Jim Nahigian Completed the Top Three Sets in the World
Before 2008, Jim Nahigian knew very little about the 1955 Topps All-American Football set.
But a chain of events with his longtime best friend changed that. Now, Nahigian has become the foremost expert in the 100-card vintage masterpiece collection. And he has the three best complete sets in the world. What has gotten Nahigian to this point is a combination of financial backing, a little luck, friendly support, and a labor of love.
Nahigian collected baseball and football cards in the 1960s and ’70s with his best friend, who lived two houses away growing up. During his college years, Nahigian stepped back from the hobby. But his mom saved the cards from his childhood, and in 1980, Nahigian resumed collecting.
Nahigian’s best friend’s dad was in the wholesale toy business in the ’50s and ’60s, dealing with cards daily. The dad had an affinity for the 1955 Topps All-American Football cards. When the dad died in 2008, and the family was going through his possessions, they unearthed quite a find. There were unopened 1955 Topps All-American cello packs in the original TCG Topps trading guild boxes tucked away in a closet.
“For 30 years, we didn’t think about that stuff. But my friend rediscovered the cards in his closet after he died,” said the 69-year-old Nahigian. “He says to me, ‘Wow, Jim. Remember these cards?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. Unopened. 1955, the first year Topps made football. Excuse me.’ Those are pretty special, because by then in 2008, I knew a lot about collecting. But I didn’t really know much about the ’55 All-Americans.”
Devising a Plan
The friends never disclosed how many boxes of unopened treasure were found, but it was a hefty haul.
Nahigian’s friend asked him for advice on what to do with the rare sealed packs. Since Nahigian had retired a few years earlier as the CEO of his family-run business, Plastic Mart Inc., he had plenty of time to deal with the cards. Nahigian suggested they hold off doing anything and watch how the market does on that set.
Nahigian had an arrangement with his best friend about the cards. Nahigian would handle buying, selling, and getting the cards graded. In return, he would receive a nice pot of gold.
“He said, ‘You handle everything, and I will give you a real fine set. It will be the second-best set in the world because mine’s going to be the best set,” Nahigian said.
In 2009, Nahigian traveled to PSA headquarters in Newport Beach, California — about an hour from his house — to talk about the All-American cards. Nahigian took one unopened box of cello packs into PSA. Shocked by the discovery, Nahigian was whisked into the office of Joe Orlando, PSA’s president at the time. Orlando expressed his fandom for the All-American set.
“Those cellos were one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Absolutely pristine,” Orlando recently recalled. “So many of the super high-grade examples came from that find.”
Orlando suggested to Nahigian that if he planned to keep the packs unopened, he should consider getting them graded. Orlando also explained the unique PSA Set Registry and how it worked. At that time, the collector who had assembled the No. 1 Master Set of 1955 Topps All-American Football had a GPA over 9.0.
“He was going to be hard to take down,” Nahigian said. “All we wanted to do was have the best set in the world.”
Diving into the Set
When Nahigian started investigating the All-American set’s ins and outs, he came across some interesting facts. He discovered that of the 100-card set, only half the cards were available in cello packs, with the other half in wax packs. There isn’t any conceivable rhyme or reason for this.
Fortunately, the cello packs contained four of the top five cards in the set. Nahigian pulled the cards of Don Hutson, the Four Horsemen, Knute Rockne, and Otto Graham. Jim Thorpe was exclusive to wax packs.
Nahigian and his best friend decided to open some of the packs to build sets and keep some of the packs sealed.
PSA has graded just over 52,000 cards from the All-American set. Astonishingly, only 60 have received Gem Mint 10s. Nahigian and his best friend submitted their cards for grading for 10 years and got nearly 50 cards in a 10. To date, they own 44 examples of 10s in their complete sets.
“I’ll never forget the day we got our first 10. That was so cool,” Nahigian said. “That’s all we were looking for.”
Since the best friends’ cello packs had only produced half of the All-American set, the guys had to track down high-end graded examples of the other 50 cards. The chase became easier when the collector with the No. 1 All-American set contacted Nahigian in 2015, asking if he wanted to purchase his sets.
“I said, ‘I’d love to buy about half your sets,’” Nahigian joked. “‘Maybe we can make a deal.’ And we did.”
Staggering Numbers
Nahigian owns the top three Current Finest 1955 Topps All-American Football complete sets on the PSA Registry.
The No. 1 set has a set rating of 10.49 (with top population bonuses) and a GPA Weighted score of 9.38. That top set contains a mind-blowing 32 cards graded 10, 67 in a 9 grade, and a lone 8.5.
The second set has a set rating of 9.78 and a GPA Weighted score of 9.12. It consists of 10 cards graded Gem Mint 10. The third set is at 8.95 set rating and 9.41 for Weighted.
The top set features 18 cards with the highest graded examples and are pop 1 — the only one in existence.
“You might see that on some ’60s sets or ’70s sets or, obviously, ’80s, but to find high-grade ’50s cards in anything is impossible,” Nahigian said. “You just don’t see it in baseball, and you don’t see this many 10s, and you certainly don’t see many 1-of-1s. Believe me, there’s a story behind every one of those 1-of-1s.”
Around 2018, Nahigian and his best friend hand-collected eight complete sets of their favorite products. Nahigian noted that four or five of them were the top in the world. Five of those sets have been sold since.
Looking to Upgrade
Unfortunately, Nahigian’s friend died in 2020. Nahigian took the reins of all the sets. In the PSA Set Registry, Nahigian renamed the sets in honor of his friend: AVS Memorial AA Collection – Set One, Set Two, and Set Three.
Nahigian’s top set has 94 cards in the highest-graded examples. But it’s those six cards Nahigian is still looking to upgrade to make his set even flashier. Nahigian — who can be reached via email at jamesnahigian@aol.com — is always looking to upgrade his sets.
“It’s a rare day when you find an All-American that I can use in my set,” Nahigian said. “I might upgrade one All-American now every two or three years. That’s how difficult it is.”
