The Post War Cards Newsletter #349
Junk Wax’s Trophy Holograms / Two Nolan Ryan Topps Vault Gems
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🏆 Junk Wax’s Trophy Holograms
Not every tough pull from the junk wax era has become a hobby icon, but a few have quietly emerged as some of the era’s most desirable cards. Among them are Pro Set’s 1990 holograms.
For football, Pro Set inserted a Vince Lombardi Trophy Collector Edition Hologram into Series One packs. Each card was individually serial numbered to 10,000, making it one of the hobby’s earliest serial-numbered football inserts.
For hockey, Pro Set went even further. Its Stanley Cup Collector Edition Hologram was limited to just 5,000 copies and inserted at a rate of far less than one per case, making it one of the toughest mainstream hockey cards of the era to pull.
➡️ If you’d like to see what’s currently available, there are usually graded examples of both the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Stanley Cup holograms on eBay.
One thing that doesn’t come across in scans is just how impressive these cards look in person; they’re notoriously difficult to photograph.
For a little historical perspective, the 2006 Standard Catalog of Football Cards priced the Lombardi Trophy hologram at $50.
And the premier edition of The Sport Americana Hockey Card Price Guide, published by Dr. James Beckett in 1991, listed the Stanley Cup hologram at $250 (mint).
Today, both have moved well beyond those prices. Card Ladder currently values a PSA 8 Vince Lombardi Trophy Hologram at $507 (PSA Total Population: 327, including 96 PSA 8s).
The Stanley Cup hologram is tougher to price because examples trade less frequently, but PSA 5s and PSA 6s have generally been selling for around $1,000. PSA has graded just 273 copies in total, including only one PSA 8.5, seven PSA 8s, 19 PSA 7s, 69 PSA 6s, and 77 PSA 5s.
🎞️ Two Nolan Ryan Topps Vault Gems
I’ve been sharing items from the Topps Vault pretty often over the past few months here in the newsletter, so I thought a piece dedicated to the coolest pair I saw at the National made sense. They were a pair of photo negatives used for Nolan Ryan’s 1975 Topps #5 Highlights and 1973 Topps #67 Strikeout Leaders cards (both came with Topps Vault COAs).
They were at the OPC Baseball booth, and if I recall correctly, he was asking $4,000 for the ’75 Highlights negative and $2,400 for the ’73 Strikeout Leaders negative. Here they are alongside the finished cards (sorry for not grabbing a better photo!).
Like I’ve said before, most of the photo negatives from the Topps Vault weren’t actually used on cards, so it was especially cool to see a pair that were, particularly for a superstar like Nolan Ryan!
P.S. The original photo used for the 1984 Topps #4 Ryan/Carlton/Perry Highlights card is listed on eBay right now for $450.