Condition perils of early 70's cards

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

It's funny if you think about it. The 'only' reason the overproduced cards from the 60's and 70's are coveted by most of us is because Topps' quality control sucked. There are 8 billion 1972 Nolan Ryan cards out there, but trying to find one centered and/or without the ubiquitous tilt is hard as hell. Can you even imagine if every single '72 Ryan Express was printed correctly...and centered perfectly? They would have all the appeal of a 1988 Topps common.

That card particularly has always been intriguing to me. At the height of the "Ryan Express" mania in the early 90's, my LCS had a '72 Ryan that they wanted like $150 for and I couldn't afford it. (I settled for - and cherished for a long time - a very o/c '73 Ryan that I could afford). Looking back that '72 was an ok card, but I don't think it was NM or anything. I first became aware of the card and the airbrushed hat job as a kid probably a few years earlier when Johnny Bench's "Great American Baseball Quiz" on ESPN featured it talking about the trade of Ryan for Fregosi. Was not able to score a copy until I was an adult collector, but it's weird now because I always think of it as a high-dollar card because of that - and of course it's not, really...