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Posted By: E, Daniel

Because it gives card issues an order. If there were no sense of the order (by year of manufacture) in which card issues were released, and that this somehow held meaning of some sort, then all issues would be considered equally interesting and value purely a reckoning of surviving examples and perhaps aesthetics.
And obviously, that's a pretty hard thing to judge these days so many years after creation, as we all would agree that numbers graded is no reflection of actual numbers surviving, and aesthetics a very personal opinion. So how would we determine the cost of a card, as trading is no longer a feasable way to collect? Would cards made well past a player's career be equally valuable, and if not why not? I'm not saying rookie cards set all this in stone, and in fact alot of factors play off eachother to create a sense of desirability for an issue, but the initial layering of rookie year helps establish a perspective for many collectors.

I personally love the concept of rookie, prookie too, and first card to boot. All give me a sense of space and time for a player's career and life and help but not bind my collecting perameters.

And postcards don't make it as baseball cards for me, as their primary use was commercial - not collecting - though no doubt many people started collecting because of the artistic merits of the designs.
Exhibits are cards, as they were undoubtedly created for the sole purpose of collecting.


Daniel