Your Toughest Card

[Exhibitman]

For baseball, the 1935 Pebble Beach Clothiers Lefty O'Doul. I'd been collecting O'Doul pieces for years, and it took me until the 2006 National to find one of these. Mark Macrae, one of our members, had 2 of them at the show. Interesting story on this one. The back has a handwritten name ___ Dempsey. Turns out this card was once owned by Con Dempsey, a SF native who ended up playing in the PCL and in MLB. He has a card in the 1952 Topps set.



And for a boxer, this 1904 Jeffries-Munroe 2-sided Sporting Life cabinet card. Only one specimen is known. I'd seen it years ago in the Dreier collection and as a Jeffries collector [he is from Burbank] when it came up for auction I had to have it:

[Zan]

Pretty tough Greenberg issue from Cuba. Condition-wise these cards are a nightmare. Often these cards were affected by humidity, water damage, and even bugs eating through the cards.

Mine is pretty clean, but the back is pretty torn up, but does not take away from the eye appeal of the card.

[z28jd]

Searched at least ten years for a Mansfield Old Judge. Only made one year and only one player is shown on that team. Finally got it in the last REA. Only other time it came up for sale over that time span, it sold for $3200 in a PSA4, so while I would've liked to ended my search with that example, my high bid fell well short.

[mrvster]

wow johnny !!

great thread jamie....i gotta thinks bout dis one

[donmuth]

Originally Posted by z28jd

Searched at least ten years for a Mansfield Old Judge. Only made one year and only one player is shown on that team. Finally got it in the last REA. Only other time it came up for sale over that time span, it sold for $3200 in a PSA4, so while I would've liked to ended my search with that example, my high bid fell well short.

I too would like get one of the Old Judge Alcott's from Mansfield. My family is from there so it's more sentimental than anything. Nice card. Thanks for sharing!

[mrvster]

wow!!!!!!!!!!!

[triwak]

Worked long and hard to finally nab Torriente (2012 REA). And my Coveleski was much harder than I thought it would be.

[Bosox Blair]

Don't want to seem indecisive, but each of these was really tough (with 5 or fewer graded examples of each...):

[Leon]

Since I get the disappointment when many of my collections rare cards have more discovered I still have a few that I would consider really tough....

[sportscardpete]

e104-3.jpg


^^ I may be completely off base, but from what I understand the only other person that owns the e104-3 Doolan is K. Olbermann... His is much nicer (obviously).


BTW that's a beautiful D304 Cobb, Leon. Very nice for the grade.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

Don't want to seem indecisive, but each of these was really tough (with 5 or fewer graded examples of each...):

Blair- like a walk down memory lane, I think I was under bidder on all 3 of those cards. Great cards!
tbob

[leaflover]

As a set collector these were the toughest for me. I'm proud of them and feel fortunate to have them.

A Kurowski that is well registered.
A Cohen that is bright and clean.
An Old Mill Mullaney with 4 nice corners.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by donmuth

I too would like get one of the Old Judge Alcott's from Mansfield. My family is from there so it's more sentimental than anything. Nice card. Thanks for sharing!

Good luck finding it. The bad thing for your quest is that collectors who already have the card won't let another get by them because they know it's good trade bait. So you're not just competing against people who need the card, you're going against people who see it as a way to possibly get a different tough card away from another OJ collector

[gnaz01]

e125 American Caramels

[TUM301]

Really enjoy these threads because of all the beautiful cards of various board members. Have to say in this tread those E 125`s are THE hottest of all ! WOW

[g_vezina_c55]

my eddie plank !

[gnaz01]

Originally Posted by TUM301

Really enjoy these threads because of all the beautiful cards of various board members. Have to say in this tread those E 125`s are THE hottest of all ! WOW

Thanks, I still want more