General Forum

Every collector has that one card they have been (or had been) chasing for quite some time.  Maybe it is an obscure card, a high priced one, or super rare (or all three!).  What is that card that keep/kept you scouring eBay, COMC, trading forums, etc. in the quest to get that hard to fnd gem?

Mine was the 1994-95 Topps Finest Refractor of Grant Hill (card #240).  I began collecting Hill's rookie cards back when I lived in Detroit.  I would hit card shows twice a month there (they had a pretty active card show circuit back then), slowly but surely checking cards off my list.  It was nearly impossible to buy a Hill 240 Refractor, as you didn't even see them out on the market back then. 

I kept to my task, picking up cards from his rookie year, but never finding the damn refractor.

Until a few weeks ago, when I scored a slabbed Beckett graded 8 off eBay.

20 years, and I finally found it.

Tell me about yours..

Great story wamk.  Anyways my "White Whale" started in 1966, my first year collecting.  My favorite player was Pirates shortstop Gene Alley.  I was fortunate enough to obtain one that year.  However, my mother told me that I had to put my cards away after playing with them.  Being the sloppy child that I was I of course did not listen.  One afternoon in September I came inside the house to play with my cards, I had left them on the dining room floor.  The cards were no longer there.  I rushed outside to the backyard and found my mother burning that cards in the fire pit.  OK, lesson learned.  I no longer had my 1966 Gene Alley.

I always wanted to replace that card but being young and living in a very rural area I had no means.  It was not until I was out on my own that I finally replaced that card.  In 1982 I moved near Pittsburgh and discovered a card and collectibles store in Monroeville.  I was thrilled, I walked in the very first time and asked him if he had a 1966 Gene Alley card.  Not just 1 he had at least a dozen of them.  I picked out the one I wanted paid him the money, I do not even remember how much and went back home happy as could be. 

That card is still in one of my binders labelled Favorite Cards (or ones that I will never trade or sell).

For me it was, believe it or not...a checklist! In 1996-97, Topps short printed the checklist big time. I don't remember how the odds were layed out, but it was not common. I even bought the factory set, figuring I would finally get it that way, even knowing full  well that most of the cards would be duplicates. No checklist! I considered that false advertising, and I still do...you can't call something a complete set when it's one card short! I never stopped looking but I never found it...card shows, shops, online once I got a computer in 2000...no luck! Finally, in 2005, I found one on Trader Retreat. I paid $15 for it, I know because I saved the receipt from the money order! Finally, the card I had been chasing for 9 long years was mine! It was a great feeling to finally get it, and complete that set!

I have two other cards I chased for years. I was very sick for the 1996-97 school year, I was in 6th grade. The doctors never could figure out the problem, but that's another story. My mom bought a box of 1996-97 Metal series 1 amd every day after school she would give me a pack. Eventully, the box was finished and I came up 1 card short...card #1. I hate being one card short...even more when it's card #1! It took me years to hunt down that card, and I finally found it in the 1999-00 season. A friendly card dealer broke a complete set he had for sale for me, I never knew his name but if he reads this, I still say thank you over a decade later!

The third one still makes me angry to this day. Again, 6th grade. (my first full year with basketball cards) I had just made a trade with a friend for, among others, 1995-96 Upper Deck Special Edition Shaquille O'Neal. Well, to make a long story short it was stolen that day...by the teacher. (He also collected cards) I eventually replaced it at a card show but it still makes me angry.

Currently I don't have any particular cards I am chasing. There are plenty I want, plenty out of my price range but none that I am really going nuts looking for. A Jeff Gordon autograph would probably top my want list but they sell for a bit more than I can spend on one card...I'm hoping to pull one some day.

 I've been collecting football cards since my dad started buying me wax packs at the grocery store in 1979.  I collected avidly as a teenager into the late 80s, and so developed quite a collection of stars (I also used to play poker with my cousin for cards, and picked up some great mid-70s cards, including a Payton rookie!).  I got married in 1990, and still collected, though the early 90s suck in terms of card value due to the sheer volume of cards produced.  

Well, as young married couples do, we were often strapped for cash.  One day, falling short on rent money and not having much else of value to sell, I took a stack of cards to my local card shop and sold them for a couple hundred dollars.  Gone were my rookie cards of Montana, Marino, Elway, Taylor, Lott, Monk, Dickerson, and Allen, among others (I kept that Payton rookie, though...).  So sad was that day that I somehow blocked it from my memory and several years later after a collecting hiatus, I sorted through all of my cards several times trying to find them, thinking that a relative had stolen them!

Over the years, my collecting has ebbed and flowed, but high priced cards have never been a priority to me.  Right now, I am working on my goal of obtaining all Topps Steelers cards back to 1971 (just picked up the always elusive Joe Greene rookie for a steal!).  Once that goal is completed, I plan to finally get those cards I had to part with back.  Not so much elusive to find, but elusive in the fact that I had them once, but not for over 20 years.

 My card that I search is the 1997-98 Upper Deck Game Dated Moments Parallel of Turgeon.