Exactly, Stephen. The same goes all the way back to the 1880’s and N172’s. They were issued primarily for the Major Leaguers of the day but also included numerous minor leaguers as well. Handling this way qualifies rookie cards like Kid Nichols and others.

One issue I have with ultra-rare sets like W600 and E107 are the incomplete checklists. E107 says on the back there are 150 cards in the set, but only 148 have been identified. Today I'm assuming that T206 is Carl Lundgren's rookie card (it's not Allegheny!), but what if tomorrow someone discovers he was in E107?

Same with W600. Because of the way it was distributed, you could never know for sure which players were in the set, and thus our rookie card list could always be subject to change. Which seems problematic.

That's right. Not giving up my Old Judge Clark Griffith "Milwaukee" RC.

Don’t.

Over the years, many changes have taken place which affected rookie card status. The majority of the time, this has to do with changes to the issue dates of certain catalogued sets. These included: Novelty Cutlery postcards, R315’s and many others. As new evidence comes forward, rookie card status sometimes has to be updated for some individuals. Ross Youngs is an example where a player’s first name was misidentified in the W514 strip card set and was not known to be Ross up until about 10 years ago. That update made the W514 his new rookie card instead of National Caramel. You just have to always be aware that this could happen and that includes spending a lot of money on what was once believed to be a rookie card and later was discovered not to be. It comes with the territory and if you want to play this game, you have to live with it. This happened to me three different times with the Novelty Cutlery postcard set and Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker and Eddie Collins. Set was originally catalogued as 1907-09 but has since been determined to be a c1910 issue.

I tend to go with the earlier collectible items and a broader definition simply because the more restrictive the criteria, the more items are left out, often to the point of absurdity. A player might have ten or more years of MLB cards, yet that history will be ignored in favor of an artificial distinction. Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It is easy in an era of nationally issued cards to demand a mainstream issue across the country to be a RC, but that just wasn't the experience before WWII.

So many of our concepts in this regard are based on tradition or inertia or some guide that someone wrote.

It would be nice to be able to accurately rank the hobby's opinions about what aspects of a pre-war RC actually matter. I'm not as experienced with the audience of opinions as some of you guys, but the people I've talked with are as all over the place as the opinions in this thread. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's something to talk about and that's part of the hobby.

There's opinions on RC's that I can understand, but I don't personally follow for my collection.

I'm not willing to die on the hills I choose to stand on in the "What's a RC" battle, but there's stuff I count as RC's that others have a legit reason to say they don't count (regional issues, (WG)game cards) and some stuff I don't count (oversized/exhibits) that others argue absolutely count.

Until the hobby finds some consensus on things most people can agree on I'm collecting my way and arguing my view on why my 1934 Batter-Up Augie Galan is his RC while others would call it a XRC and some would say it shouldn't count as either because it's a "novelty" card and not a real baseball card.

All that you mentioned would qualify as rookie card candidates to me.

People always make this subject way more complicated than it really needs to be.

I personally want the first distributed collectible featuring that player (hopefully by themselves) doesn’t matter if it is a card, a disk, a pin, a leather, a stamp, or an 8x10 team issue.

The parameters we all put are all by their nature completely arbitrary and will make sense only to the person making them.

I will tell you this…the criteria used by Beckett are insanely stupid. They list Babe’s 1933 Goudey as his rookie! Insanely stupid!

+1

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20DiMaggio.jpg

Rhett is exactly right, all seems quite simple to me as well. A Eureka stamp can be a rookie, a Cameo Pepsin pin can be a rookie, a team issued premium can be a rookie, a Colgan’s Chip disc can be a rookie & an L1 leather can be a rookie. I think I covered them all, huh?

The M101-4/5 is a Babe Ruth rookie card, it’s a rookie collectible and I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree on this one, it’s also a card. That’s the difference between all of those others that I mentioned as compared to the Ruth. For some players, their rookie “collectible” as it might be called also fits the definition of a card, like the Ruth. Those are clear and easy to determine. It’s the other cases where the rookie “collectible” comes at least one year or more earlier than their first card distributed. Collectors like Rhett would prefer to have the earliest “collectible” and would gladly take an L1 leather of GCA if it was distributed a couple of years before his rookie card. Rookie card collectors would probably go with the earliest “card” instead. This is where your collecting preference comes into play, to each their own.

Why isn't the Baltimore News Ruth a rookie card? Because he was not in the majors?

Yes, Peter, a pre-rookie card is the term for it as opposed to rookie card. This does not take anything away from the importance of that "pre-rookie card", more times than not, especially in the pre-war world, the pre-rookie will be valued significantly higher than the actual rookie card.

Since it pictures him with a minor league team in a set that features minor leaguers, I would call it a pre-rookie card, for whatever that is worth. Same thing for DiMaggio’s batting pose Zeenut card.

