are near impossible to obtain. When it comes to Zeenuts, nothing is easy.
The guides are pretty well useless when it comes to Zeenuts--you just have to observe things over a long haul to get a sense what these cards are worth, and what players/cards attract more buyer attention.
The standard spelling amongst collectors of these cards is Zeenut, even amongst advanced collectors who have 3000 different cards. Go figure. Then again, by the early 30's these cards were not even identified on the card as 'Zee-nut', but as 'Coast League', because these cards were inserted in other brands of candy such as Home Run Kisses and Ruf-Neks (I might have the spelling wrong on this, and heck, I might have carelessly thrown in a hyphen too), and supposedly the Zee-nut candy was waning in popularity compared to the other brands Collins-McCarthy put out.
Brian