Posted By:
Jorge While I dont consider myself an expert at anything, I have studied the rookie card argument for a few years. Much of it from lurking on the Net54 and listening to guys like Hal and others. I believe the term rookie card is a post war term. It was probably born sometime after Topps had a established themselves as a consistent company that produced cards which where uniformly similar year after year. The problem I have with using the normal definition on prewar cards is that it probably would eliminate over 95% of the sets created from having rookie card candidates. Even the 5% would be suspect. I guess the biggest contraversy would be, what are nationally distributed sets. I'm not sure. I guess if cards were distributed from one company to all the states that were around at the time I would call that national distribution. But what if it just distributed to 5 or ten. Is that regional. What if it distributed in a few cities on the East coast and a few on the west, is that national? I'm asking because I dont know. We are talking in some cases over 100 years ago when methods of distribution were not as advanced as they were after WWII...... I know that Breisch William cards are considered to be nationally distributed, but when you look at how many of those cards exist today it seems hard to believe. There are probably local issues that have more cards in circulation than the Breisch's. .............Everytime I hear an argument concerning prewar rookie cards it always starts off the same way. The first guy always declares, its the first card made of that person even if its a minor league card. Then someone else will ask what if the players first card is a team card with 10 or 12 other players. The first guy will think about it a while and say "Doesnt matter". Well what if the team card photo was taken so far away that you wouldnt know whose in the picture unless you read his name. Or what if the first card is 8"x12" or bigger. Or what if its made of paper, better yet made of silk, does that count. What if it came in a strip and was hand cut by the public. What if its a cabinet or CDV, and so on and so on. In the years I have observed the argument, it always ends up with the same conclusion, no agreement..............(TO be continued)