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Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
Yes that is certainly what they've done, but what other than past convention says it's necessarily wrong? Maybe the old school view that there could be only one RC from a set is dated.
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+1
And again, this rookie card fixation seems to borne from the 80's surge in collecting, fueled mostly by baby boomers remeniscing about their early Topps and Bowman cards. Because those were the card sets (and the rookies from them) primarily in collector's sights back then, the widely accepted definition of what a rookie card is, put forth by the likes of Beckett and others at that time, were based on pretty much solely those early Topps and Bowman sets. Pre-Topps/Bowman vintage, and even more so pre-war vintage, were nowhere near as popular back then as they've grown to be today. So that being the case, Beckett and other hobby influencers at that time didn't really care how their definition didn't really fit in with pre-Topps/Bowman sets. So they just tried to shoehorn those earlier sets in to fit the definition of a rookie card for the more popular Topps and Bowman sets at that time. And that's how you ended up with the stupid idea that Babe Ruth never had a rookie card till his 20th season in the majors.
Fast forward to recent years and now you have the card manufactuers purposely trying to dictate what is a rookie card, and also expand the number and variety of those rookie cards being produced every year to continue driving the way and reason cards are sold primarily online today. So why are we letting the card manufacturers call the shots on what is a rookie card today, especially since their sole reason is only to create more interest and more sales with modern collectors? Not much we can really do to change that, but here's the rub then. Hopefully at least some of these modern collectors will eventually find their way into the pre-war side that we are already into. And in so doing they will naturally lean toward a rookie card definition more in line with the way they collect modern cards now. So down the road I can see the idea that cards from different sets and types put out in the same year will be more widely accepted as all being a player's rookie cards, not just the one base card from their one main set. So if a current player's rookie card can be a die-cut, autographed, game-used, booklet, or limited number card, why for the old vintage player's can't it also be a doubleheader, super, stand-up, stamp or some other oddball kind of card or related item that can be considered a player's rookie card as well?
What it sounds like is some others are kind of suggesting that we maybe have different rules or definitions for different years or periods of time. So should we have different definitions of what constitutes a rookie card and have one for say 19th century cards before the major league as we know it today was really established? And then maybe a different definition for the pre-Topps/Bowman era starting around 1900 and going to 1947, followed by a Topps/Bowman era going from 1948 to around say 2000? And then finally a modern rookie card definition running from around 2000 through today? I don't know for sure if that will end up being what happens, but I'd like to think as a hobby that we could eventually come to a consensus and more or less agree upon one rookie card definition that covers all eras.