Well being expensive or not wouldn't make a difference. And not having the old phone won't make a difference unless the SD card that you are wanting access to was converted into "Internal" storage rather than the standard "External" storage. If that is the case, you can forget about getting anything off the card. It was encoded to work only with the old device. No device, no access.
Now if the card wasn't changed over to "Internal" storage, then you should be able to just put it in the new phone and use it as is, unless it is the wrong size, etc. If that is the case, I would suggest using an adapter and connecting it to a computer. You can then get all the data off of it and put it where ever you wish.