Ryan Howard: The hottest name in baseball cards

The reigning National League MVP is the new face of Topps Baseball Cards, now shipping to stores across the country. How do you get your hands on him? Ben Henry of The Baseball Card Blog tells us how.

Ryan Howard may be without a new contract from the Phillies, but the popular slugger roped another lucrative deal earlier this winter. Howard signed an exclusive contract with Topps, granting the New York-based company exclusive rights to autographed cards, game-used memorabilia and Howard’s image use on packaging and advertising.

Ben Henry has been an avid collector since 1986 and started The Baseball Card Blog over a year ago. I connected with him over e-mail to ask about Howard, advice for casual collectors and the state of card collecting today.

Beerleaguer: Topps is now shipping their 2007 cards across America, with Ryan Howard as the new cover boy. What are your thoughts on Howard as the new face of Topps?

Ben Henry: I think it’s brilliant that Topps was able to get Howard. Topps is finally ‘getting it’ with their spokesmen: lock up fun guys when they’re young and they won’t have a chance to jump over to the infinitely cooler Upper Deck. It’s also great for Howard. He’s cementing himself in the minds of the newest generation of card collectors.

Beerleaguer: Which Howard cards are hottest; which hold the most value?

Ben Henry: It used to be that you couldn’t get a hotter card than the player’s rookie card. Then card companies starting making cards for anyone who graduated the 8th grade, in hopes that someday one of them would make it out of Double-A. Fortunes were lost on these cards. Trying to find an edge, card companies limited production runs. They tore up jerseys and gloves and shaved down bats, inserting them as "relic" cards.

So my answer is if Ryan Howard debuted 30 years ago, his rookie card would’ve been his most valuable card for his entire career. It would probably cap somewhere around $200, and that’s if he ends up in the Hall of Fame, which is no easy task. Just ask Jim Rice, a guy with a $5 rookie card.

Instead, here are four of Ryan Howard’s most valuable cards, according to March’s Tuff Stuff, which, coincidentally, features Howard on the cover:

1. 2001 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres $50 (RC)
2. 2003 Bowman Chrome Draft Picks & Prospects $75
3. 2003 Bowman’s Best $600
4. 2003 Donruss Rookie & Traded Elite Turn of the Century Autograph $1,000

Will these cards hold their value? That’s the real question I have for the hobby. I go to shows in the New York area and see relic and autographed cards selling for $3.

Beerleaguer: Which sets would you recommend for casual collectors, and where can one find the most comprehensive collection of Phillies cards for the 2007 team?

Ben Henry: I would recommend the basic Upper Deck and Topps sets. Both borrow heavily from early ’90s Score, as each set is comprised of roughly one billion cards. Upper Deck has a ton of cards, with a checklist that resembles the baseball encyclopedia. Topps is more manageable at 660 cards and includes special cards like they used to back in the '60s.

Plus ... and this may be something new if you haven’t collected in a while: There are only two card companies now. Major League Baseball denied Donruss its license and Upper Deck bought up the Fleer nameplate after Fleer bought the farm a few years ago. So while you may see many of the same brands (Bowman, Fleer, Topps, Ultra, SP, Upper Deck), there are only two Goliaths battling it out: Topps and Upper Deck.

Beerleaguer: I've been collecting Topps Heritage because I like the nostalgic look. Which sets would you recommend for appearance, display, etc.?

Ben Henry: It’s funny you bring up Heritage, because when I got my first full-time job after college, I decided I’d collect the Heritage set modeled after 1954. God, that set’s totally awesome. For design, you really can’t get better than Topps Heritage. A ton of collectors also love Topps’ Allen & Ginter product from 2006 (Chase Utley's Allen & Ginter pictured right). It’s clean, with turn-of-the-century barroom portraits of ballplayers and famous people like Thomas Edison and Orville Wright. I was also a fan of 2005 Bowman Heritage, modeled after 1951 Bowman, one of the pillars of post-war baseball card design.

Beerleaguer: Without getting too broad, what are your thoughts on the modern era of collecting compared to the past? Did Upper Deck and the glossy card ruin the industry? And is the industry on a rebound?

Ben Henry: It’s easy to blame UD for what happened to cards. They were the first to insert an autographed card into packs (Reggie Jackson Heroes, 1991), and what they did right as a company — from the start — inflated the hobby, giving false hope to a legion of other companies. While other companies have fallen by the wayside, UD carries on.

