Caramel Card set collecting

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

I know there are a bunch of caramel card set collector's out there so I wanted to start a thread to get everyone's opinion on the levels of difficulty putting together some reasonable Caramel sets. When I say reasonable, I don't mean e107 or e97 Proofs, more like e93, e98, e90-3, e103, e92...etc..etc..as I'm hoping this will be a great thread for beginning collector's to read as well.

I'm especially curious to hear people's thoughts on what specific cards seem to be easier to come by and which cards are more difficult in each set. A lot of this is speculative I realize, as everyone will have their own opinions on this, however I think it would be fun to hear about some of your collecting experiences.

For example....My thoughts on e90-3 are that you can get about 10-12 of the cards without too much of a hassle and then you just sort of hit a point where the cards become a real struggle to obtain. Schulte and Dougherty are commons that I see quite often and Walsh is a HOFer that's pretty easy to find as well. While I've always had an easy time with noted toughies Smith and Archer, Payne has given me problems as have some of the known toughies like Hahn and Gandil. Some of the HOFers such as Brown and especially Chance can be a handful to obtain as well. All in all, it's definately an accomplishment to complete this set as there are seemingly several cards in this set that are just plain scarce.

Hope this gives us a start...thanks for any and all contributions.

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Posted By: JimB

Great thread to start. I have an E93 set and need four more cards to complete my E95 set. I have not been agressive in pursuit of E95s, so it has taken longer. My unscientific guess would be that E95s are a little easier than E93s, but not much. E94s are significantly tougher than both of those, especially if one is going for specific color variations.
JimB

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Posted By: JimB

Quan,
I hope you notice this thread. I think you could give some valuable input.
JimB

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Posted By: Bryan Long

caramel sets for about a year now maybe a tad more. e93, e95 and e96 all seem pretty easy with enough income. e93 seems to me a bit harder than the rest. As for difficult cards have seen the e96 Kling card offered only three time that I can remember on the bay in the past year. It may be just me but I don't recall seeing very many e95 Wiltse cards either. I'm about half way on all these sets with e95 being the closest to being done.

I do think that is kinda funny that we all know that there are a few cards that are very hard to find in such sets like e107 and a few others. The hard to find cards in the "easy" sets, like mine, when they do come into auction on the bay or anywhere else they don't seem to go beyond any other common card price - so I guess this is a good thing. Kling is a good example of this. Normal common price even though I think it is much harder to get than the rest.

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Posted By: robert a.

Hey brian and jim.

Overall, I think e95 is the easiest of the sets you mentioned to put together...meaning that all the players are accessible (and accessible is nicer conditions). The only obstacles are finding the high profile hofers at reasonable prices. E95 "freaks" might tell you that certain examples are tougher than others, but I don't think I've found any that stand out as really tough.

E96 is reasonable in my opinion too, especially since it doesn't contain some of the more expensive hofers. I have not seen any in this set either that are extremely hard to find, but I have not tried to complete this set as of yet.

E98 seems to be available a tad less to a lot less than e96 and e95 depending on the player. In my experience, all of the colors have relatively the same availability. I think there are some slightly tougher players to find though including coombs and dahlen. I have also found mathewson and wagner to be slightly uncommon, but this might be simply cuz' they're matty and wagner. I would enjoy hearing other e98 collectors' thoughts on tough players or color examples they have found to be tough for certain players.

I would have to agree with Brian on the e90-3s. There is definitely a "stall" point where one must test his patience. I've been looking for a gandil for six years. Who knows, maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but don't see that many offered on public auctions. Hahn is definitely tough.

E103s, even though well thought of, I believe are still undervalued and would be tough to complete the set. The hofers in this set are held on to and don't seem to show their faces that often...especially in nice condition.

looking forward to other comments.
robert a.

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Posted By: Mike Williams

Of the sets mentioned, my experience is:

Easiest to hardest (color variations aside)...

E93
E95
E98
E96
E94
E103 - While some may disagree, this is a hard-core "E" collectors set and I don't see the mad-rush to snatch these up "at any price" like I see with other "E" sets.

Great thread...

