Meaningful Worthless Card Stories

[jchcollins]

This card isn't worthless, no - but it's worth substantially less both than it used to be, and in comparison to Nolan's 1968 Topps rookie card with Jerry Koosman:

Back in the early 1990's when the Ryan Express was really getting up a head of steam - both in terms of his popularity in the sport and the card hobby - this was THE Ryan card I wanted. I had first seen it in an episode of Johnny Bench's "Great American Baseball Quiz" which used to come on ESPN. They were going over the Ryan for Fregosi trade in December of '71, and I distinctly remember they showed Nolan on this card because of the airbrushed (at the time I didn't know it was...) old school Angels logo - I had never seen it before and was just intrigued and thought it was very neat. All these years later, this is still probably the best bit of Topps airbrushing I've ever seen - which is to say it doesn't look like total crap. The artist must have actually taken their time in doing it. I'm pretty sure they also showed the Jim Fregosi "truck scoop" card from 1970, which showed him on a spring training diamond with a pickup truck in the background.

Anyhow, sometime after that I realized that "the pawn shop" as all the kids called it - which was actually The Aisle Pawnshop in Mooresville NC, which sold the typical guitars and knives and lawnmowers, but also had an extensive collection of vintage baseball cards - had this particular card for sale in their glass case at the back of the store. At the time nice copies even of this - Nolan's 5th base card from Topps - were going for around $200. Recall that in the late 1980's and early 90's when Nolan first went to the Texas Rangers, his cards were exploding. His rookie card, which had been worth maybe $150-200 in 1988 was going for $1,000 or more in decent shape by 1991-92. This of course had a trickle-down effect on all of Nolan's other cards, particularly his earlier ones. So, the pawn shop wanted either $200 or $150 for their copy of his '72, which was way, way out of my reach as a 13 year old kid. Though I pined for it, I never landed that particular copy of the '72 Ryan. I did however later find elsewhere about an affordable EX, but badly O/C copy of his 1973 Topps base card - which I then treasured for years.

Fast forward to the internet age, and a few years ago I was finally able to get an SGC 4 '72 Topps Ryan off of eBay for only $15 plus shipping! The Holy Grail! I was in heaven. In the years that followed of course - while the Ryan Express never really lost popularity, some of his cards after the fabled RC (actually even including it...) did eventually settle down in value - and I guess somewhere along the line folks realized that number 595 in the '72 set - while still a semi-high number and an absolute bear to find centered nicely without any tilt - probably did not need to cost $200 in EX or so condition. They simply aren't that scarce, even today and even in high grades. I later upgraded the SGC 4 to the 7.5 that I have now, and was even able to add some other early Nolan Ryan treasures - including 1968 #177.

The memory of that card chase, that show with Johnny Bench, and just the wonder of the elusive '72 Ryan sticks with me though every time I catch a glimpse of this card. For a brief few seconds, I'm transported back to being a kid again.

-John