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What Makes Up The Nolan Ryan Four Horsemen?
The 1968 American Topps Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card
The 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card was Nolan Ryan's first major league baseball card. An honor he shared with another Mets pitcher that year, Jerry Koosman. In 1968, Topps used a split image rookie card format. You will have no difficulty finding this rookie in graded conditions: G2 to NM-MNT8. Well centered Mint9s will cost you $100K+.
GEM Mint10s are extremely rare, with only (2) known at time of this printing. GEM Mint 10 graded 1968 Nolan Ryan Rookie Cards are the most expensive Nolan Ryan baseball cards. Garnering valuations between $875,000 to $1.2 Million.
Nolan Ryan's first sole image baseball card appeared in the 1969 Topps Set, and was card #533
The 1968 Canadian O-Pee-Chee (OPC) Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card.
The 1968 Canadian O-Pee-Chee Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card was Nolan Ryan's first major league baseball card issued in Canada (and in limited quantities released to a few retail establishments in some northern US states) . The 1968 OPC Set format mirrored the 1968 US Topps Set, using a split image rookie card format. There are no 1969 OPC Nolan Ryan baseball cards issued, so Nolan Ryan's first OPC single image card was his 1970 OPC #197 "Ryan Saves the Day" .
While OPC Canada released no production numbers for 1968, market analysts believe OPC production was about 10% of the Topps cards issued n the U.S.. Making OPC baseball cards "scarce" in relation to its US counterparts.
However, a March 2021 NRFHCC Study showed that for Investment Grade examples [EX6-GEM10], the OPC Ryan Rookie Card represents just 2% of the entire 1968 Ryan Rookie [EX6-GEM10] population!! Making this 1968 Ryan Rookie variant much more rare than any "thought-to-be" number of 10%. The scarcity of the 1968 Nolan Ryan O-Pee-Chee baseball card makes this card a top investment card.
Poor quality control during production at OPC Canada led to poor centering on this OPC Nolan Ryan Rookie Card. Therefore, finding well-centered OPC Nolan Ryan Rookies will usually carry large premiums to graded valuations.
While you will have no difficulty finding this rookie in graded conditions: G2 to EX5. Investment Grade examples [EX6s-GEM10] will cost you considerably more. As of March 2023, there were no GEM Mint10s known.
Only (1) GEM10 and (3) Mint9s make up the top graded cards
The Milton Bradley (Game) Topps Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card
The 1968 Milton Bradley Topps Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card comes from the 1968 "Win a Card" baseball card game. In the late 1960s, the Milton Bradley Company released a couple of different versions of baseball board games, but the 1968 "Win a Card" game was the only board game that contained an authentic 1968 Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card. This 1968 "Win a Card" baseball card game also had some other valuable sports cards in it, namely a 1967 Joe Namath Rookie Card as well as a host of other baseball / football stars / racing artifacts.
These Milton Bradley (MB) Nolan Ryan Rookie Cards are distinguishable from the ordinary Topps cards by a single white colored border located on the card front [left border or right], to a having brighter yellow backing on the reverse.
Considering that the cards contained in the Milton Bradley game were meant to be played with by children (often heavily), high quality examples are in short supply today. The scarcity of the 1968 Milton Bradley Nolan Ryan baseball card makes this card a top investment card.
You will have no difficulty finding this rookie card in graded conditions: G2 to VG-EX4. EX5 to Ex-NM6 are out there, but in limited numbers.
Centering is almost always an issue with these cards. Therefore, fully centered examples command high premiums to normal graded prices.
NM-MNT 8s are exceptionally rare and expensive. Mint9s are unicorns.
There are no GEM Mint10s.
The 1968 Venezuela Nolan Ryan #177 Rookie Card.
The rarest of all the Nolan Ryan Baseball Cards! To date, there are only 49 or so of these cards that have been submitted to professional grading for verification and certification.
Interesting enough, there are fewer graded 1968 Venezuelan Nolan Ryan Rookies than graded T206 Honus Wagner cards!! With the graded T206 Honus Wagner tobacco card coming in numbers just north of 50 and the Venezuelan Nolan Ryan Rookie Card at about 48.
What makes this 1968 Nolan Ryan Rookie #177 Baseball Card so rare? Beginning in 1959, in an effort to expand the baseball card market to Latin America; the Topps Company began releasing Topps baseball cards in limited numbers (along with collector card albums) to a Caracas, Venezuela test market. Endemic to the times, Latin American sports card collectors pasted these early Topps cards into collector albums - which really limits the number of clean, unblemished Nolan Ryan Rookie #177 baseball cards available to the market today.
Factor in that Topps produced these 1968 Venezuelan Nolan Ryan Rookie Cards from poor, thin, sub-standard card stock - which worked against many of these cards surviving today.
On the card reverse (bottom), the words "Hecho en Venezuela" should be seen in white lettering. Although Black lettering examples are known to exist, but these copies are particularly rare - and often counterfeited, so be careful buying ungraded copies of this "Black Lettering" type.
Top grades for this rarity are : (1) PSA5.5 and (3) PSA5.
Because condition is such an issue with this rare card, the majority of the population for this Venezuelan Nolan Ryan Rookie is at the lower grades; with 75-80% of the known examples in the "Authentic - VG2" condition range. Even at the lowest of grades, each one of these Venezuelan Nolan Ryan Rookie cards is extremely rare.