Let's talk about "over-looked" true Rookie cards....Pre-war and early Post-war

[Seven]

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

Reading this makes me wonder why the hobby doesn't have a term that designates a player's best or most desirable card, regardless of whether it is a rookie card (by whatever definition) or not. Like their "Key Card" or something, (only to designate the player's most sought after card rather than the most sought after card in a given set).

Like obviously Mantle's 52 Topps card is his key card even though it isn't his rookie. But there are lots of other examples of players whose best cards (here we can use market value as a proxy for "best", though that is also a debatable usage) aren't their rookies. Everyone knows which ones they are, yet we don't have a commonly shared word to describe that. Which seems strange to me.

Concerning the first portion of your post, the only reason why the 52 Mantle is considered his "key card" is because of where it was printed and what happened with the high series cards from topps' set that year. Had Mantle not been a member of the high series or had Berger not commissioned a literal boat load of them to be dumped in the ocean, I'd argue that Mantle's 52 card would probably fall somewhere in the range that his 52 Bowman is in, right now.

Objectively speaking, I don't even think it's his best looking card. Sure the 52 topps style is beautiful, But his 53 topps looks better, I'd argue the same about his 56 as well as his 51 Bowman.