If 1952-1981 was the Topps Dynasty, 1982-1988 the Fleer/Donruss Interloper Years, 1989 to the present is definitely the Upper Deck Era: autographed cards, memorabilia cards. Many sets now have these cards checklisted amongst the regular base cards. You need these cards to complete the set. To a collector like me, this is crazy: I’m never going to get all the cards I need.

And yet, baseball cards are getting back to being in a good place. There are sets, like those I mentioned earlier, where packs don’t cost too much and there are a wide variety of players. Little kids and old guys with pot bellies are still interested. If card companies can manage to do that, they must be doing something right.

Comments

[enrico]

Nice post. With some of the nickels and dimes I made off The 700 Level last year, I went on the ebays and bought one of the Upper Deck Sweet Spot Ryan Howard cards where there is an autographed piece of a glove he used. Pretty sweet card. Probably my favorite.

[NormSchuBlues]

Upper Deck killed my interest in card collecting, or more accurately, it was the multitude of offshoots and imitators trying to cash in and out-gloss the next with their Ultras and Elites and Stadium Clubs and Classics. The older sets might have been uglier and the gum might have been made of pink plastic, but there was more integrity and simplicity in them. I don't think anything could lure me back to baseball cards, not even Ryan Howard.

[ZT]

It's sad that I'm such a poor college student or I would definitely try to get the cards for the Phillies' roster this year and in 20+ years showing my kids that this was the team that won it all for the first time since 1980.

...A brother can dream can't he?

[J. Weitzel]

The Heritage cards are worthwhile. They're printed on clay cardboard stock and smell like gum. You get a decent number in a pack, and they manage to make even Jose Mesa look good.

I try to grab as many Phillies as I can from this set, but the player selection can be weird. Looking at the 2007 checklist for the upcoming Heritage base set, I see Howard, Utley, Rollins, Helms, Myers, Hamels, Nunez, Victorino, Burrell, Gordon, Madson, Garcia, Coste, but no Moyer, Eaton, Ruiz, Barajas, Geary. Yet they tacked on Roberson and Sanches for some reason.

[Tim]

i almost bought a couple ryan howard rookie cards last year after i realized he was winning the mvp. i just couldn't do it though. i have so many cards from when i was little already sitting there that i thought it would be a waste. they were the first rookie card on your list and they were $50 then too.

[GM-Carson]

I stopped collecting in '96. When I first started it was only Score, Topps, Donuss, and Fleer. Now each company have eleventy billion subsets...ridiculous!

[Willard Preacher]

I can't remember the last pack of baseball cards I bought (do they even still sell them in packs, or just full sets?). I am glad to see that Ryno isn't suffering with his lack of big money contract, though. I don't know what % of total salary big name players can get from endorsements but even a fraction of that which Tiger and LeBron get is enough to feed the family.

[Will]

Has Danny Sandoval gotten through immigration yet? I heard yesterday morning on WIP that he was having problems getting to ST....

[Von Hayes]

How much for a Von Hayes rook card?

http://myspace.com/vonhayessucks

[Tom G]

I had not heard of Topps Heritage, that looks interesting. I was always a Topps kid, never Fleer or Upper Deck.

[JZ]

This post makes me feel way too old.

I had a McGwire rookie card that I held onto forever back in the day. He was skinny in his 1984-tight USA uniform. Really skinny. Like, really skinny.

Hey. Waitaminute.

[Steve Jeltz]

On Feb. 23, Von Hayes is going to be in Clearwater and you can get your photo with him and Gary Matthews for $15.00. Or you could just keep the $15.00.

I'm with Tom G; I was a Topps guy back in the day but I got alienate by all the "special edition" lines and all that stuff.

[Steve Jeltz]

On Feb. 23, Von Hayes is going to be in Clearwater and you can get your photo with him and Gary Matthews for $15.00. Or you could just keep the $15.00.

I'm with Tom G; I was a Topps guy back in the day but I got alienate by all the "special edition" lines and all that stuff.

[yt]

Just $15 for a pic with Von "Purple" Hayes? What a deal!

Remember that clutchhit he had for the Phils in that world series they went too when he was on the team? Ya me niether.

But hey, it's not like we gave away Manny Trillo and Julio Franco for the guy.

