Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

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In an effort not to lose potentially valuable information months/years from now inside a thread entitled Bob Feller Rookie Cards, I thought it best to continue the ongoing discussion about Baseball Hall of Fame rookie cards in a separate thread whereby the appropriate search will be able to locate it. Although the conversation might center around Hall of Famers, the same criteria would apply for all rookie cards.

While there is a pretty widely accepted list for most post-war HOF rookie cards thanks to Beckett including the RC notations in their monthly/annual price guides for many years, the same cannot be said for pre-war rookie cards. In my opinion, this facet of vinatge card collecting has been widely underappreciated and under-collected (if that is a word). As most collectors who might have thought about trying it would likely attest, there is no consensus on which cards to go after for each player. When I came to this realization back in the late 2000's, I thought it would be a great idea to share much of the knowledge that I had acquired during years of research while assembling my own card collection. That's when Lyman Hardeman and I got together and compiled the webpage on the OldCardboard website which has been the go to source for identifying HOF rookie card candidates since 2010. Derek Granger's more recently created website looks fabulous, kudos to all of his time and effort in accumulating all of the images that he has. I'm sure that when finished it will surely be a gold mine for rookie card information and leave many choices up to the collector.

Since that time, collectors have made it known through card values (based on how much they are willing to pay for certain things) as to which items meet the definition of a rookie card, with "card" being the key word. As we can just about all agree unanimously, "cards" bring higher values than original photos, paper premiums, etc. Thus a W600 Wagner in nice condition sells for $50K+ and an E107 Wagner for easily $50K+ for over a decade now. Going back in time, an M101-1 or National Copper Plate Wagner could be had for $10K or so. After the recent boom, that might not be the case any longer but I'm also sure that the E107 in decent condition can't be found for under $100K any more either.

So, I strongly believe that the first step in identifying rookie cards, especially pre-war, is to have a consensus where the vast majority of collectors agree on what constitutes a card and what does not. Working towards that goal will make it possible one day to have that definitive rookie card list available as opposed to those trying to find fault with the system and arguing every parameter that is trying to be established by the majority of us collectors. I believe that if you break down the parameters that I have previously identified one by one, you will find that each and every one makes sense and there might not be a better alternative. If there is a better one though, then we all should try and champion the cause to follow that through.

The first parameter that I created for identifying rookie cards is that neither minor league nor amateur cards be included. My reasoning for this is that they have their own clearly defined designation as being pre-rookie cards. This includes things such as Zee-nuts, PCL Exhibits, etc. This in no way deters the value of these kinds of items as many are more highly sought after than their MLB counterparts, it is simply something that does not meet the definition of what we are trying to define as a rookie card.

Secondly, no team cards are considered to be rookie cards as each individual player image can be so small as to possibly not even be discernable. Since Topps, the leading card manufacturer for over 70 years now, used this definition over the years limiting rookie cards to a maximum of 4 players on a card, I have done the same for rookie card qualification.

Next, I have chosen not to include 1-of-a-kind items for the obvious reason that this entire endeavor is being done to grow the interest in pursuing pre-war rookie cards and an impossible task as searching for only one item in existence is only going to frustrate the collector. Instead, I move on to the next possible option going in chronological order. Of course, if you are fortunate enough to own the "true" rookie for that player, kudos to you but then no one else can.

The next item that I address is the exclusion of stickers, stamps, paper premiums, etc. as the various item names indicate, they are not cards and whether or not they are encapsulated by a TPG company does not change that.

Another requirement for my rookie card qualification is that the card must be catalogued. Typically, the old Standard Catalogue of Vintage Baseball Cards is the go to source for this. Unfortunately it's been a number of years since the most recent update to this previously annual issue. Now that Bob Lemke is no longer around RIP, I guess Krause never found anyone to pick up the editing duties.

Finally, I do not include team issued items as being considered for rookie card status. Most of these have been paper photos over the years and are not cards. Some did issue postcards which makes them more of a gray area but since they are not part of any kind of advertising or regionally/nationally distributed set, I choose not to count them. This is probably the one parameter that could be argued either way but mostly comes into play with post-war rookies and the main focus of this entire endeavor is to identify pre-war rookie cards.

When Mr. Lemke was still at Krause, I had conversations with him about identifying pre-war rookie cards in the Standard Catalogue. While he was okay with doing that for a few consensus cards such as the Sporting News Ruth, the Play Ball Ted Williams, etc., by and large he wasn't comfortable enough to take on the challenge of going further with the process and, thus, things never moved forward from there.

It is my hope that one day, we can still make this happen but will take a lot of support from well-respected individuals in the hobby such as we have here on the Net54 board. What are everyone's thoughts on this topic, do we agree, disagree, etc.?