Pre - WW II Rookie Cards of every MLB Player
 

Ok, so the above might be an impossible task............How about starting the process by including every MLB player eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame (whether enshrined or not) based on years of service, meaning those players who participated in a minimum of 10 Major League seasons.

I am looking for a few individuals that would be willing to put in the time doing extensive research in an effort to identify Rookie Cards for every Pre - WW II player that meets the above criteria. This is definitely a long-term project and my ultimate goal is that future baseball card catalogues will recognize and identify these cards within the respective Pre - WW II sets as Rookie Cards as they currently do for Post - WW II sets.

Something like this has been attempted for Hall of Famers only but, as we all know, there are many other quality Pre - WW II players to collect besides Hall of Famers. For anyone who may be interested, please PM me so that we can discuss in more detail.

Is there an archive that exists that has all the players that have received at least one vote on a HOF ballot?

I believe that information is available but will likely only be sorted year-by-year.

creating the list of players shouldn't be too difficult. However, defining "rookie" and "card" may prove challenging where there is too much subjectivity. Like what if the player isn't in uniform or in a minor league uniform? What if the "card" is a 8x10 supplement or postcard or stamp?

Seems like a neat project! Good luck Phil.

Rob
:)

Rather than a list of first card, as rookie cards. Maybe take the subjectivity into account, and create a list of the latest acceptable rookie "card". That should allow for the supplements, pins, and other various items that aren't technically cards to not be FORCED into a RC collection, but perfectly acceptable if the individual collector chooses to include them(I for one include them if I can, but am ok settling for latest acceptable RC). This would also allow for obscure cards where very few are known, or local releases to not be necessary either.