Should I be pissed???

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

+1. Kit has been a legend in the hobby for at least 3 and a half decades. I ordered a 1947 Bond Bread Exhibit (Arco--sp?) Ted Williams in SGC NrMt+ last year, and the card arrived with the bottom of the SGC holder loose, which may or may not have done some very, very slight damage to the left lower bottom of the card when someone obviously dropped it. I was pissed for a moment and thought of returning it, but then I thought, "where am I going to find another?" While Adam states in his book on Exhibits that this issue remains rather readily available, this is simply not true with regard to the HOF'ers in the set. I monitor those with a continuing search on ebay, and almost every one that has shown up is a common, with the same one's popping up over and over. The elite HOF'ers have essentially been completely absorbed into permanent collections. My personal opinion is that there were a very small number of sample sets made by Arco and sent out to solicit licensing from such other companies as Bond Bread. They may well turn out to be some of the very rarest examples of the HOF'ers they feature ever.

In any event, yes, I would cut Kit Young some slack--he's done a lot to promote the hobby since the very early days!

Happy holidays,

Larry

Actually, what I wrote was "The cards are scarce but can be found." I search for them pretty regularly too and see quite a few HOFers. When I decided to go after the elite cards, I found the one I really wanted in great shape within a year or two at auction:



and picked up some others as well from eBay






then I called it quits. Today, there are 38 cards listed on eBay and I could buy Rizzuto, Gordon, Kiner, Mize and Boudreau on the spot. To me that says scarce, not rare (though I am guessing that my Reese signed card is rare). That said, I suspect you are correct that the Stan, Joe D., Jackie and Ted cards are 'disappeared' into collections. I have been looking for two of them for a while and they do not surface as frequently as the lesser players, though I have to admit I haven't paid attention to Musial offerings as much since I got mine.

As to the OP and Kit Young, I've bought a number of cards from KY over the years and have never had any qualms with fulfillment. I am sure that they just misplaced the card. Heck, with a sale inventory of only a few thousand cards at any time I have misplaced three different ones this year alone. It happens.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Actually, what I wrote was "The cards are scarce but can be found."

....

To me that says scarce, not rare (though I am guessing that my Reese signed card is rare).

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but this got me to thinking about how terms like "rare" are misapplied in the hobby. What is the difference in "rare" v. "scarce"? Quora online has this to say:

"Scarce is about demand while rare is about supply, more or less. "Scarce" tends to relate a quantity of something to its degree of demand, and there's a partial suggestion that the item is a necessity; e.g., "scarce" means "insufficient to meet needs."

Unless you are truly talking about something that I would consider scarce (I would say that is something you actually can't find, not just something you can find - even if only a few of - but it's expensive and so you don't buy it...) I'm not sure the definition really even matters. But it still makes me scowl when someone lists a card like a '56 Mickey Mantle as "rare" on eBay. Uh, no it's not. It's an expensive and highly desireable card, but it's not within shouting distance of "rare." There are a blue ton of them on eBay at any given moment.

I digress...