Mike

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

Some great feedback so far guys....I'll give my input on some of the other sets that have come up thus far. With sets like e93, e98 and e95, my take on them is that while e95 might be a little more readily available, all of them can be tricky because they all have Wagner/Cobb/Matty cards which people are sometimes less than willing to give up for a reasonable price. However, for the most part, cards from all these sets are mostly easy to come by if you have the funds (like Bryan said). One interesting item of note in completing these sets is that whereas some sets have a "notable obstacle" like an e90-3 Gandil or an e102 Miller fielding....I don't believe these sets have anything insanely scarce like that to interfere with completion.

The same can be said for e90-2. I feel that most of the cards in this set aren't any more difficult to come by than, say e98 cards, yet that Wagner is a huge obstacle, financially speaking. Of all the "beginning to intermediate" level sets we've been discussing, the e90-2 Wagner, while available, will put the largest strain on your pocketbook. Although, once you get that, you're only 10 cards away from completing the set

I really like the e96 set and I think it's really the best set I've seen so far for the beginning collector who's not really into e90-1 or e91 but doesn't want to invest the money to bring in a Wagner or a Cobb that would be needed for e95, e93, etc... I was working on this set at one point, and it seemed like even the cards rumored to be harder...ie...Kling, Tinker, Baker, etc...came very easily. It seems that Mack and Lajoie don't come along very often however. Although, at any given point, you'll get the most results for e95 and e96 cards when searching on Ebay.

I definately agree with Rob on the e103 set. HOFers rarely show up for this set and even commons are hard to come by. I swear I see more e107s on Ebay than I do e103s. It seems as though this set is sort of "stuck" between the "accessible" sets (e93, e98 etc...) and the insanely difficult sets (e97 B&W, e107) which could make it less popular because the cards might not necessarily appeal to beginners or advanced collectors. I've also heard several people complain about the artwork. I believe I remember one board member pointing out that "everyone's hair in this set is red for some reason..." These issues involving it's popularity may help to explain why this set is sometimes viewed as undervalued. It seems to me that while I know of multiple collectors going after each of the sets we've mentioned to this point, I don't know of really anyone actively pursuing an e103 set. However, when a decent e103 does become available, there's some fairly healthy competition for the card. I'd also say this set is significantly harder than even e90-3 to complete. The Cobb and Wagner cards signficantly exceed those cards from other sets in market value and it would seem that even the most commonly seen e103s are seldom made available. In other words, if I'm a type collector, I'll probably find 6-7 e90-3s before I find a single e103.

Great reading guys....thanks again!

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Posted By: robert a

Brian,
I tried to "actively" pursue the e103 set. Only, the thing is that the word "active" doesn't go with the pursuance of the set. I found one collector who has 60 cards or so and I believe they make up two full sets, but he wouldn't part with them.

The number of cards in the set makes it appealing until you actually start looking for them. It might as well be 100 cards.
I'm not saying it's nearly as hard as other sets like e107 (which has many more players) but definitely requires some patience.

Maybe the fact that the artwork was used in other sets like m116 devalues the cards for some collectors. I like the designs...especially the text at the bottom.
robert a

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Posted By: Ben

I dont think the overall difficulty of some of these caramel sets can be fully guaged until you specify the condition of the cards that you're collecting. Sure, it is easy to find just any old e95 or e96, but try finding them in EX or better. Now try finding EX or better cards from notoriously condition sensitive sets like Crofts Cocoa or E103. So, if you're just starting out on caramels with an easier set like e95/6 and dont want to break the bank, learn to be a little less picky about condition or you'll end up betting more than you bargained for.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I have limited caramel experience, but I ahve owned 8 e90-3s and have had dupes of the supposedly tough Archer card and no others. Having just trade off most of e90-3s, my days of pursuing any caramel set have ended. I will just keep type cards now. The only e-card I've never owned was an e91. They are just to generic for me.

Jay

Suppose you are an idiot...then suppose you are the President. Oh, wait. I'm repeating myself.