[Longwood]

My card collection is in my closet waiting for one of my kids to care. I have thousands of cards from 75 - 80 (my little league years) not a single card from the early 80's, then hundreds from the late 80s when all of us on the college baseball team would get drunk, go to 7-11, and buy chili-cheese dogs and all the cards they had. With beer in hand: "Gary Gaetti and Wade Boggs for Jose Canseco..."

[Willard Preacher]

I'll never forget when UD came on the scene and THE card to have was the Ken Griffey Junior UD. Right out of the gate that thing was worth $50 (back when current year cards never valued more than a couple of bucks). Then UD got creative with the Michael Jordan Batting Practice card. After that, I thought they jumped the shark and I gave up on trying to keep up.

Back to the Roto-League discussion on a previous thread, maybe rather than a Beerleaguer league we have Jason (or one of the other regulars if J doesn't play in a league) post their roster and we can all make "recommendations" (i.e. ridicule and tear him apart) for the roster. We can live vicariously as a group interjecting which metrics will best determine future success - oh wait, we pretty much already do that for the real Phillies already, don't we?

[Deanna]

When I was a kid, we used to get these Phillies baseball card books as a Sunday game giveaway once per year at the Vet. Anyone remember those? It was basically a paperback book with pictures of the Topps Phillies sets from every year from the early 50's until that particular year (I think I've still got the 1987 one sitting around somewhere, I'd have to look for it). My brother and I collected a ton of real cards, but I always enjoyed looking through the pictures of the old cards in the book a little bit more. Seeing the players and the card designs change year by year was just pretty damn neat (and taught me quite a bit about team history).

I've still got most of our late-80's cards in binders and boxes, and I recently restarted buying the Topps box sets in 2004, but I'm missing about a decade in the middle. Sometimes this leads to amusing moments, though, like last winter when I dug out a Jamie Moyer rookie card and got him to sign it at a Mariners caravan stop. He was like, "Hey JJ [Putz]! Look, when I was your age..."

Sigh, Von Hayes was my favorite player back in the late 80's. What happened to the good old days when you could get your picture with him at the Leo Mall for free? :)

WP - last year when we did Sam Walker's "Fantasyland" at a baseball book club out here, one guy brought his roster and had people recommend which players to keep. It wasn't particularly entertaining. Though the Phlog league last year was fun, except for the part when I had the #2 waiver spot when Cole Hamels was called up...

[mm]

My dad has bought me the topps set every year since i was born(84). They're all unopened in a closet, and i plan on buying a set every year and passing them down through the generations and try and keep the tradition alive. If that seems like a bad idea when i'm grey haired i'll either sell the entire collection or put in in a time capsule for the when the aliens come to pick threw our remains. Maybe a Ryan Howard Rookie card can fetch gernak a death ray.

But seriously, Baseball Cards are fun, but i'd never buy single packs or singles, i just buy the whole sets in the box and leave the wrappers on em. Though, i was very tempted to open the ones in the late 90's when they were randomly inserted Mickey Mantle Rookies.

[RickSchuBlues]

'i just buy the whole sets in the box and leave the wrappers on em.'

How is that 'fun'? That kind of mentality is what destroyed the entire premise and appeal of collecting cards in the first place...really, what is the point? Why not just buy Kleenex boxes, never open them, and pretend there are baseball cards in there?

[AWH]

To change the subject briefly (I stopped doing the card thing also when it became ridiculous), has anyone else been surfing Metsblog? Jimmy's comments have gotten Muts fans in a lather.

The rudest, most ill-behaved, visiting fans in the league will be even worse.

This is going to be one fun season!

[Tray]

There's a normschublues and a rickschublues?

[GM-Carson]

We all know Nunez can't hit, but now he's a liar too...

"I've never had a stretch that bad," Nunez said. "It's not how you go through it, but how you come out of it. Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, it's a wakeup call."

*C'mon Nuni, you've sucked your entire career!

[The Reverend]

He was pretty good in his free agent year. Isn't that why the Phils signed him?

[RickSchuBlues]

...just a nod to the reference in the last thread.

[MG]

My most unique autographed Phils' baseball card - Dickie Thon from a '90 Fleer set I think. My most overrated Phils' baseball card - Ricky Jordan rookie card. Never did live up to tease numbers in '88.

At my parents' buried one of numerous plastic binders.

[let's go Mets!!]

Go play with your Baseball cards dorks..Maybe a little Dungeons and Dragons afterwards....

