It's a lesson collectors of World Series programs know all too well. Series programs have been around for as long as they've been playing baseball in October. The first Series was played in 1903, when the Boston Pilgrims of the American League defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates, five games to three, in the only eight-game playoff in Series history. That explains the stratospheric price for '03 Series programs. The Pittsburgh version goes for a few thousand less.
Prices drop substantially from there.
After a one-year hiatus in 1904, when John McGraw refused to allow his New York Giants to play an inferior team from the American League, the Series resumed in '05 with the Giants defeating the Philadelphia Athletics, four games to one. The last programs to routinely command five figures are from the '09 Series pitting the Pirates against the Detroit Tigers. The most valuable program from the '50s is the '53 Brooklyn Dodgers edition, when the Bums fell to the Yankees in six games. Since 1974, only one program has been produced for the World Series for both AL and NL teams. John Lervaag of Seattle contributed 55 cards to the 1966 Topps baseball card set we are assembling for charity, leaving us 84 cards short of completing the 598-card set.