Posted By:
WesleyI agree 100% and also cannot understand why rookie card collectors would collect minor league cards as a part of their rookie card collections. The reason the minor league cards in some cases are more expensive have more to do with those cards being rarer rather than the fact that they are released earlier.
I can see how some would prefer the 1933 Zeenut DiMaggio and 1934 Zeenut DiMaggio over the 1936 World Wide Gum, but I think that is the product of the minor league card being the rarer card. As card collectors, we have a tendency to went cards that our fellow collectors do not have.
The 1914 Baltimore New Ruth is certainly a more expensive card than the M101-4 card, but I think that has more to do with the fact that only nine minor league cards are known to exist rather than it being the earlier card.
If simply having the earliest card is the name of the game, one would think that the E90-1 Joe Jackson would be more expensive than the minor league T210 card. That is certainly not the case. Even though the T210 is a minor league card, it came out one full year after the E90-1. That does not stop the minor league card from being far more expensive. Again, collectors are chasing rarity over everything else including release dates.