I hate the "except for.." in my PC

[jchcollins]

It's nowhere near complete yet, but I am ostensibly collecting the '67 Topps set. Though I have the two big rookies in the 7th series, the rest of the high number SP's will probably wind up being my "except for." Ponying up for Rod Carew is one thing; the idea of paying north of $100 for Mike Shannon feels foolish to me most of the time.

[Yoda]

I am trying to complete a T206 back run of McGraw - glove and only missing the Cycle and Uzit, the only known copy of which sits with our own Teddy Z.

[lampertb]

I have been one card short of completing the '33 Goudey set in trimmed condition (which is weird, but more affordable) for years now. I don't mean the Lajoie.
I have the complete set EXCEPT FOR the green Mel Ott port. I am not willing to pay current prices for a legitimately nice copy, and trimmed ones basically never show up for auction. Frustrating.

[Centauri]

Some of you may not like modern stuff, but I put together a rainbow of 2016 Topps Francisco Lindor. I have every parallel of the flagship base card, including chrome, opening day, factory sets, etc. EXCEPT FOR the 1/1s. Simply impossible to find. I check eBay every day, and I post on various collector forums, but I'll likely never even see the superfractor. I do have all the /5 versions which took plenty of time themselves.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Centauri

Some of you may not like modern stuff, but I put together a rainbow of 2016 Topps Francisco Lindor. I have every parallel of the flagship base card, including chrome, opening day, factory sets, etc. EXCEPT FOR the 1/1s. Simply impossible to find. I check eBay every day, and I post on various collector forums, but I'll likely never even see the superfractor. I do have all the /5 versions which took plenty of time themselves.

I hear your pain on the 1/1s. I have a modern rainbow I am going after. It has 7 1/1s in the rainbow plus all the other serial #ed versions. I have everything but 3 of the 1/1s. I will probably never see them but I still regularly look for them. I made custom versions to temporarily(hopefully) fill their spots.

[chadeast]

Count me in as a one card short '33 Goudey collector as well (I don't count the 1933/34 Lajoie).

I put together the entire set in 2021 minus one card, the yellow Ruth. I didn't care about centering, corners, etc. my main OCD was brightness/cleanness of the background colors. All of the yellow background cards were tough for me to find in non-dirty condition, and so the Ruth became my white whale. I kept thinking a nice looking A would pop up for a reasonable price but it didn't happen and then I ended up waiting too long as prices kept going up. I've since moved on to other sets and my collecting focus has changed somewhat, sometimes I wonder if perhaps I'll always be one card short.

[Tere1071]

About two months ago, my friend gave me most of his childhood collection: Topps Baseball 1967-1969. Each one is missing quite a bit of the commons and the condition of each set is pretty bad, but that's not too much of a problem. What he didn't have were all of the major stars. I will have to live without the 67 high numbers, missing all of the cards for Clemente; Mantle; Bench; Ryan; Aaron (67,69); Mays (67,68); Reggie Jackson (69); plus many of the stars that don't command the same amount of money. This is not a complaint, but it's going to take me quite awhile to put these three sets together- just like when I was a beginning collector in the early 1970s. I am reliving my childhood!

Phil aka Tere1071

[sagard]

Originally Posted by lampertb

I have been one card short of completing the '33 Goudey set in trimmed condition (which is weird, but more affordable) for years now. I don't mean the Lajoie.
I have the complete set EXCEPT FOR the green Mel Ott port. I am not willing to pay current prices for a legitimately nice copy, and trimmed ones basically never show up for auction. Frustrating.

Times like these you need to pickup a beater and trim it yourself. It may be the only way.