Sets: How many really exist?

[Baseballcrazy62]

Picked up a 62 Jell-O Baseball partial set today (120/200) and got to thinking about how many complete sets of these are really out there. There is currently no complete sets in the PSA database. The only one listed is 57% complete. In addition, I am in the process of finishing the Dietsche Tigers 1907 set as well ( 80% done). Are there 10/100/1000 of these in private collections? Feel free to throw other sets you are all trying to complete as well. There is obviously no way to really know but was just curious on your thoughts and looking forward to hearing from you all.

[insidethewrapper]

The 1907 Dietsche Set of 15 is relatively easy. Cobb is expensive but available. If you want the Cobb fielding variation then it is "very hard " to complete. If you want the complete 1907-09 Dietsche Detroit Set I would think only a very few Sets of all 3 exist. I have one. If anyone else knows of one please list. This set was great but frustrating to pursue.
Not sure on the Jello Sets.

[Promethius88]

Originally Posted by Baseballcrazy62

Picked up a 62 Jell-O Baseball partial set today (120/200) and got to thinking about how many complete sets of these are really out there. There is currently no complete sets in the PSA database. The only one listed is 57% complete. In addition, I am in the process of finishing the Dietsche Tigers 1907 set as well ( 80% done). Are there 10/100/1000 of these in private collections? Feel free to throw other sets you are all trying to complete as well. There is obviously no way to really know but was just curious on your thoughts and looking forward to hearing from you all.

It is estimated that there are fewer that 10 complete 62 Jell-O sets in existence. I probably know a little about the only PSA set on the registry. Would love to hear what cards were included in the partial set you got. After I get back my next few submissions I will be at near 80% complete. A complete set with numerical grades....I believe will be impossible.

[Tao_Moko]

The E107 set has to be one of the hardest. I think there was a near set in the Chris Sullivan collection but don't know of any 148/148 in existence. Would be a major accomplishment of patience not even considering price. Would love to know if one or more exists(I don't track set registries so maybe my answer lies there)

[x2drich2000]

Originally Posted by Tao_Moko

The E107 set has to be one of the hardest. I think there was a near set in the Chris Sullivan collection but don't know of any 148/148 in existence. Would be a major accomplishment of patience not even considering price. Would love to know if one or more exists(I don't track set registries so maybe my answer lies there)

From past forum posts, there have been at least 2 E107 sets that were closer than the Sullivan collection to being complete. Not sure if either were ever actually finished though. There are a number of sets such as N172, W600, E104-3 that are for all practical purposes, are impossible to complete as the full checklist is unknown. As far as sets that seem impossible, but have been completed, I would vote for Jim Blumenthal's N167 set. In general, I think there are a lot more sets completed and hidden in collections than we generally believe.

[oldjudge]

With the exception of the relatively easy Mayo, A&G, and Goodwin Champ sets almost all 19th century sets are impossible or almost impossible to complete.

[CobbSpikedMe]

The 1923 W572 set has, to my knowledge, never been completed. There is one board member who is the closest I think there has ever been to completing it but even he is still 4 cards away and one of those 4 may not exist.

[xplainer]

Originally Posted by Promethius88

It is estimated that there are fewer that 10 complete 62 Jell-O sets in existence. I probably know a little about the only PSA set on the registry. Would love to hear what cards were included in the partial set you got. After I get back my next few submissions I will be at near 80% complete. A complete set with numerical grades....I believe will be impossible.

So you are near 80% and there are 200 cards in th set?
Wow.

[Promethius88]

Originally Posted by xplainer

So you are near 80% and there are 200 cards in th set?
Wow.

There are actually only 197 cards in the set. Three cards were omitted. #29, #82 and 176. And while 80% isn't "easy", it's nothing compared to the last 10%. The hard core collectors of this set have a good 20-30 years head start on me and it may take me that long to complete it. There are several people much more knowledgeable about the set than I am....I'm still in A ball while they are Hall of Famers. From what I gather, many people have tried to complete this set but gave up due to the difficulty in completing it. I've read where others completed the 61-63 Post and 63 Jell-O but don't even bother trying this one. So far, for me, it's been a labor of love!

[RedsFan1941]

can you elaborate on why the set is so hard to complete or why certain cards are tougher?

