Toughest Set Ever?
I am a set collector and have completed, or 99% completed, virtually every post-war set (excluding test issues). I think the 1962 Jello set is the most difficult set to complete that I have gone after in all my years of collecting. At this point I have exactly 100 (about 50%) of the set. There are a group of about 50-75 cards or so that are readily available for purchase, but after that it gets tricky. There are another 75 or so that come up periodically (1-2x/year). And the rest are just never even available for sale. I doubt that I will ever complete this set - that is the first time I have ever believed that about any set from the past 90 years or so.
I believe the experts' list of the 21 toughest, and somewhere I read about a second list of maybe 9 more that are next toughest. Given prices overall, I would guess all of these would bring $500 or more each, and several well into 4 figures. Since Beckett and other price guides are completely worthless on this, I manually track sales of these cards to try to understand the relative values.
I have found another 12 cards that I have seen sell for excess of $100 that are not even on either of these lists. These include 31 Brandt, 43 Perry, 44 Held, 59 Buddin, 77 Wagner, 87 Green, 98 Archer, 105 T Davis, 132 Pagan, 161 Warwick, 175 Virdon, and 198 Roberts. (most of these are listed in Beckett as $6-10 cards). And we are not usually talking about anything better than VG condition.
There is still another group of cards that I have never seen up for auction on eBay in the past 4-5 years: 3 Boyer, 4 Kubek, 12 Arroyo, 16 Boros, 28 Breeding, 68 Veal, 96 Posada, 169 Stuart, 177 Face, 195 Demeter, and 199 Mahaffey. So I have no idea of their selling price should they come on the market.
Given the prices the rarer cards are getting (63 Pagliaroni just sold for $1500+), there is clearly more demand than supply - which is why I believe this set is more difficult than any other I've run across (post-war). Even pre-war - I completed 33 and 34 Goudey, Diamond Stars, and Play Ball sets with far less difficulty (albeit some high prices).
Interested in others' perspectives on this set and would love to hear any different input on relative scarcity/value of the named cards - as well as others I may have missed.
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