So why is (just to use one example from the early 90s) a 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera a rookie card? He was three years away from the majors. 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, at least a year away and maybe it was two. Or are you going to be consistent and go against overwhelming hobby consensus here and call those pre-rookies?

The traditional reason is that those are major league sets, and thus the collegiate and minor league players are still rookies. It’s all structured around achieving the outcome that the Topps card is the rookie, since people can profit more off of mass produced hype cards instead of obscure cards that not enough people can get onboard the profit train with to inflate.

Sure, that was the rationale until the RC logo came along, but can you make an intellectually honest and consistent case for why the Ruth is not a rookie but the Rivera is?

…. No… that’s my point.

What's Yaz' RC? :)

Quite a few modern collectors treat the 1987 Topps McGwire as the RC and the 1985 as a pre-rookie, on the Zeenut DiMaggio theory. Not that it matters to most. Personally, I prefer the first card, not necessarily the first MLB card. I'd much rather own the 1977 Chong Modesto A's Ricky Henderson than the 1980 Topps RC.

Adam do those same people do the same for all the early to mid 90s cards issued before major league debuts? That would be news to me but not disputing it. I can't imagine calling all the 93 Jeters pre rookies for example.

And never heard of anyone call the 60 Yaz a pre rookie.

Comparing pre-war and post-war cards is like comparing apples to oranges. All of the post-war rookie cards have already been identified in the hobby for many years now. The challenge is to identify the pre-war cards. Any monthly magazine, annual guide or standard catalogue been able to do that yet? And, Beckett listing every ‘33 Goudey as a rookie card does not count.

There is still some controversy about the so-called XRCs from the 80s, and apparently the McGwire is not a done deal either.

The rationale is that 1992 Bowman is a major league set, and 1914 Baltimore News is a minor league set.

Nobody thinks Goudey is the Babe's RC, not even Beckett. But fixing it now would mean fixing Beckett's entire pre-war database and they're not going to do that. Beckett has always been a post-war resource.

I'm ok with the rookie issue/rookie card separation, but we don't really need to designate the rookie issue for all these players. Just look at the catalog and take the first one. Identifying the rookie card is the challenge, but I think it's worthwhile if we actually want to make collecting pre-war rookie cards a more appealing corner of the hobby. If you're a pre-war rookie issue collector, other people being pre-war rookie card collectors won't have any effect on you.

Nevermind a card not picturing a player in a major league uniform, that 92 Rivera doesn't even show him in any uniform. when I first saw cards from that set, I was thinking it's nice they included the groundskeepers.

Although it might seem like a pretty easy task on the surface, all pre-war baseball issues are catalogued, at least in the SCBC, in alphabetical order by set name. Thus, just looking for the first issue of a player and coming up with an instant answer is not only an impossible task but would take countless hours, literally months or even years to complete. As luck would have it, I already tackled this endeavor about 15 years ago now and posted a comprehensive list of every Hall of Famer's "earliest collectible" here on Net54. Separately, there is another thread which identifies rookie cards specifically. When I have a chance later today, I will post the links here so that anyone who is interested can easily access the info. Why reinvent the wheel if you don't have to, right?

I always thought the Baseball Hall of Fame should have a separate wing devoted to best groundskeepers of all time.

Brian

Here is a link to the Rookie Card list:

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...s+hall+of+fame


Here is a link to the Earliest Collectible list:

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...llectibles+hof

Phil. These are great. Thanks for creating and posting

It should.
I'm not sure how to calculate WAR for the guy sloping the foul lines depending on if the team bunts a lot or not, or making sure the footing at first is not great when Henderson was playing...

I am a long the lines of Derek in that I try (in most cases) for the earliest issue (accessibility and cost in consideration) of a player, be it a team issue, a supplement, strip cards (in most cases, still can't get myself to get the Frisch), Exhibits, etc. I am content with my Manush and Duke. I won't be running out to get the Goudey and Bowman "rookies" of these two. I am happy to call these two issues rookies, even though they don't fit the traditional definition of a card.

I am the same way with books. I used to collect first editions and I would always prefer the advanced reading copies/uncorrected proofs as they preceded the "first editions," even though the first editions are more valuable and the ARCs traditionally have been ignored.

Phil--why isn't the Selee rookie the 1897 Whitehead and Hoag pin?

This is awesome work Phil. I see in it a dozen ways you and I disagree on identifying rookie cards, even post-war (Jackie Robinson?), but your methodology is consistent and has a lot of support in the pre-war community. Post-war collectors will think you're nuts, but that's ok. Part of the fun of my 1882-2023 collection is I get to butt heads with all of the above.

Jay:

The Cameo Pepsin Selee isn’t on the rookie card list simply because it’s not a card. It’s also not the earliest collectible of any kind (1887 Oshkosh team cabinet) in order to appear on the other list. However, if you eliminate team images, the Cameo might very well be his rookie from an individual standpoint. I never pursued that to be sure but off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything else that pictured him individually between 1887 and 1897.

