[theshleps]

Back when I started collecting, seriously signed rookie cards were not priced very different from 2nd or 3rd year cards. Now they are out of sight as we all know. Take Stargell who on a regular card may be $30 and a RC is $1000+. Any idea why this started? In many ways the last card the player has would be much harder to get signed.
From 2002-2010 I did spring training and got lots of stars though not on rookie cards as I just did cards I liked the look of and oddball ones (Konami etc). Thing is on the new and upcoming stars Trout, Harper, etc rookie card signatures should be the most common as they were much more gracious signers before they became big stars. Once they've been in the big leagues a few years they are much harder autographs to get.