[Promethius88]

Originally Posted by RedsFan1941

can you elaborate on why the set is so hard to complete or why certain cards are tougher?

Lol, again, I'm kind of a rookie and my knowledge comes from the guys I consider the Godfathers of this set. But, in short, 1962 was basically a test issue and appears they were printed later in or after the season compared to the Post cereal brethren. The distribution was limited to the Midwest....specifically the Chicagoland area. Not much is known in regards to the exact distribution and quantities as all that information was apparently destroyed or just wasn't saved. Others can give much more detail as far as why some of the players are much more scarce. It has to do with being printed on either the 3oz or the 6oz box or being printed on both and if the were printed on the gelatin or pudding boxes or both. Lol, I try to keep it all straight but I have it written down as I can't always remember things as well as I used to. The funny thing, when you look on Ebay, is the asking prices for the Mantles. While Mantle is going to command a premium just for being Mantle, he is actually one of the easiest cards to find in the set.

[Kenmarks]

I will take a shot at answering your question as I have tried to research this set over the years. Before getting started, wanted to throw a big shout-out to Tim for what he has accomplished towards building his Jell-O set in the very limited time since he started. And he is basically acquiring these cards in a card-by-card manner (as opposed to buying a large percentage of the cards at one time). In fact I know of no one who has made as much progress in putting the set together in the few months he has been at it.

So what makes this set so tough to put together. First there was a very limited distribution of the 1962 Jell-O cards when they were produced. It was a promotion that was a test to see the impact of cards on Jell-O product sales. As such, cards could only found in the Chicago/Milwaukee test area. And plans were that the promotion was to run for only 4 weeks. Thus very much different that the nationally distributed 1963 Jell-O cards in a lot of ways. All 197 players had cards that were issued on various packages of Jell-O gelatin. And some players also had cards on multiple gelatin flavors. But what the Jell-O folks also did in 1962 was to issue cards on 5 pudding flavors in addition to the gelatin flavors. Most of the stars appeared on one or more Jell-O pudding flavors (along with some "common" players). Because of these pudding box appearances, it is not hard to find most cards of the stars of the day as pudding was popular thus making more of certain players available (e.g. Mantle, Maris, Ford, Kaline, Cash, Fox, Aparicio, Killebrew, Snider, F. Robinson, Mays, Cepeda, Aaron, and Mathews were among the HOFers printed on pudding). There are probably around 64 players making appearances of pudding boxes with all of those players being not overly challenging to find.

So it is the remaining Jell-O gelatin cards only that have different degrees of difficulty in locating. And the cards that are really tough are the ones that were SOLELY printed on only one flavor of Jell-O that just did not sell that much. An example of one of those flavors is the small Black Raspberry Jell-O flavor. That is were the super tough cards of players like Maye, Spangler, Grammas, and Haddix were printed on.

One of the major issues from totally understanding the promotion is that there is not documentation that has ever been found that shows exactly which player cards came on each flavor and size of Jell-O (this exists for the 63 Jell-O set and all the Post Cereal BB/FB sets). As such, while there is a general understanding of which cards are tough and the level of difficulty of those cards, without a production list, it is very tough to tell why in terms of Jell-O gelatin flavors those cards appeared on. Some of us have started lists that try track which players appeared on which flavors of Jell-O, but with limited boxes and pictures of boxes available to see the flavor a player was on, those lists are probably far less than 50 percent complete. So I have likely rambled too much, but hopefully provided you a decent overview.

[Baseballcrazy62]

How many Home Run Derby sets do you think are out there? There were 4 complete sets on the all time registry and only 1 on the current registry.

[cannonballsun]

Originally Posted by Baseballcrazy62

Picked up a 62 Jell-O Baseball partial set today (120/200) and got to thinking about how many complete sets of these are really out there. There is currently no complete sets in the PSA database. The only one listed is 57% complete. In addition, I am in the process of finishing the Dietsche Tigers 1907 set as well ( 80% done). Are there 10/100/1000 of these in private collections? Feel free to throw other sets you are all trying to complete as well. There is obviously no way to really know but was just curious on your thoughts and looking forward to hearing from you all.

Wow, color me jealous. I am also working on a 62 jell-o set. If you don't mind me asking, where did you pick up the 120 card lot ? Thanks