Blog Bat-A-Round: Hardest Set to complete

Every so often a Blog Bat-A-Round will come up. Somebody poses a question and bloggers respond with a post with their answer. This is the second one I've taken part in since I began blogging in November 2014 so it's not a very common thing, but it's always interesting- I wish it was more common.

This round of Blog Bat-A-Round was posed by Nachos Grande and wonders what the hardest set to complete was, and if you've succeeded. Good topic, because I consider myself a set collector first and foremost.

My initial thought was 2002-03 SP Authentic, a 203 card set that includes 103 serially numbered cards and 31 of them also being autographed rookies. It was a challenge to complete the set, but I did...and not in a very long time. I completed it in 2004. which is really only a year, because SPA was always one of the later season releases. I managed to pull the Yao Ming and Manu Ginobili cards, two of the three key rookies. Normally I don't pull the biggest cards from a set so I know I can't complete them. That time I did. I also completed the set without an Ebay account, that came in 2006.

So even though I consider it one of my more notable accomplishments...it wasn't hard. There are sets I've been working on for a long time. I still have not completed a lot more than I have, but I take a rather passive approach to collecting. I like to buy mixed lots and get what I can get. A large portion of my collection has come from local shops that sell full 550 count boxes of mixed cards that I love to get. When buying singles I usually just use the "low hanging fruit" method, meaning, since I like it all, I buy what's cheap and available. I don't usually actively chase cards until I get a set fairly close.

The hardest one that I've completed is 1994-95 Topps Embossed. I've talked about this set before. I came up one card short on my box and chased it for many years before finally buying it on COMC last year.

But that's not it either. The hardest one...that is 1988 Leesley Bigfoot. The very first set I ever added to my collection, in 1988, at 4 years old. It's only a 100 card set...but I still need 9 of them. I purchased a sealed box on Ebay and the collation is terrible. I'm 9 short, yet I have some cards where I got as many as six copies of them from the box. The cards don't come up for sale all that often, I've NEVER been able to find one as a single that I needed...in 29 years. I don't really want to buy another box- they aren't exactly cheap, although they are less than most of the current sets being released. Mostly I just don't want to end up with a box full of duplicates. I do want to complete the set.

What's even rarer? That's the 1988 or 1989 Leesley Monster Trucks set. Not just Bigfoot, but other trucks as well. The gray border set. I've never seen one in person. I want to find them, but I've never found any for sale that weren't defaced (autographed). Maybe someday. They must have been rare even when new because 1988/89 was the height of my monster truck craze and if we had ever seen them, we would have gotten them then.

Here are some cards from the 1988 Bigfoot set.

Nowadays, it causes me significant pain to see the classic cars being crushed, but when these came out, I was 4 years old and didn't think about that. I seriously considered not even posting that one showing the death of that red Oldsmobile.

I have not watched monster trucks for many years but I still want to complete this set.
These are the card numbers I need, if anybody has them available:
3
8
15
28
35
44
56
78
93