[fletch]

You can find some decent deals on ebay if you're just looking for some nostalgia. A co-worker and I split an auction of 4 boxes of 1987 Donruss wax packs. ~100 packs for $20.

I haven't bought any current cards (or many cards at all, really) in 15 years, but opening these packs and being reminded of so many of the players I'd completely forgotten was a lot of fun.

[Tony]

There is an article on Robert Kelly Abreu @ yankees.com today:

"Everyone in this lineup is a star," Abreu said. "Back on the Phillies, I was 'The Man' -- the one everyone pointed to over the years. It's a good thing to be here, because sometimes you'll make a mistake, and you can deal with that. On the other side [with Philadelphia], when you made a mistake, everybody pointed at you."

Gee Bobby, maybe because you were making the most money on the team!!!! I'm so glad this guy is off the team.

[AWH]

"dorks?"

As I said, the rudest, most ill-behaved, visiting fans in baseball.

One would think you would have something better to do at 3AM in NY.

Unless, of course, you're a major league LOSER.

[AWH]

Tony, careful.... you'll upset clout.

I saw the article as well, and I, too, am extremely happy the attitude he has is no longer in the Phillies clubhouse.

"Oh noooo, please don't point the finger at ME. Puleeeeeeeeese don't hold ME accountable."

I agree with clout, though, in that he is a highly skilled, productive player. If you could inject Shane's attitude and hustle into Bobby's body.........

[Steve]

Sadly, all these comments here about baseball cards in the late-1980s remind me how much money I watsed buying current cards during those years when I should have been putting it toward Mickey Mantles and old Topps and Bowman cards. If you aren't regular readers of Ben Henry's Baseball Card Blog, you should check it out. Warning--you may become depressed to see how little those late-1980s and early 1990s cards are worth.

I started collecting baseball and football cards in 1976, and I have filled in the Topps sets at least back to 1972. I bought Fleer, Donruss, Score and UD the first few years each was out, but except for a couple years in the mid-1990s, I never stopped collecting Topps. I agree with the view that the glossy cards, subsets, chase cards, etc. nearly ruined the hobby for me. But I still like to buy old cards, and especially old Phillies cards. I probably need 50 different Topps Phillies cards from 1956 to present (and 25 Eagles cards during the same period), plus most of the earlier cards of those teams, but I am gradually adding them to my collection.

The Topps Heritage (and Bowman Heritage as well) are the only modern cards besides the basic Topps set that I collect. They are a nice throwback in that they include gum and classic designs. (Topps can cool it with the 1952-style, though. They've now used it for two baseball sets, a football set and a basketball set since 2001. It's getting overplayed.)

Sadly, gone are the days when you could get a deal by buying a whole box of wax packs. Now the only places to get a box are at Target/Wal-mart or at a (relatively rare) card show, and it's not that much cheaper buying boxes than individual packs. Usually I buy a couple packs just to see them, then buy the whole set at the end of the season.

And finally, "Baseball Cards are fun, but i'd never buy single packs or singles, i just buy the whole sets in the box and leave the wrappers on em." I agree that this is ridiculous. What fun are they like that? The boxes look nice?

The only thing that I can chuckle at (with some schadenfreude) is that most of those sealed sets in his closet aren't worth any more now than when they came out.

[shane]

I collected cards back in the 80's, but not for money. I used them to play a home-brew dice baseball game. That was fun. My Dad got me a board game that did the same thing, some kind of All-Star game...I forget the name. I went through a lot of games like that. I had an Avalon Hill baseball game that was very complicated. I did try out MLB Showdown, something UD came out with a few years back. It was interesting, but never stuck with me.

If I have a son, I'll buy him baseball cards, but I'll also tell him not to bother collecting them for money.

[Bob Brinsfield]

Recently , like the last 5 years I've mainly been collecting the game worn/used cards. Thome, Burrell and now Ryan Howard. I also have about 200 or so other players in those type cards. I long ago gave up on the idea of collecting "sets". I do have a bunch of sets that I had collected before. Dating back to the late 60's when I was just a little guy.

[Sports Cards]

This guy is for real for sure. I am sad to hear that he is under Topps now though. UD is by far the superior company and they would release signed items of his as well. Topps just has cards :(

[dave long]

i got a generation now autograph ryan howard card.how rare is it.how many did they make?