The rarest card of all time?

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WatchMyBreaks

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I've been thinking about this since I started back into the hobby. What do you think is the rarest card of all time? Excluding 1/1s, errors cards, printing plates, made to order cards, etc.

The reason I ask this question is because I was thinking back to when I first started collecting and seem to remember either 1997-98 or 1998-99 Upper Deck having a Bobby Hull jersey card that had an outrageous print run and BV for the time.

What do you think?
 
If we are talking all sports included, I think you'd have trouble arguing against the famed Honus Wagner T206 card. Only a handful known to exist in the first place, and even fewer in decent conditions.

If you're talking hockey only, then I really don't know to be honest. You'd probably have to look back at the 1911 C55 cards, just due to how old they are. Probably not a great number of those remaining around.
 
Wagner is perhaps the most famous example from that set, but there are others from that era of equal or greater scarcity.
 
capsfan30 said:
If we are talking all sports included, I think you'd have trouble arguing against the famed Honus Wagner T206 card. Only a handful known to exist in the first place, and even fewer in decent conditions.

If you're talking hockey only, then I really don't know to be honest. You'd probably have to look back at the 1911 C55 cards, just due to how old they are. Probably not a great number of those remaining around.
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C55's are actually quite common. The 1912 C57 set is much rarer. 1924 Champ's is also a rare set. If you include "postcards", the 1911 Sweet Caporals are impossible.

In terms of individual hockey cards, the holy grails are the 1910 C56 Lalonde (second one in the set) and 1923 William Patterson Bert Corbeau. The Sweet Caporal Vezina could also be considered.

The Lalonde is a variation of his common card in the set and was supposed to be a test copy or was pulled from production. It wasn't even discovered for a half century. The Corbeau is a short print while the Sweet Caps are just extremely rare and Vezina is the biggest name.

The Wagner is not impossible to find by Pre-War standards (granted, print runs were much higher for baseball than hockey), but it is part an extremely important set and depicts perhaps the greatest shortstop ever. And, of course, there is much speculation surrounding the reason it was short printed. There is no comparable hockey card in my opinion.
 
The Proset Stanley Cup hologram is the rarest card that you will find in hockey with a print run of 5,000 copies.


From current cards that are very forgotten how rare they are is Victory black parallels. Very few collectors open Victory. Their is just very little to collect in those boxes. I would bet that the majority of that product gets opened by kids who have no clue what they pulled or the cards are just sitting in unopened boxes. Very few cards actually hit eBay.
 
13-14 Black Diamond - Claude Giroux all star double jersey.
one in like 30, 000 packs. I think there's only four overall and they are not numbered.
never seen one yet.
 
Titanium kovalchuk and datsyuk rookies limited to their jersey #'s. I saw each of them listed a few years back on eBay for $3000 each. Never saw them again after a brief stint.
 
t-rex604 said:
Titanium kovalchuk and datsyuk rookies limited to their jersey #'s. I saw each of them listed a few years back on eBay for $3000 each. Never saw them again after a brief stint.
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3k? wow
 
Well if we're excluding 1/1's I guess I'd have to go with the Duncan Keith The Cup Gold Rainbow /2. ;)
 
Well unfortunately if you google rarest hockey cards it just comes up with most expensive auction closing for most of the hits which may or may not be rarest depending on your definition of rare.
Richard mentions the Duncan Keith gold rainbow rookie /2
There are many other rare Cup gold rainbow rookies. If you exclude the 1/1 gold rainbow rookies like Popperle , Doyle and Enroth that will also leave you with players /2 like Keith , Grosman , Russell ,Luke Schenn , Smith from Detroit.
Some times you can not even trust the checklist the company puts out as i have a Joe Pavelski gold rainbow rookie listed as /8 on the checklist but does this look like it is out of eight. Of course they have the proviso subject to change on any checklist they have but that was like 8 years ago how about an update to the checklist.



Then there are short prints in some sets that they do not tell you how many there are. I have seen people doing the 09-10 Ultimate signature set looking for Gretzky to finish their set. There was a post some time ago in show and tell for people to show off their Gretzky autos and i saw 3 of the Gretzky Ultimate signatures there. I did the 08-09 Ultimate signature set and found there was several short prints Gretzky , Howe and Roy (redemption)
I have not seen another let alone 3 08-09 Gretzky Ultimate signatures. Sure after i finished the set i stopped trolling feebay and boards looking for them but man i would have to guess 5 or less them.

