Lanny Ribes Sells a Set Run to Close Friend Mike Clark
Lanny Ribes and Mike Clark have shared a friendship for over 40 years. Baseball cards have been an important hobby that glues the two together. So when Ribes was looking to shift his focus ion collecting by selling his coveted vintage sets, he didn’t have to look too far for a buyer. He recently sold his run of 1953-68 Topps sets along with 1971, ’72, and ’75 regular and mini Topps sets to Clark. No better way than keeping the phenomenal collection in the “family.”
“I’ve always wanted to get a ’53 set, and we started talking about that first,” Clark said. “He said, ‘Why don’t we drink a couple beers and we’ll take a look at the ’53 set. Then he brought out the ’54, ’55, and ’56, and then it just kind of snowballed from there.”
The two friends — who live in southeastern Illinois, about an hour outside of St. Louis — get together quite often to talk cards. Prior to selling to his best friend, Ribes built Topps baseball sets from 1951 all the way through the 2024 Update Series. Ribes has the historic 1952 set completed for the low numbers. He’s about one-third of the way through the remaining 97 cards of the high numbers.
“The ’52, I’m just going to try and piece together,” Ribes said. “You never know someday when I can pull the trigger on a Mantle. I’d love to complete that set.”
Going from Modern to Vintage
Ribes grew up buying baseball and football cards in the early to mid-1980s. When his dad got in an accident and began using a wheelchair, the father-son duo couldn’t play baseball together in the same way, but they turned their attention to card collecting, picking up every Chicago White Sox card Topps produced from 1951 until the late 1990s. After getting away from collecting for a few years, Ribes jumped back into The Hobby in the early 2010s.
“I was collecting all the rookies, so I was getting Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt, Mookie Betts, all that stuff for two dollars, three dollars, here and there,” Ribes said. “When COVID hit, prices went just astronomically through the roof. It brought a lot of new people into The Hobby and everybody was interested in the modern stuff. Well, I had always wanted to build the old vintage cards that I never could get when I was younger.”
During spring and summer 2020, Ribes transformed his entire collection from modern to vintage. He first pieced together the 1968 Topps set for next to nothing.
“I built from 1967 back through 1951, minus, of course, the ’52 high numbers, without spending any of my own money,” Ribes said. “I just started doing stack sales on Twitter and I made enough money to buy the vintage stuff.”
Ribes used his run of White Sox team sets to start his complete sets. Since Pete Rose shared his 1963 Topps rookie card with White Sox player Al Weis, Ribes’ dad had bought that for a birthday present decades earlier.
“It was kind of like filling in those gaps and really adding to what my dad had started for me back then,” said Ribes, who added that having that link to his father made collecting the vintage sets even more special. And when it comes to collating the vintage sets, Ribes is quite diligent.
“I’m a little bit of a condition freak,” Ribes said. “I don’t worry too much about centering, which is probably the one thing that I don’t care too much about, but I don’t like creases and dinged covers.”
Going from Vintage to the ’80s
Ribes felt a sense of accomplishment after finishing off his vintage set run, picking up cards he could never afford as a kid. Having checked that off, he set a new goal.
“I would love to put together an ’80s collection, which realistically embodies me,” Ribes said. “That was me collecting as a kid. That was the stuff I went up to the store for.” This time, though, it’s all for the love of the game. “I’m not worried about which rookie cards I’m pulling out of there and if they’re going to fund my retirement,” Ribes said. “Just collecting it for the pure fun of it, and the nostalgia of it.”
To help fund his 1980s project, Ribes had to unload some of his vintage sets that he worked so hard to complete. But he was happy to pass on the joy of building those sets to his good friend. Selling the vintage sets to Clark was one reason why Ribes decided to move from collecting vintage back to his collecting heyday in the ’80s.
“I knew they were going to go to a friend of mine and somebody good,” Ribes said. Selling the sets also helped him do something nice for his wife. “The kitchen table, the dining room table, sometimes the bathrooms and the kids room got cards piled up in it, so she’s put up with that,” he said. “I wanted to do something nice, make a little bit of money and put a deck on the back of the house for her.”
The third reason Ribes sold his vintage sets to concentrate on the 1980s is because he just loves the thrill of the chase. At the same time, Clark was happy to get his hands on Ribes’ vintage sets. Clark wanted to make sure he picked up some of his favorites; the ’53 Topps set is at the top of his list.
“The ’53 Mantle is my favorite Mantle,” Clark said. “I also like the Mays in that set. It’s just a tough one to get. I really like the sideways cards of ’55 and ’56. I’d say those three are right up there. I’ve always liked the ’65 set, too.”
Ribes has a couple favorite sets that he put together. He’s always been a big fan of the 1955 set.
“Just the colors of it, and then, obviously, with Clemente and Koufax, how can you go wrong?” Ribes said. “I also love the design of the ’59 set. The ’59 Clemente error. Those were cards where growing up we would find one here and there that was absolutely destroyed, but we’d trade it back and forth like it was a gold bar.”
Collecting the 1980s
With his 1980s project, Ribes isn’t limiting himself to just all the Topps Baseball sets. He’s going after every big brand in all four major sports. Ribes has completed 129 different sets thus far from the decade.
“I definitely want a pack from every year in the ’80s,” Ribes said. “I’d love to put the sets together, all sports. I know, obviously, it includes the Michael Jordan rookie that I don’t have, but some day.”
On the baseball side, Ribes is nearing the finish line. He needs to pick up a few Billy Ripken 1989 Fleer errors as well as Randy Johnson’s error from that same product. Ribes has a good grasp on the hockey set run, but he has a lot of work to do with football and basketball. All in all, his lengthy 1980s project has been fun so far. Ribes says it has lived up to his hopes.
“Oh, dude, I love it,” Ribes said. “It brings back all the fun of being a kid.”
