The card we track is the Topps #177 — the rookie that sits in our Market. What the deepest collectors know is that it is only one of four.

In 1968 that same “Mets Rookie Stars” design was issued four separate ways: the standard Topps, a Milton Bradley printing distributed inside a board game, the Canadian O-Pee-Chee, and a scarce Venezuelan edition. Same two faces, four different objects. The hobby calls them the Four Horsemen.

One design. Four issues. Only one of them easy to find.

The Venezuelan is the rarest and the most fiercely chased — printed in small numbers, stored badly, and surviving in condition that would embarrass its American cousin. The O-Pee-Chee carries its own scarcity and its own following. The Milton Bradley, cut from the board of a children’s game, is the curiosity that became a prize.

Assembling all four is a collecting project unto itself — the pursuit that separates the person who owns a Nolan Ryan rookie from the person who understands one.