The one card in your collection that took you the longest to obtain..
 

... and how long it took you to get it.
Let's see 'em

Pre-war it would be this one. After I began in earnest to try to win/buy one it took nearly three years to land this one. Of course after buying it on the Net54 BST I acquired a second copy within several months.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...Bottomley1.jpg

Post-war it is this 1971 Unnumbered Dick Allen. Took over five years to find a copy. Was actaully alerted to this one on ebay by a board member.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...psb47eaa84.jpg

Re: The one card in your collection that took you the longest to obtain..
 

I started looking for this card in 1988. Finally purchased it in 2000.

Took about 5 years....Other tough ones were Broad Leaf 460 (Konetchy) and Drum (Kelley).

perfect timing of this post
 

I went to the fall Boston show the last two years looking for a fair price Zeenut with a coupon.
None to be found.
I received one in the mail today from a fellow board member at a very fair price.
SGC 40 3 grade.
1926 Staley Los Angeles.

one excited board member.

john

Longest search
 

Has to be this Harry (Henry) Mathewson Ullman PC. Looking for at least 20 years. Just acquired in 2012.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g5...attyfront1.jpg

Winner, winner

Mine is Joe Dimaggio it took me 28 years after I got married to get one of his cards

I doubt there's more than a few of these floating around....

Nice Thread Topic :
 

This card took a decade of diligent search and finally got this card raw in an auction 20 card oddball lot with many different types. This was the last card I needed for my T211 sub-set. This card taught me collecting patience.

Great card Erick, you have an amazing near complete set. Good luck locating the last few.

Combined my longtime interests in baseball...and Japan.

http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1385268286

These are some really amazing cards and the time it took to receive them wow. I wish I had something to post but I don't,

Greg, I love that Japanese Ruth. :)

I started collecting Old Judges in 1997. Picked up my first, Tim Keefe, from Terry Knouse at a Gloria Rothstein White Plains show on January, 19, 1997. I was immediately drawn to the more oddball poses in the set. Two of which were the Ewing and mascot and Williamson and mascot.

The Ewing and mascot was "relatively easy" :D to get - took me "only" seven years. The Williamson and mascot proved more elusive - that took thirteen.

I'd say it was time well spent Kevin.

Superb examples.

1964 Topps Rookie Banquet w/Jackie Robinson
 

Excuse the post-war example, but this postcard-sized type card eluded me for 6+ years before someone broke a set for singles on eBay. Interesting to see salt-and-pepper-haired Jackie in a suit!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F0UsKE6Fmh...e+Banquet.jpeg

This must be the one since it was the last card I needed to complete the set that I began years and years before. The card may be one-of-a-kind. A kind gesture from a very advanced collector who occasionally contributes to this board enabled me to acquire this card and complete my set. He said it was the first card he had sold out of his collection since 1985. There are rumors of another example in a very old collection, but the collector was unable to find the card and I am suspicious that his memory regarding another example of this card is fuzzy after a few decades.
JimB

http://photos.imageevent.com/jimblum...20SGC%2010.jpg

Jim-putting the N167 set together was a great achievement. If they ever establish a collector HOF you get my vote.

Ewing/Mascot was my card that I wanted for the longest time before getting. First saw it when I was nine in a baseball card calendar. Got in 18 years later. The Williamson Mascot took me a couple weeks to get. Never saw it before getting Lew Lipset's book, then once I did, I wanted one. An example showed up on ebay about a week later and I won it.

Jim:

I'd kill to have one of these cards. To have the set, well.....amazing!

Jay:

Ummmm.....Jim's accomplishment(s) notwithstanding, I'd vote for both of you!

John:

No one likes a showoff! :D

Wow Jim! Such an aesthetically beautiful set.

Took me a good 4/5 years of searching to find a T206 ghost back. I ended up with the exact card that got me into collecting vintage, the set and errors.

your post has a nice tie to pre war with the picture of frank shaughnessy who I believe is aka shag from the southern leaguer subset of t206

Frank Shaughnessy is most certainly Shag Shaughnessy. I managed to pick up a sweet autographed 3x5 of him recently.

Great catch on T206 Shag, you don't get to see cards reflect the passing of 5 decades often.

+1 amazing the word rare and tough gets tossed around a lot my pal Jim is walking the walk with this set in spades. Just simply amazing, I don't think most folks get how unreal this is a full set of N167s wow!

Huge Kudos to the collector who let Fanny come home....Jay I also think you're HOF spot is well secure. :)

Yes it's safe to say both Jim and Jay's collections are worthy of the OMG Cat.

http://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn...57_omg_cat.gif

Thanks Joe. Yeah, it's tough!

10+ years chasing these:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...20baseball.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...s%20Crabbe.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...0Didrikson.jpg

One of the toughest 'common' cards I ever went after, 10 years:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...co_%20Star.jpg

Probably the champ for overall time spent, I started collecting the 1968 Atlantic Oil cards around 1978, stopped when I stopped collecting in 1981-1987, then picked back up again with the set in the 1990s. All that time I looked for a prizewinner. I finally got one about a year ago:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...l%20Osteen.jpg

Adam I love that Buster Crabbe card!

Thanks, John, that one is pretty choice. Tuff GDMF set; I still don't have a complete checklist for the issue.

What is the exact issue Adam? They are great looking cards I really like the light blue and the images are amazing.

1932 Exhibit Los Angeles Olympics. I am stuck at 30 cards on what should be a 32 card checklist.

Thank you to Jay, Kevin, Chris, and John for the kind words.
JimB

Finding a centered example with awesome focus and color proved much tougher than I expected. A surprisingly difficult card with all those attributes.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...psc61c3450.jpg

Not to mention properly sized borders...

Absolutely! Icing on the cake for me. :)

t206 chase pink piedmont 150 PSA 5+ centered

virtually impossible to find.

kevin