NOW LIVE: 4-Sport Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Guide
 

I hope everyone on the Board had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and I wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season!

As many of you know, I have been a long-time advocate of Vintage Baseball Rookie Card collecting. I spent a nearly ten year period from 2004-2014 amassing a collection of Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards and/or Earliest Collectibles. As has been discussed many times here on the Board, one of the biggest challenges in compiling such a collection is the controversy surrounding what "Rookie Card" to collect for each HOF'er. leading to even more complex questions such as what constitutes a "card", etc. Having done countless hours of research in an effort to further my own collection. I was able to establish my own set of guidelines and parameters for defining Vintage Baseball Rookie Cards, which also carries over to Football, Basketball & Hockey as well. Let me also say, at this point, that I have since sold the entire collection so the guidelines that I have established for this guide do not benefit me in any way, they are simply what I honestly believe to be most accurate and widely accepted in the hobby.

Many of you may also recall that I tried to get this 4-Sport Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Guide published back in early 2015 but was unable to secure enough advertising to make the project financially feasible. Fast forwarding to today, a huge thank you goes out to my advertising sponsors: Hake's Americana & Collectibles, Huggins & Scott Auctions, Baseball Rarities, Robert Edward Auctions & Sportscard Guaranty Company, who all helped to make this publication a reality. Over the long holiday weekend, the initial print run of 100 copies of my guide was completed, I will have them in hand on Monday to begin shipping out to everyone who would like to order a copy.

The full-size 8 1/2" X 11" guide contains over 340 pages of full-color illustrations documenting the chosen Rookie Card for every single member of the Baseball, Football, Basketball & Hockey Halls of Fame (see below pics of front and back cover and sample pages from each sport). There are well over 1,300 cards pictured and these represent 99% of every possible HOF RC that exists for all 4 major sports. I have 100% completion for Baseball, 100% completion for Football, 99% completion for Hockey and 98% for Basketball. There are approximately 15 missing images, which are primarily obscure modern-team issues for basketball & hockey as many non-professional members have been inducted into those two institutions. Each sports section contains all of it's respective HOF members in alphabetical order for easy reference and every entry includes a card image, individual's name along with their capacity (i.e. - player, coach, official, etc.), card set name/year of issue and value (in dollar range). This guide was not designed to be a price guide, just to give you an idea if a card is flea market material or high-end auction house territory. The hobby already has very fine resources such as Beckett Price Guides and Vintage Card Prices to handle that aspect of the hobby. As an added bonus, the back of the guide includes 4 - Top 25 lists of "Best Rookie Cards" for each respective Sport.

Sale price for the guides is $39.95 plus $7.40 for USPS Priority Mailing. The preferred method of payment is via Pay Pal (Family/Friends) but checks/money orders are fine as well. Once again, the initial print run only consists of 100 copies so if you would like to be guaranteed of receiving one, please go ahead and order now, there are already more than 20 copies pre-sold so that leaves less than 80 still available. To place an order, please e-mail me at vguerrerobb@yahoo.com or send me a PM and I will provide you with the necessary payment instructions and get your shipping information. Please feel free to contact me should you have any other questions.

I hope that everyone who orders a copy of my guide enjoys the contents and finds the information to be helpful with regards to your personal collection.

One thing that has been brought to my attention which I forgot to mention previously, the Hall of Fame inductees for each sport have been updated through 2014 as I was originally planning to release this guide during 2015 but it took longer than anticipated to raise funds to cover the printing costs.

There is the future possibility of an updated guide with more current inductees but it would probably be at least five years away so that the new content would be significant enough to warrant the printing of a second edition.

Cool book. For modern cards, how did you decide which company's card to use?? I mean, Topps, Donruss, Fleer, etc??

The guide outlines the criteria used for my Rookie Card selections. To answer your specific question, I went with the most widely collected. For example, Wade Boggs was his 1983 Topps RC, if most collectors had to choose one of the Boggs rookies, it would be that one.

Just ordered mine. Everyone hurry-up before they are gone!!!

Quite a few copies ordered already. Would anyone else like to purchase one? Knowledge is a huge advantage in the Rookie Card game.

I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who has purchased a copy of my guide. I know that the postal system is slower this time of year due to the holidays but I hope, by now, just about everyone who purchased a copy has received it.

Although I did receive feedback from a couple of board members, I was wondering what everyone else's thoughts are after purchasing and reviewing the guide? The reason I ask is that the constructive feedback that I did receive a few years ago after completing my Negro League Baseball Collectibles Guide provided me with the opportunity to go back and make improvements that hopefully are reflected this time around. I know that the biggest criticism of the Negro League guide was that some of the images were not all that clear. Of course, this was mainly due to the fact that many items were 1-of-a-kind and, thus, very little to choose from in the way of scans from the world wide web.

Anyway, thank you again to all who have purchased, there are still a good number of copies available for anyone else looking to make a purchase. I would think that these guides would also make an excellent holiday gift for those who may not be rookie card collectors but have family/friends who might enjoy all of the pictures and info contained inside the guide.

Happy Holidays to All and a Happy & Healthy New Year!

Phil

Received my copy today, after a quick perusal it seems like a very nice book. Well done Phil. Quick question the ones that say no pic available do they have no cards or could you not find a pic? Again well done.

Hi Glyn:

I'm glad that your guide arrived safely and you like it.

To answer your question, those few that say no pic available, I was unable to locate any legitimate card ever issued for that Hall of Famer. Most of these were either amateur or international basketball or hockey players and even the most hardcore fan of that sport likely never heard of that individual. Still, for the completest, you would like to have something, I know....