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Posted By: Bob

Before I became more knowledgeable about the dos and don't of cards, I had 4 cards with tiny color chips which flaked off, an E98 Matty, an E94 Jennings, an E94 Evers and an E98 Clarke. They all flaked off in the upper right area of color for some bizarre reason, over a 2 year period. I took a tiny dab of glue and affixed the color flake back to the card on 3 occasions, being careful to line everything up correctly. Well, instead of 3 formerly vg-ex cards before the chips flaked off, I now had 3 ungradeable cards because of "alteration" according to the grading companies. Had I let the tiny chips off, I would have had G/Vg cards with great eye appeal. We live and learn. I still have all 3 cards. The Jennings card flaked when I removed it from the hard top loader at purchase. I assume it was just a time bomb waiting to happen and not an already flaked card when sold to me. The other 2 happened when I transferred the cards from top loaders to mylar pocket pages. (I now slab every one of my caramel cards regardless of condition). The E94 Evers I left alone. It was an otherwise EX+ card and was sold on ebay a while back and BINed at that. Great card with terrific eye appeal.
I guess the bottom line in this rambling discourse is to simply insure collectors, particularly those who are new to collecting caramel cards, will take great care in their handling. They are much more fragile than tobacco cards. We live and learn (sigh)....

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Posted By: robert a

same one?

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Posted By: quan

i agree with tbob. you should not collect caramel cards as they will most likely explode on you at any moment.

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Posted By: BCDaniels

five years ago we had this discussion on the Fullcount board and I mentioned I purchased an Evers E-94 from Brian Wentz ala 1989 I believe at a San Francisco show and he flaked off fragments of the top right corner exactly as Bob described and we had to haggle out what to do with the card after Michael saw the tiny flakes on their display case. It's funny because Michael remebered the incident and we interacted on the subject on John's board maybe seven years later.

Anyway,there are certain cards within each of these issues that are super tough. Examples~

E-92 Wagner fielding in Croft's Cocoa
E-102 Miller fielding
& the Miller batting pose!
and how many Matty's have you seen from the E-91 set? I have seen 5 in over 30 years total.

Pete made a point a year ago or so that E-98's are way harder to find then E-93's and that has proven to easily be true. A couple of the commons are very hard to locate if ever.

Croft's Cocoas that are either NOT diamond cut or have 80/20 top/bottom combos when they are cut decently? And the ones that are cut somewhat centered usually have very bold backs that you can see the border of on the front!

And here we are just talking garden variety E-card sets as oppossed ot super rare ones most of us who collect then look for just a nice type card of like the E-104-3s or E-107S (this would exclude the super brockelman collection of these)

There are four E-101's you almost never see-

Barry
Seigle (horizontal)
Doyle throwing
Miller-fielding

the Wagner fielding and Evers in this set seem very tough as well. In fact, the Wagner fielding seems very tough in most of the more "commercial" E-card sets!

Here is a registered set members comments on the E102s he loves~

Owner's Comments:
The E102 set comprised of 29 cards is achievable, but with significant obstacles: It has four extremely rare variations most advanced collectors would find difficult (Doyle Batting, Miller Fielding, Wagner Fielding, and Schmidt); the population of PSA graded cards makes a PSA graded set improbable (a set would be roughly 1/4 of the known PSA 138 card-plus population), and there is the Cobb rookie controversy. Many feel the E102 is Cobb’s true Rookie card. Sure there’s the Cobb W555 strip card that may be a year earlier, but this is the first regular issue baseball card of Ty Cobb -- not a strip card. E102s also have at least one player that did not start with his team until 1910 (Schaefer/Washington), making this probably a multi-year production set similar to the 1909-11 T206s. Despite these issues this is one of the earliest Caramel sets, and first full color 20th Century Caramel set - arriving in 1908. Caramel cards were generally collected by kids and Tobacco issues by adults, accounting for Caramel card condition rarity. Assembling a mid-grade Caramel set of E102s with all of the variations is a considerable achievement due to the hunt for far fewer possibilities and availability in much lesser condition than more widely available tobaccos. E102s are also intriguing. All have a simple theme and many are primitive, yet some can be quite eloquent such as Mathewson pitching with a wide panorama of sky and grass; Schaeffer pitching with deep multihued background of sky, trees and earth; or Donovan with orange background and a purple-toned venerate stadium of an age and many games long past. E102s remind the collector of the earliest, simple beginnings in the 20th Century of a color baseball card format that captures the earliest, pioneer-giants of baseball etched in American memory forever including Cobb, Wagner,Mathewson, Lajoie, Tinker; baseball’s first figures of National stature, all in such a small set.

