1933 Goudey Ruth "Rookie Card"

[sandmountainslim]

What is WITH all these ebay sellers touting the '33 Goudey as a "Ruth Rookie"????
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1933-GOUDEY-BABE-RUTH-ROOKIE-RC-53-trimmed-AWESOME-bv-8-000-00-/300661468826?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4600d1ee9a
The above is just the latest example but I see it COUNTLESS times! Even people selling Goudey Reprints proclaim it a "Rookie Card". What was 1933, his 17th season or so? Hardly a Rookie!

[zljones]

That's because Beckett declares it to be a rookie card, which I think is dumb. I have a 33 Goudey Ruth and no way do I consider it a rookie. People think of it as a rookie because it was his first main card from a larger manufacturer.

[sandmountainslim]

That's because Beckett declares it to be a rookie card, which I think is dumb. I have a 33 Goudey Ruth and no way do I consider it a rookie. People think of it as a rookie because it was his first main card from a larger manufacturer.
I'm with you! Ruth was a seasoned veteran by the time Goudey hit the scene and he had cards previously. Beckett should be overhauled.

[steve B]

Becketts needed overhauling for a long time.

The "rookie card" thing meant something with 50's-60's cards, but not so much afterwards. Fewer got saved, so they were tougher to find.

There was a big debate around the time the update and later draft pick sets started coming out. Some wanted the draft pick card to be the rookie, some the mainstream set. Add safety/charity sets produced by colleges, minor league sets and the company that made the Highschool prospects set (Little sun?) That had Jeter in it.

Very confusing.

Then Beckett pushed the defenition as "first card form a major nationally issued set" and pushed the usually small updates and draft picks out as well as the tiny regional sets.

I always read their defenition as "earliest card made in big enough quantity that it can be hyped to high prices but still be readily available to dealers."

I looked at one in toys r us yesterday. $10 for a not so interesting magazine with a large price guide that looked fairly inaccurate.

Steve B

[yanksfan09]

Years 1909-2000 are covered in like the first 2 pages......

After that especially with the newest dates there's a huge book of pricing (Each set has about 20+ different parallels and inserts with little bars for figuring out their prices by multipliers. Made-up Example : 2008 Topps Chrome Limited First Day Issue #'d Bat Relic/swatch card:
Stars and Rookies: 3x high column

Blue Refactor Version: 8x High Column

Gold X-Fractor: 10x High Column

and it just keeps going with about 5 more different types of refractors for that one particular subset of one particular set


Getting back to original issue of Ruth 33 Goudey as a "Rookie"

i just laugh every time I see that. It's one of the furthest cards away from being a rookie. The Sporting News m101 type rookies and all the early caramel cards of him always seemed to be mainstream issues to me, especially for the time period they were made in. Ruth was much closer to retirement in 33 then a rookie. It's just silly and Beckett doesn't do themselves any favors by listing it as such, imo....

[ullmandds]

Rookie? The Babe was practically retired when the Goudeys were issued?!

[dstraate]

But if you can't type rookie in the listing, you have to resort to things like this:

!!!!!!!!!!!L@@K!!!!!!!!!! GR8 INVESTMENT ITEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sycks22]

Beckett also says that Dimaggio's rookie is the '39 Play Ball when we all know his '36 WWG is the true RC. I think it's considered Ruth's RC based on the fact that it was the first major release of his as people have stated above.