The Curious Case of Kyle Lohse

Collectors love when new players join their favorite teams and are often excited about jumping out and finding some cards of their team's newest player.  Yesterday, I got hit up by a Brewers fan five minutes about the news broke that Kyle Lohse had signed a three contract with the team asking for the low down on collecting Lohse cards.  What autographs are out there?  Relics cards?  Key rookie cards?  The usual set of questions.  Lohse has been on the Cardinals for the past five seasons and I usually do not hesitate in picking up something for every Cardinals player.  Except Kyle Lohse.

Nothing against Kyle Lohse, but I literally have no cool Kyle Lohse cards.  In fact, you do not own any either.  I promise you there is no need to look unless you own a printing plate of his Topps card.  Kyle Lohse is the most uninteresting man to collect.  Kyle Lohse has zero autographs.  Kyle Lohse has zero relic cards.  He does have four or five rookie cards from 2001 sets, but all of them can be found for less than $5.  He usually makes an appearance in the Topps base set every year, so I figure there is at least a handful of printing plates floating around.  However, looking around at completed items most appear to fall south of $20.

So, how rare is it that a player can hang out in the Majors for ten years and not appear on a single relic or autograph card?  I did a little checking on Baseball Reference yesterday and actually found that there are zero starters in the National League last year that did not have a relic or jersey card.  If that is expanded out to position players you can add names to that list, but not many.  For example, just looking at the Cardinals players from last year only Matt Carpenter and Tony Cruz fit in the same category as Lohse of not having a relic or autograph.  However, both of those players are backups and have had limited time on the team.

There are others scattered about that I am not going to track down, but in today's age of baseball cards Kyle Lohse is a rarity.  One interesting card of note for Lohse collectors and Brewers fans trying to pick up a Lohse card or two for their collections is his appearance in the 2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom set.  The set was based on ticket stubs and the tank is surprisingly dry on these cards on Ebay and COMC.  If a ticket stub is a relic then this is your best hope.

2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom Kyle Lohse Ticket Stub

 

I will add that I actually keep my eyes out for copies of this card and I do not think one has been posted on Ebay or COMC for at least a year.  There are only 110 copies of the card too, which makes me think that most of these cards are in collections and are probably the de facto Lohse relic for many Cardinals fans who have attempted to assemble a collection of his cards.  I am not sure what Beckett lists this card for in their pricing guide, but I bet if you put one up for auction you could toss the price guide out the window.