 
I think a pretty good candidate is
1997-98 Donruss Elite Prime Numbers Die-Cuts #11B Joe Sakic 0/0*

Depending on your view, it does exist, there's just exactly zero copies of those.
 
habscards said:
The Proset Stanley Cup hologram is the rarest card that you will find in hockey with a print run of 5,000 copies.


From current cards that are very forgotten how rare they are is Victory black parallels. Very few collectors open Victory. Their is just very little to collect in those boxes. I would bet that the majority of that product gets opened by kids who have no clue what they pulled or the cards are just sitting in unopened boxes. Very few cards actually hit eBay.
Click to expand...


I was a fan of the Victory Black. Kind of a head scratcher why some of the RCs such as Stamkos don't command a little more value than say a regular YG but imo, the unknown print runs which were thought to be around 20 initially for the SSPs (after 05-06) seem to quite a bit more in reality. I have graded 9.5s of both Stamkos and Simmonds Victory black RCs, but would be much better off with BGS 10 YGs if selling.
 
JoelCarry said:
Well unfortunately if you google rarest hockey cards it just comes up with most expensive auction closing for most of the hits which may or may not be rarest depending on your definition of rare.
Richard mentions the Duncan Keith gold rainbow rookie /2
There are many other rare Cup gold rainbow rookies. If you exclude the 1/1 gold rainbow rookies like Popperle , Doyle and Enroth that will also leave you with players /2 like Keith , Grosman , Russell ,Luke Schenn , Smith from Detroit.
Some times you can not even trust the checklist the company puts out as i have a Joe Pavelski gold rainbow rookie listed as /8 on the checklist but does this look like it is out of eight. Of course they have the proviso subject to change on any checklist they have but that was like 8 years ago how about an update to the checklist.



Then there are short prints in some sets that they do not tell you how many there are. I have seen people doing the 09-10 Ultimate signature set looking for Gretzky to finish their set. There was a post some time ago in show and tell for people to show off their Gretzky autos and i saw 3 of the Gretzky Ultimate signatures there. I did the 08-09 Ultimate signature set and found there was several short prints Gretzky , Howe and Roy (redemption)
I have not seen another let alone 3 08-09 Gretzky Ultimate signatures. Sure after i finished the set i stopped trolling feebay and boards looking for them but man i would have to guess 5 or less them.

Click to expand...

I have one of these Gretzky autos stashed away…..
 
I will throw the 99/00 UD Retro Inkredible Gretzky auto into the discussion. I have only ever seen 2 or 3 of the level 1 autos, compared to a few more of the level 2 autos which are numbered out of 25.
 
Superdoup said:
13-14 Black Diamond - Claude Giroux all star double jersey.
one in like 30, 000 packs. I think there's only four overall and they are not numbered.
never seen one yet.
Click to expand...

I got the only one I have seen on ebay. someone had it with a $75 bin so I snatched it up. this is the only year I have complete jersey wise.

I would add the pic but I cant until I post 15 times
 
Thinking about it more, there are a few Lecavalier autos that I have that I haven't seen any other copies of or only one or two other copies. 04-05 SP Authentic Sign of the Times I have only seen I think 2 other copies of, and 07-08 H&P Auto I have never seen another copy of. Now, I haven't looked for his stuff in a number of years, so others may have popped up, but those are still two rather rare cards, and that's not including all of his /4 stuff that were made during his Tampa tenure.
 
capsfan30 said:
Thinking about it more, there are a few Lecavalier autos that I have that I haven't seen any other copies of or only one or two other copies. 04-05 SP Authentic Sign of the Times I have only seen I think 2 other copies of, and 07-08 H&P Auto I have never seen another copy of. Now, I haven't looked for his stuff in a number of years, so others may have popped up, but those are still two rather rare cards, and that's not including all of his /4 stuff that were made during his Tampa tenure.
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^ Glad you brought it up the 07 08 H&P Lecavalier auto CJ!
I was just about too.. until I read your post!!!
It's getting discouraging trying to find one. I'm about the threw in the towel finishing that set :foottap: ... I'm over looking for one. :|. Sad too, it's my favorite auto set.


and i will add another card!!
Supposedly There is a
2010-11 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Duals #ST2RL Mike Richards / Ville Leino I am assuming it was in the Mystery Cards.. But, I have yet to see one.
 
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Well as far as my collections are concerned the rarest card that is listed on the checklist and was confirmed by Panini saying they were live and in the product is the 10-11 Jarome Iginla/Wayne Simmonds Sign of the Times Duals. I have never seen one copy not in some major Iggy collectors collections either. And on a more general note I would have to say OPC blank backs are quite rare as well, they won't break the bank but they are quite rare as the Victory Black are.
 

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