Top 10 toughest Zeenuts?

Question for all the Zeenut collectors on board: What do you consider to be the top 10 most difficult Zeenuts to acquire? I'm guessing Arbuckle, Claxton, and possibly Crawford/Heilmann are on the list, but I'm interested in what the rest of people's lists might look like.

Thorpe is probably on there, but like the truly tough OJs those in the know aren't going to tell us which are the real toughies.

'11 Bohne (Bohen) ??

The 1911 Bohne (Bohen) is certainly one of the toughest out there, as I believe there are only two known, and one of those is basically a die-cut card that Lew Lipset I believe owned and sold. Marc Macrae has said there are others in private collections, but I can't imagine that there are more than one or two more. Arbuckle is of course basically impossible.

I don't know much about the zeenuts other than the HOFers, but Southworth, 1916 Chance, Heilmann, Coveleski, Crawford, HRK Bancroft and Vance are really hard to find. Some are not too tough to find at all - Lombardi and Gomez seem relatively easy to find and Dimaggio is not really that difficult to locate, just spendy.

The Black Sox players are also very difficult as most of them appear in the 1915-16 sets, which are among the tougher Zeenuts to acquire.

I am sure there are also many, many "common" player cards which are exceedingly difficult, but like OJs, those are secrets held close to the vest by advanced Zeenut collectors...

Coveleski and Southworth come to mind, but I am far, far from a Zeenut expert

Thanks for the responses guys.

Chris - I seem to recall that die cut 1911 Bohne being sold in the past few years - is that correct? Do you remember what it sold for?

Also, the Southworth zeenut sold recently as part of a lot - was it Huggins and Scott? I didn't realize how scarce it was.

Great thread Ben! One card that seems to get over looked and I believe to be quite difficult is Moses Yellowhorse. He is in both the 23' & 24' Zeenut sets. You don't see these two Yellowhorse cards to often!

-Ryan

Pretty much any ethnic player in the set is in big demand. Other than the Zeenuts, I think the only other set Yellowhorse appears in is Exhibits.

fisherboy7 wrote:

Also, the Southworth zeenut sold recently as part of a lot - was it Huggins and Scott? I didn't realize how scarce it was.

You are correct. The Southworth Zeenut was in an auction lot recently with a number of other Zeenuts. The Southworth was the reason that lot went for so much cabbage.

I've never seen the Arbuckle zeenut transact in about 10 years of paying attention to the prewar stuff. Has anyone? Any estimates re: how much a VG'ish example might sell for?

A Claxton did show up on ebay a few years ago though. Was ended early due to an offline offer.

Larry Fritsch had an Arbuckle in the late 80s for about 75 bucks in his catalog. If I had known who Arbuckle was at the time, I would certainly have bought it.

I remember Fritsch had all the Black Sox players and a ton of HOFers, and they all were 75 bucks a piece. Ugh!!!

I could have bought an Arbuckle in the early 80s for $20. I knew who he was and loved the way the card looked but didn't know how rare it was and $20 would get you nice Matty or Johnson back then so I passed.