Quote:
Originally Posted by wdmullins
Although I used a 1963 Rose as an example, the period I was thinking of was ca. 1979. I worked at a comic shop in Nashville then, and we sold baseball cards as well. That was the time when we first started seeing reference to "rookie" cards in the press (as it was), in guides, and started to mark such cards as "rookies" on stickers. This period - the late 1970s, when it was a Topps-only world, and before Donruss and Fleer came along -- was when rookie cards became the hypable thing they are today.
|
Okay. We'll move it from 1981 to 1979. Doesn't change anything. Topps was NOT the only game in town. They were the only huge manufacturer with an annual MLB wide release, but a ton of the 1956-1980 players have first cards outside of the Topps orbit. They appear in regional issues, in team issues, in a host of other sets that you will find in the standard catalog. I don't think there is anything to debate here...