Observations while hunting for a Ryan rookie....

[mrmopar]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

From both a baseball and a baseball card perspective, it still makes no sense to me that the Ryan RC is worth more than the '67 Seaver. Seaver is pretty demonstrably the better pitcher, but I guess people are enthralled still by all the K's and no-hitters that Ryan's reputation rests on. The '67 Seaver is the much tougher card, being a legit rarity as a 7th series single print - while the Ryan is a pretty middle of the road 2nd series card in 1968. I mean I get it, but...

Growing up in the late 70s/80s, I always preferred cards of Palmer and Seaver over Ryan and Carlton. Might have been the poses. Not sure why, but have more of those 2 than the other 2. Loving the Dodgers, I should have also loved Don Sutton, but not so much.

A lot of what happens in the card world is baffling. Popularity holds more weight than scarcity a lot of the time. The demand is fairly limited, but any scarce oddball card should probably be much more expensive than they are now, if copies are even available. Maris, Mantle, Paige, Koufax and J. Robinson (among others) all have premiums associated with them that really don't match their career stats. Card collectors also tend to never forget. Hot cards of players that go on to bust often stay at elevated levels for some goofy reason, even though they are essentially worthless. I get not wanting to lose money on a failed player, but many people are still paying more for certain guys just to say thery own a once popular (and often expensive) card. Weird.

I have found that collecting what I like and paying only what I think is reasonable has worked well with me and I often shake my head at what I see going on around me.