What is the Lowest Number that you DON'T have?

Let's say you were making a Frankenset of your favorite team.  That is, you were trying to get a card of a player on that team for each number 1-792 (not a serial-number...just the regular card numbering).  What is the lowest number that you would be missing?  I would think everything under 100 would be easy to get since there are a lot of smaller sets that only go up to 100.  As you get higher and higher, there are fewer and fewer sets to choose from, and it would be more likely you would be missing something.

Luckily for me, I have all my Royals entered into Zistle.  This made it fairly easy for me to export my data and see what I am missing.   My guess was that I would be missing something above 50, but less than 150.  I keep looking through the data.....I had something (usually SEVERAL cards) for each of those numbers.  So I kept going...up, up, up.

Not until I reached #320 did I find that I was missing a card.  I had 5 cards for #319, 6 cards for #321...but nothing for #320.

So I got back onto Zistle to see what Royals cards out there were numbered #320...and it came up blank.

NOTHING????   There are no Royals cards numbered #320? 

Well, I know that Zistle data is far from exhaustive, so I decided to track it down some other way.  It took a long time!  I guess there really aren't that many out there.  (Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place -- is there an easy way to find this?)

Eventually I came across this Amazon listing for this card.

That's Roberto Hernandez, aka "The Guy We Traded Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis For."  Oh yeah, and we got stuck with Angel Berroa, too.  Egads.....

Despite that, I actually LIKE this card...so if anyone has it for trade, please let me know.  I'm adding it to my "MOST WANTED" list now. 

After that, the next lowest number I am missing is #388....Tom Gordon here we come.  :-)

 

I Got Fuji-fied!

Last month San Jose Fuji was one of the winners of my Big Pile Contest.  He posted his haul on his site already.  (I just noticed that I WAS NOT following Fuji!  Huge mistake.  Rectified.......now.)

Well, he was awesome and sent me a very unexpected Thank You present.  First off...I got the Fuji trader card (above).  Way cool.

He also sent these beauties:

On-card autos of Tom Gordon, Mike Macfarlane, and Kevin Appier.  These cards are from the 1991 Kansas City Life Insurance cards set.  They are taller than a regular card, so these will not go in the standard pages...I'll have to find another way to show them off.  Fuji apologized that the Appier was a little bent up, but I think these guys are GREAT!!!  As three guys on the teams of my youth, these are way more treasured by me than anything I would buy in the store today.

Thank you so much, Fuji!!!