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Originally Posted by seanofjapan
All true and I agree with that, though I wasn't necessarily questioning why the 52 Mantle is his key card but rather why we don't have a generally accepted hobby term to describe cards like that (regardless of the interesting histories which caused them to be so).
It strikes me that if we had such a term which became generally accepted in the same way "rookie card" (by whatever definition) is today this would probably affect the way a lot of cards are valued.
Probably the best example would be players whose rookie cards are on multi-player ones, compared to their early "solo" appearance cards.
Take Gary Carter for example (I'm an Expos fan). His 1975 Topps card is his most valuable (ignoring post-career limited auto cards or whatever). But he's just a little head shared with three other guys. Its not great looking.
His 1976 Topps card in contrast is really beautiful and colorful and shows a young Gary in all his glory. The two cards are from sets that are about equal in terms of how many exist, etc. Yet the 1976 Topps Carter is worth less solely because we can't attach a commonly recognized term to it like we can for the 1975 Topps Carter even tough almost everybody would agree the 1976 is a nicer card of him.
If we collectors had a term like a player's "Key Card" (or something) that we all knew and recognized the meaning of instantly which we could attach to the 1976 Topps Gary Carter, I think it likely that it would be way more sought after than his 75 card is. But we don't, so his 1975 Topps card wins because we all know what a rookie card is (doctrinal debates about the precise definition of the term aside). Which is kind of a weird distortion of the baseball card market if you think of it.
That is just one example, there are quite a few others with much more significant value that I think one could discuss. Guys whose rookie cards are in easy to find lower series, but who have cards later in their career in hard to find high series are maybe another example.
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I'm in the minority of enjoying the multi player rookie cards better, because to me it captures the essence of the time when the player was unknown and not good enough to warrant having his own card, and thus harkens back to the time when the HOFer was just first cutting his teeth.
I think threads like these, if put out in the mainstream, would simply educate collectors more and let them make determinations better, and then contrived classifications won't really matter as much.
A collector can still call the 1949 Leaf Jackie Robinson his rookie card based on the 'Beckett rule', but then also realize that there are actual baseball cards of Jackie Robinson made before the Leaf. It gives collectors more options. In this case, since the Leaf is the most expensive of all of them, it actually gives the collectors a more affordable option to have a baseball card that is earlier...and then you can wink when the Leaf card gets the press knowing you have an even earlier(more rare/better) card of Robinson.
Same for the '51 Bowman. Its nice as a collector knowing that you have Mickey Mantle's rookie card...and then you can nod with pride knowing you got a 'one up' on the other card when that gets all the press.