Posted By:
Eric BrehmI have never understood the fascination with rookie cards. Sure the 'first' card of a player, or one that depicts them looking young and fresh during their rookie season, is kind of cool, but why should it command such a huge price multiple over other cards of that player? Sometimes the rookie card of a player is rather unaesthetic, such as the 1963 Topps of Pete Rose, which Pete has to share with three other players.
I think the rookie card phenomenon arose in the 1980's partly out of a speculation game: you buy cards of a player when they first arrive in the big leagues, and then later reap the benefits of your foresight and talent recognition skills when the player goes on to have a great career. I remember back then people even tried to buy hundreds of copies of a single card; maybe they still do. The problem is that the supply of modern cards is essentially infinite (plenty of unopened cases probably still stashed away), so the price levels that these cards can ultimately reach is limited.
Talking about 'rookie cards' of pre-war players like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth seems ridiculous to me. As has been pointed out, it depends on what you even consider to be a 'card'. If you have to debate what the 'real' rookie card even is, how desirable can it really be? But then again, since I have never placed much value on the rookie card concept to begin with, these debates are essentially meaningless to me.