Relatively common cards that seem anything but

I've been taking a bit of a break from cards over the last month or so, but in doing so have taken some time to look through and enjoy the piles of incoming mail and older cards that often get looked over in maintaining an active collection. In doing this, I have also realized I don't have a few cards that I either assumed I had, or just never remembered to pick up. Among this new 'wish list' have been quite a few relatively common cards that just never seem to come up. Obviously there are some cards like the FX Blues or other lower numbered parallels that are just incredibly rare, or some parallels numbered over /100 that many people simply wouldn't think to list.

However, the one card that really stood out on this list was the 2001 Studio Jack Wilson RC. It was one card I assumed I had given its relatively high print run (off hand, I want to say the Studio RC's were numbered over 1000), it came from a pretty popular set and a year where a large volume of wax was opened. However, after numerous spreadsheets and other lists of my collection from over the years, this card is nowhere to be found. While I have 2 or more copies of every base Wilson RC, I can't even recall seeing a single copy of the Studio card at a show over the past 10 years, or a listing on ebay in the past 5 or 6.

Just seemed very out of place as far as perceived scarcity and print run compared to most of the other cards that are missing from my player collection. Anyone else have a similar experience trying to find a presumably "common" card?

4 cards from 2008 SPx -Jeff Clement, Carlos Muniz, Jonathan Meloan, and Justin Maxwell

All four are considered common rookie autographs but I can't seem to find them to finish my set. While they are not numbered, UD has stated that they are not short-printed in any way.

It's mind-boggling that a card of a major league regular with 1000 copies wouldn't have shown up once within the past 5-6 years!

If one did show up, would you be inclined to pay a premium for it since you've had so much trouble tracking it down? Or would you still treat it like any other comparable Wilson RC?

I have done something similar... a few times I'll get a nice card, say a Mirror Black... I'll realize that now I have all the parallels, every card from the set! Except for the base card... :shock:

vandybill said:

4 cards from 2008 SPx -Jeff Clement, Carlos Muniz, Jonathan Meloan, and Justin Maxwell

All four are considered common rookie autographs but I can't seem to find them to finish my set. While they are not numbered, UD has stated that they are not short-printed in any way.

Click to expand...

According to Terapeak, no Clement, Muniz, or Maxwell within the last 90 days.

You missed out on a Meloan about two months ago. Closed at under $4:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300382028332&category=213

maxpower said:

It's mind-boggling that a card of a major league regular with 1000 copies wouldn't have shown up once within the past 5-6 years!

If one did show up, would you be inclined to pay a premium for it since you've had so much trouble tracking it down? Or would you still treat it like any other comparable Wilson RC?

Click to expand...

That's an interesting question. At this point, any non-auto RC's that are listed end without any bids, and in general I seem to be the only playe collector still actively collecting him of the 3 or 4 that existed at one point. I'd probably be willing to pay a bit more than it's 'worth' simply to knock it off the list, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way.

It would hazard a guess that many of them are sitting in $1 boxes or tosses aside by collectors that had been hoping to land Ichiro or Pujols out of the product. But it is very strange that none have been listed for as long as I can recall, and the odds of one slipping by me are pretty slim since I search for new Wilson listings every 2-3 days.

There are a few Bagwells just like this. There are a whole slew of small time inserts that are just as freaking bad. Take 2005 turkey red for instance. I know how hard it was to pull a parallel. The reds, whites, and blacks, weren't that damn hard. Of course you got more reds than anything but the cards themselves weren't too terribly hard to pull. So...how come to this day I have only seen one black for sale and one white? I own the white. I refused to pay what would have been about $6 for the black. It ended a few days ago. In all honesty...after I tried to outbid the guy...I might have paid even more than $6. For a card like that...it seems way too much for me. Plus the fact it never shows up is what caused it to go for that much.

While base cards can be a mega pain(it took me 3 years to find a 1992 mothers cookies from the team set), it seems the inserts that shouldn't be hard at all are pretty tough.

There are some cards that come from a parallel set with a stated print run of, say, 100, but fewer were actually *distributed* by the manufacturer of a particular card from that set. Distributed <> produced.

I just assume the manufacturer or its agent screwed up the printing or collation process, or was puposefully trying to make a particular card more valuable by limiting its actual distribution, and/or making a set tougher to complete.