The kid beat the snowstorm and is home safely for Thanksgiving. To celebrate, here's a card she got me for Christmas seven years ago.

My vintage card of the week: 1973 Topps Nolan Ryan. Nolan is one of my main PC guys (I’ve built complete runs of base Topps cards for Nolan, Brooks, and Hank). The 1973 Nolan card is one of my favorites. It’s the year he set the single-season strikeout record for the modern era. And it’s just a gorgeous card from an underrated vintage set. Now, this specific example is one of the cards that taught me how to favor eye appeal over technical grade when building my collection. In general, the ’73 Nolan is really, really hard to find centered. It’s maddening. And there are often odd fisheyes or faded colors on the surface. After looking for a long time for a PSA 6 or 7 example for my run, I stumbled across this PSA 5 example with nearly perfect centering and bold color. Indeed, I've had this card for two years and still can’t explain why it only earned a 5 from PSA (touched corners is my best guess). But I’m happy as hell to have it sitting between my PSA 6 ’72 and my PSA 7 ’74 in my Nolan run.

My vintage card of the week: 1973 Topps Nolan Ryan. Nolan is one of my main PC guys (I’ve built complete runs of base Topps cards for Nolan, Brooks, and Hank). The 1973 Nolan card is one of my favorites. It’s the year he set the single-season strikeout record for the modern era. And it’s just a gorgeous card from an underrated vintage set. Now, this specific example of the '73 Nolan is one of the cards that taught me how to favor eye appeal over technical grade when building my collection. In general, the ’73 Nolan is really, really hard to find centered. It’s maddening. And there are often odd fisheyes or faded colors on the surface. After looking for a long time for a PSA 6 or 7 example for my run, I stumbled across this PSA 5 example with nearly perfect centering and bold color. Indeed, I've had it for about two years and still can’t explain why this card only earned a 5 from PSA (touched corners is my best guess). But I’m happy as hell to have it sitting between my PSA 6 ’72 and my PSA 7 ’74 in my Nolan run.

Got Tony Perez’s autograph on his classic 1973 Topps card at a show in St. Louis last weekend. An integral part of the Big Red Machine and the pride of both Cuba and Puerto Rico. Such a nice guy too!

I completed this about 3 years ago. The last couple of cards were tough to get! A bit of trivia: My daughter bought me the Ruth-Mays-Aaron card for Christmas!