OK SlabSlayer Team......we are one step closer to the ultimate quest!!! We have captured the 1968 Topps Venezuelan Jerry Koosman & Nolan Ryan Rookie Card! As Sippy would say, BOOYAH!!! If you watch our TikTok's you know Ron Cipowski AKA Sippy! He is jumping for joy today with this new addition to the SlabSlayer.com collection!
Let's take a look at the front and make some observations:
We were looking at Authentic grades and we are so glad we waited for this PR 1 from SGC. We believe that SGC is one of the best on vintage card grades. You can see some surface paper loss on the front near Jerry's half of the card. This paper loss is not deep, mostly just the top layer missing. This is not terrible compared to many of these Venezuela cards. If any of you follow the Venezuela set from 1968, you will know that these cards were sold originally with a collector's binder and many of the kids collecting put these cards in that binder and the plastic would stick to the lower grade paper stock on these Venezuela variations. If you don't have paper-loss consider yourself very lucky. Centering on the front is phenomenal. It doesn't get much better on centering and straightness. The coloring pops quite a bit for this era and for cards out of the Venezuela production facility. This card stock is known to be forgiving when it comes to the corner wear because of the 70s style coloring at the edge border. Meaning the corner wear does not pop to the eye as a black border card would be, like the 1971 Topps set. The upper left corner above Jerry looks the worst of the four corners from the front view. If you follow the SGC certification number, you will see that this was recently graded in February of 2023. The black ink at the borders and name tags is sharp and mostly unblemished. The Black ink is somewhat interrupted at the N in RYAN and on the P in both name tags. One O in Koosman has a smidge of white in the center. Overall, the condition on front warrants the Poor 1 grading but it is solid for a Venezuelan Topps of this era. Mostly because of centering, straightness, and color pop.
Let's take a look at the back and make some observations:
First off, when I look at the back of this Venezuelan I am happy to see the absence of paper loss!!! These were usually glued to surfaces by collectors in this region and this one has escaped that abuse. The back is very clean and shows very well. Centering up and down is superb, left to right is off just a bit. Great for this era on the centering front and back in my opinion. The black ink on back is also just as great as the front. The lettering pops very well. The HECHO EN VENEZUELA is very clean and clear. This is the striking proof that this card is THE REAL DEAL! Evidence of a crease just above Jerry's stat line is seen on the right side. Also, the bottom corners seem to be worse than the top corners. With all that said, the condition on back is still amazing considering where this card was born, lived, and journeyed from in its life.
Now we need to discuss our last two steps in this quest. Getting Jerry & Nolan to sign this most interesting card in the Four Horseman world. Getting their signatures on this card (safely) is our goal! If you know of these guys doing signings, please let us know at slabslayer.com@gmail.com Follow our blog team as we work to capture the final steps to our quest.
Here is all four cards together.
