Quote:
Originally Posted by hcv123
The Goudeys are THE most sought after (read - highest demand) Ruth cards and will likely remain so - heck, I would call the #144 the "poster card" of prewar gum cards. There are only ~2,000 graded (PSA and SGC combined) examples of the #144 (+ I would guess considerably less than that # raw) , which while intially may sound like a big number - pales in comparison to the demand the card has. The 3 other Goudey's have lower populations. That said, I do agree that some of his earlier issues have considerably lower populations (and at least for now considerably lower demand). To me the head scratcher is Ruth's Exhibit cards (The '21 topping the list) and Exhibit cards in general - The 25 Gehrig Exhibit gets a "demand pass" and somehow shatters the Exhibit card price mold while all the rest of the Exhibit cards are ignored? Why?
|
Howard,
Don't disagree with you at all, but have always wondered how much of that demand was due to the old Beckett guides listing Ruth's Goudey cards as his rookie cards. For chrissakes, it was Ruth's 19th season before he finally has a rookie card?!?!?! And yes, I know their definition of a rookie card was for one included in a nationally issued set. But that entire premise was based more on Topps and Bowman card issues, which was more of the sweet spot for the collectors who had grown up in the '40s, '50s, and '60s that Beckett was primarily marketing to back in the day. Heck, nationally issued, MLB wasn't even played West of St. Louis back in the '30s so it wasn't totally national either.
And personally for me, I have always liked to collect things that maybe not everyone else is into. That's exactly why I don't really collect T206 and the '33 and '34 Goudey sets. Everyone else is into those sets, so instead, I looked at collecting T205, S74, Diamond Stars, Batter-Up, and other oddball sets and the like. But that's me. I still think that "rookie card" designation for Ruth's Goudey cards is behind a good bit of that deemed value and demand they hold in the hobby. To me, this would be like saying Mantle's '69 Topps cards are his true rookie cards, and therefore, they're way more valuable than most all of his earlier issued items, save his true rookie cards from his earliest years in the league.