E-105s! Greg loved them enough to have his handle previously named after this set~
The Chase
Gibson
and Matty I feel have been the toughest to find! Wagner fielding of course!


and has anyone ever seen the four color combinations of E-98 Mattys at the same time?
E-106 Lajoie is almost as hard to find as the Speaker* TBob is probably sorry he sold! : )

more later~

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Posted By: Bob S foulpole

Robert, I bought the Evers raw from Tbob a couple of years ago..had it graded and then traded it to you last week...So I think it's the same one tbob is talking about.

Bob S

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Posted By: Wesley

For some reason, I find that there are less E96 cards that come up for sale than cards from some of the other caramel sets that we talked about. At any given time, there seems to be more E92, E93, E95, E98 cards available on ebay than E96 cards. Looking at the current and ended ebay auctions, I found the following:

51 E95
24 E92 Dockmans
19 E93
17 E98
9 E96

Every week things change and the numbers above are only ebay's current auctions and auctions that ended in the last 30 days. I collect each of the sets above and that is exactly how I would rank them in terms of difficulty, with E95 being the easiest, Dockmans being the second easiest, etc.

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Posted By: Bryan Long

I'm curious as to how many people consider e95 and e96 to one set. I know the back of the card says that the e96 set is a continued portion of the e95 set. Do people consider it two sets because it was said so many years back or are there people out there that still consider it to one set? I say it is two but mostly because that is what the book says

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Posted By: ockday

I totally agree with Wesley's ranking of the sets. In particular I have found that e95's are pretty easy to find in low to mid grade. The sets I collect that I have found to be really tough are e97 and e103. I also believe that e95 and e96 are definitely 2 different and distinct sets.
Alan

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Posted By: quan

from my experience e93s and e95s are easier to find in crappy to mid-grade. e96s are also easy in lower grades but gets tougher in higher grades and w/o staining. e98s are def. tougher than the other 3 sets. Then on top of that you have the e94s and e97s. I have not move an inch on my e97 set for over a year now, maybe i don't know enough people.

e102s is not so bad in lower grades, i gave up on e103s and e105s (also a favorite) cuz they're damn hard and e103s don't look that nice in crappy grade.

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Posted By: JimB

As somebody who has attempted to put together a high grade (ex/mt or better) E93 set, I can say it is hard as hell to find these cards in ex/mt or better. Most of the examples I have in these grades are the only ones I have seen publically offered in years. I have been working on my E93s for about nine or ten years. I am still kicking myself for not bidding on some nm/mt and mint examples offered by Mastro about seven years ago. At the time I was planning on being context with ex to ex/mt. If the winner of those nm/mt and mt E93s is out there, please contact me. Even ex is quite high grade and hard to find for most caramel issues. Some are tougher than others in high grade.
JimB

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Posted By: robert a

Could folks take a minute to provide who they think are the toughest players, variations, colors etc. from each of the following:
E90
E92 crofts
dockman
nadja
E93
E94
E95
E96
E97 colors
E98
E101
E102
E103
E104
E105
E106
or any others that you would like to include.
I know much info. is already contained in this thread and other threads, but a simple list for some of these sets would be helpful to me and other set collectors.
thanks.
robert a

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Posted By: Andy Cook

I have completed E90-2, E91-C, E92 Dockman, E93, E96. The easiest for me by far was E96, which I completed in Good to VG in about 6 months.

My E90-2 set is beater mostly, with one or two VG. E90-2s were easy for the first 7-8, then stalled. I actually picked up 5 in one day at a show in Baltimore in 1995. The last card I got was Maddox and it took me a full year to locate one after I had the first 10. In the meantime I had about 3 Millers, several Adams, Gibsons and Hyatts. In total, it took me 6 years to finish my E90-2 set.

I completed an E92 Dockman set in about two years in the mid 90s minus the Young. In the whole time I went through close to 50 Dockmans before I saw my first Young. I broke up my E92 Dockman near set in the late 90s and am now trying to reassemble it. It's more difficult to find them this time around.

I completed E93 in two years. In the first year I got 28 of the cards and then it took me a full additional year to get Brown and Coveleskie which I think are widely recognized as the most difficult cards in the set.

In E91-C I found relative scarcity based on the teams. The three teams included are Senators, Pirates and Red Sox. The Senators are much easier than the other two, Pirates in the middle and the Red Sox were much more difficult....although not as difficult as finding missing cards for E90-2 or E93.

