E98s: difficulty of cards, colors, and set as a whole

[Michael Peich]

Dave--A good post, and I agree on the Vaughn and Mack in degree of difficulty. I can't speak to color difficulty but I have always been under the assumption that red is the difficult color. This is information culled from two of the e-card experts: Bob Marquette (the recently silent T-Bob) and Scott Mosley. In fact, it was Scott who inspired me to start after I saw his incomparable complete set. I have focussed on the orange backgrounds and need another fourteen to complete, including Dahlen and Mack--hint, hint.

Cheers, Mike

[asphaltman]

Mike-

I've never figured out anything with the colors. I've owned three Vaughns...all were red. I've owned three Coombs, all were red. I've owned five Tenny's, four of the five were orange, one was green. I almost think the colors are just a shot and the dark and I don't know that any of them are that much more difficult in any huge increment, but as you said that is where TBob is best to answer.

[calvindog]

One would have to be truly demented to try to collect all cards in all colors.

[cfc1909]

not an expert on these but I chose red for my type because I thought it was the most difficult color

[Rob D.]

I can speak only to Lajoie in the E98 set. The blue background was by far the toughest for me to find -- as evidenced by its condition compared to my other three. During my search for the blue I exchanged e-mails with a number of veteran collectors of caramel cards, and each could remember seeing very few over the years.

I'm wondering whether a more appropriate angle would be designating which player/color combos are toughest rather than just the background itself. But again, I defer to the experts on this set, of which I certainly am not.

[E93]

My subjective instinct was to say that red is the toughest color. In the end, I think the colors in E98 are probably pretty evenly distributed and it is just that some appear more frequently than others at any given time.

The list above of the tough ones coincides with my experience. I don't know if Mack is the toughest of all, or just seems that way because he is in more demand than the tough commons.
JimB

[tbob]

I've found red to be the toughest color but I have seen more reds bouncing around lately. I've put the set together 4 times card by card and sold them off to buy other cards but I have kept my last set and am very close to an all red subset. The red Lajoie is really tough for some reason and that is still the one card I regret selling and one I need.
As far as order of scarcity, a few more Vaughns and Coombs have appeared lately but I think those are still the two toughest commons, followed by Dahlen and Kling. Chase is not easy but I think he has been hoarded and his availability is influenced more by this fact (popularity) than true scarcity.
As far as the Hall of Famers go, Walsh and Mack are the toughest by far. Wagners are being hoarded (again because of popularity) but Ed and Connie are very hard to find. Interestingly, most Walshs which appear have red backgrounds, directly contrary to the color scarcity tables. The orange Walsh is the toughest to find for some reason. As far as Mack goes, the pose and popularity make this card overpriced (IMO) and tough. I have been searching for a red Mack for some time but usually I only find blues and greens and those in lower grade.
A master set of E98s is doable. Obviously there are 4 Cobbs, 4 Wagners, 4 Youngs, 4 Macks, 4 Lajoies, 4 Vaughns, 4 Coombs', etc. but it is doable if you have the money and don't mind upgrading along the way, unlike the master set of E94s which has cards which rarely if ever surface in particular colors.