Oops, meant to say Whitehead & Hoag Selee, not Cameo Pepsin.

I’ll throw my hat in the ring. It’s far from complete (from a shared images perspective), but the “checklist” I have for each baseball HOFer is about as good as it gets. I doubt there’s much I’ve missed over the years. Half the fun has been finding and discovering new items to add.

Anyway, I started with Phil’s amazing research and have added about two decades worth of additional research and perusing AHs and eBay listings that would put most people to shame. The website is my attempt to give any type of “rookie” collector something that speaks to them that could be construed as a “rookie” and meet at least one definition. If you have a spare couple of minutes/hours, enjoy my website and let me know if you have any proposed edits (or images I don’t already have). You might find some stuff you never knew existed:

https://imageevent.com/derekgranger/hofearliest

I probably need another 6 months or so to “finish” the project. I’ve supplied early images for about 1/3 of the 342 members of the Cooperstown HOFers. Some players will have upwards of 20+ images devoted to that player - like Cobb:

https://imageevent.com/derekgranger/hofearliest/tycobb

And Jay, fear not! Your amazing Cameo Pepsin “On Time Starch” Pin of Sellee will be the featured collectible for him since I prefer the earliest individual item for each HOFer for my personal collection. If you ever…

Happy collecting!

Amazing stuff, Derek. I just looked at a few scattered listings, you have done such a comprehensive job between images and identifications. Once complete, this will be a monumental accomplishment (as if it isn’t already).

Keep up the great work!

Phil and Derek - Awesome work. I only follow a few players and know how difficult it is to come up with this information. I cannot imagine how much work it is to thoroughly cover so many!

The most amazing part of Derek's site is not the cards -- which of course is a phenomenal enough contribution -- but all the early photos which in so many cases predate the cards. Just astonishing work and attention to detail. One of the great labors of love this hobby has seen, and a resource second to none.

I've already spent hours on your site Derek, and I did in fact find things I never knew existed. Great resource.

Amazing work by Phil and Derek! The hobby owes you both a debt of gratitude.

There are a lot of pre-war sets that have multi-year distributions, but people have done a lot of work figuring out what years they actually came out.

Such as:
1886-90 N172 Old Judge
1902-11 W600 Sporting Life
1908-10 E91 American Caramel
1934-36 Batter-Up
1934-36 Diamond Stars

Has any similar work been done for 1909-11 T206? The variations where the team changes are easy to tell which one came out first (Lundgren, Dahlen, Demmitt, etc.). But does anyone know, for example, which Frank Chance came out first: batting, portrait red, or portrait yellow? Or if Piedmont was made in 1909 but Hindu not until 1910, or whatever. I can't imagine there would be any way to tell, but people have studied the heck out of that set so you never know.

I haven't looked at that specifically, but for most HOFers with multiple cards they usually came with different series, and the approximate dates for the series are sort of known. Like 150s were 1909, 350s 1910 and 350-460s 1911. It gets a bit messy, since many individual poses crossed over and were in multiple series. Like all but 12 or so of the cards that were in the 150 series also appear in the 350 series.

Breaking it down by brand is more complex.

Tim Cathey to the rescue:

https://t206resource.com/Print%20Group%201.html

But I think the juice is generally not worth the squeeze with these, as far as determining rookie cards. Except for team changes, I think the simple solution is to consider all T206 subjects to have 1909 release dates. I don't think most people have a desire to declare Piedmont 150s rookie cards but Piedmont 350-460s not.

EDIT: But it does look like Chance's red portrait card was the first to be released. I know we're settled on E107 being Chance's rookie card (or W600 if you're into that), but if T206 was his rookie card, do we think there would be support for only putting the label on the red portrait? It first was released in 1909 but the batting and yellow portrait cards not until 1910.

T206 would never be a Chance rookie card.

If T206s had been Chance's first cards then yes, the 150 series red portrait would be a rookie card and the 350 series yellow portrait would not be. Similarly, we know that Tris Speaker didn't have a T206 until 1910, so if he did have any cards released in 1909 or earlier the T206 should not be considered a rookie card.

I did say "if" Phil.

Technically I see how all that is true.

And it would only be the 150 red portrait, the 350 red portrait would not be.

If Piedmont 150 and Piedmont 350 both came out in 1909, wouldn't they both be rookie cards?

I'm sure this already exists somewhere, but I made a master list of all the T206 sets with all the variations, using the data available on T206resource.com. With the series, print group, and year for each card. Only 5,694 cards to build the master set! Hal Chase has the most combinations of any single player at 81.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Next up: Old Judge!

They did not. Series 150 came out in 1909 and Series 350 came out in 1910 (series 460 in 1911).

According to Tim Cathey they started printing print group 1 with 350 backs in 1909.

https://t206resource.com/Print%20Group%201.html