Nolan Ryan card prices are soaring
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Nolan Ryan card prices are soaring, yet another signal in the hobby that vintage cards are in high demand. According to the Ryan Card Ladder index, his cards are up 28.83% in the past three months. Card prices had slowly but steadily been climbing since June, but ticked sharply upward by the end of August.
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Not every Ryan card is experiencing growth. But it's clear that Ryan's rookie card is largely responsible for the surge in prices. Whether his rookie card is in high or low grade, it has experienced significant growth over the past three months.
For example, his PSA 7 rookie card's most recent sale was for $4,700 - up 22% from a sale in June 2025. But somewhat telling is that PSA 2s are up 16% and PSA 3s are up 17%. Usually, spikes in prices of higher-graded cards take time to trickle down to lower-graded examples. Ryan's rookie card is defying those trends.
Another card that has seen growth is Ryan's 1971 Topps card, his last in a Mets uniform. The 1971 Topps set is an iconic set, and Ryan has one of the most memorable cards in it. A 1971 Topps PSA 9 sold for $35,500 in July 2025, but it's the only sale in the past year. In 2022, a PSA 9 copy sold for $26,392. A Feb. 2024 sale registered at $33,600.
This kid bought a $1,200 card for $12 in the ‘90s and got sued 😱
— Fanatics Collect (@FanaticsCollect) August 14, 2025
In 1990, 12-year-old Brylan McCauley walked into a Toronto sports card shop and spotted a Nolan Ryan rookie card tagged “1200.”
The price was actually $1,200, but when the clerk, unsure of the tag, asked if that… pic.twitter.com/5Z7RC1ZU1y
The PSA 8 market is more illustrative of the market’s growth. There have been 12 PSA 8 sales in the past six months, with a 40% growth. Zooming out to the past year, there have been 19 sales, also good for a 40% growth. This indicates that the growth has occurred in the past six months.
But what if we move forward to later-career cards? Higher-grade cards - PSA 8 and above - are experiencing similar increases in price. Ryan's 1982 Topps card (population 1,901) in PSA 9 is up 41% over the past year. But be careful, PSA 8s are down 20%.
Ryan's PSA 8 1977 Topps card (population 1,436) has increased 30% in the past year. Ryan's 1985 Topps in PSA 10 (population 279) is up a whopping 55% over the past year. These price increases aren't universal, but they are prevalent in the market. Many of Ryan's card prices are soaring, riding the same wave as the current state of the hobby.
Horacio is an avid sports card collector and writes about trending card auctions and news across several major hobby sites, including Sports Collectors Daily and Collectibles on SI.
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