In football cards, the great Green Bay Packers fullback Jim Taylor's nominal RC is the 1959 Topps which shows Cardinals player Jim Taylor. And...wait for it...Topps did it again in 1960. The first Jim Taylor card to show Jim Taylor is the 1961 Topps card. The 1961 sells for a multiple of the 1959 or 1960 cards, so that is sort of the answer: go for the first card of the actual player.