I did complete 21 out of 25 E95s (minus Cobb, Evers, Plank, Wagner) in less than a year. I think this is the easiest caramel set to complete if you have the money for the big name HOFers.

Anyone have some extra Dockmans they want to trade?
Andy

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Posted By: Todd (nolemmings)

Nice to see your input on these caramels. Would like to get a detailed post from you on the Tango Eggs and/or Mello Mints too, although probably more suited to a new thread.

Wouldn't mind hearing from Pete either on these cards, which seem to grow noticeably more popular by the day.

Todd

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Speaking of chipped E cards . . .

I pretty much agree with what's been said above. The E95 and E96 sets were fairly easy. E97 and E103 are tough buggers to find. If you find an E103 in vg you have a blazer.

My E103 set is at:

http://homepage.mac.com/thurber51/PhotoAlbum39.html

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

As a fun little sideproject within this thread, I thought I'd go ahead and start putting together sort of a "master list" of cards that we all consider to be especially difficult within each set. This is under the assumption that we aren't taking finances or condition into account. Just listing what are overall, the cards which have caused collector's the most problems in completing a set. Here's what I have so far, please feel free to add to this list or let me know if I have a card listed in error that is actually easy to obtain:

E90-1 -- Speaker, Sweeney (Boston), Graham, Mitchell (Cincinnatti), Clarke, Stahl, Walsh
E90-2 --
E90-3 -- Hahn, Gandil, Chance, Payne
E92 (Crofts) -- Wagmer (fielding),
E92 (Dockman) -- Young
E92 (Nadja)
E93 -- Brown, Coveleskie
E94
E95
E96 -- Mack
E97 (color)
E98 -- Coombs, Dahlen
E101 -- Barry, Seigle (horizontal), Doyle (throwing), Miller (fielding), Wagner (fielding)
E102 -- Miller (fielding), Wagner (fielding), Doyle (batting), Schmidt
E103
E104
E105 -- Gibson, Mathewson, Wagner (fielding)
E106 -- Lajoie, Speaker

Andy -- Don't have any Dockmans, but I don't suppose you have any of those extra e90-2s still lying around do you?

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Posted By: Rob McKenzie

I threw in the towel after collecting 20 - 25 different Mello Mints. I saw relatively alot of Topsy Hartsels and Dave Sheans, and as alot of you know the Lajoie.

It's only anecdotal, but I never saw a Bill Bergen, Doc Casey or Otto Knabe up for sale in the 4 years that I tracked the set.

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Posted By: brian p

Quite often I come in these posts late, but here's my long time collector ranked listing on the difficulty of completing caramel sets.

Easy (relatively speaking):

E95 (The most common)
E93
E96 (this set is not as common as some--heck, E90-1 is the most commonly seen caramel issue, but just try to complete it--but the lack of big name HOF cards keeps it reasonable)

Ones that are trickier, mostly because of more difficult cards:

E92 Dockman
E98

Lack of interest category:

E91A, E91B, E91C (doable sets, just not enough collector interest in them)


The next jump in completion difficulty:

E90-2 (because it is so small)


Sets that would be pretty darn tough to complete:

E90-3
E90-1 (because of the known tough and lesser known tough cards)
E94
E102 (because of the Wagner and Miller cards mentioned earlier)
E97


Sets that even a gung-ho collector is unlikely to ever complete, except with the help of some Mastro-esque five to six digit help:

E107 (is this one even possible?)
E105
E103
E99
E100

Ones that I just never paid much attention to, but would probably be extremely difficult to complete:

E92 (all types except for Dockman)
E104--never have cemented in my memory bank the differences between all the sets--these probably belong in above category


Pete on his Caramel site has some pretty interesting observations about the relative availability of caramel issues (which I mostly concur with), and it is interesting to see how his listing compares to our observations about set completeability here.

Brian

Brian

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Posted By: Chris B

How about the E135 set? Has anyone attempted to complete this, and how difficult is it in comparison to the other caramel/candy sets?

chris

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Posted By: Bob Marquette

Sorry was out of town, just got back. Yes that is the same Evers. Envision a clean upper right corner and you'll see why I am almost had a heart attack when that frigging color flake fell off.
On the E98s, Dahlen is tough all right, but I rate it 4th toughest behind Coombs, Vaughn and Tenny. Vaughn is a killer.