Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
It is believed that half the Bond Bread cards were issued after 1948. We know some of the photos were taken during the 1949 season. So there is some debate as to issue date. PSA has only graded more than 20 of 2 of the 12. The promo is believed to be a giveaway card, PSA has graded 109 of these. PSA doesn’t grade the regular Bond set. The Swell card is more a highlight card than a standard baseball card. Is the 1960 Topps World Series game 5 card Maury Wills RC? PSA has graded 156 of the Swell cards. PSA has graded 1344 of the 1949 Leaf cards. We can see by the numbers available that the Leaf cards were more of a national issue and the others regional. It is also from a traditional set with 98 different players, not a set only featuring 1 player or a set of highlight cards. That is why the hobby considers Leaf a RC instead of the others.
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Jackie is a Round cornered Bond, a 1947 issue. The square corner lower quality cards were 1949 or later. The 1947 round corner is not a rare card, there are 6 on eBay right now. See the large composite thread on these. There are 10 of his Swell listed on eBay right now. These are not difficult cards to find, and PSA not grading one of them of course means the pop report is not a good tool here. Are Leaf 2nd series cards not rookies, because they were distributed in only a couple regions very briefly and are rare? The standards here flip flop depending on the player to call whatever is desired a rookie card.
The Swell set has many past players, and Jackie’s card does commemorate his rookie season. It is a portrait photo of him and only him and quite specifically names him. This is nothing like a World Series highlight card naming another player specifically on which Wills is not the focus.
Again, I’m not picking out items that are debatably cards or debatably Jackie Robinson cards or are even obscure or small regional issues. If the Bond and Swell are too tough to be the rookie, then 1933 Goudey and T206 are pretty much the rookie sets for every pre-war player like Beckett used to allege, as almost all the other sets are also too tough. The Bonds were probably the most available baseball cards in 1947, Swell the 2nd most available set in 1948 I think.