Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

[Shankweather]

Originally Posted by Baseball Rarities

Stephen - Interesting take and I am sure that you will get a lot of different answers.

I do not think that rarity should ever be a determining factor for rookie cards, especially when the set was available to the public like E107s.

I also think that your "#2 Random Distribution" rule should not come into play or else it will exclude N173 Old Judges cabinets, W600 Sporting Life cabinets, T3 Turkey Reds, etc.

Old Judge cabinets and Turkey Reds are some of my favorite collectibles and I have several. But I purposefully exclude them from rookie card eligibility. They're just not baseball cards, they're too big and not randomly assorted. And further, we don't need them to be rookie cards. All of the players in N173 are in N172, and all of the players in T3 are in T206. All those players have rookie cards that look like baseball cards. It doesn't make the cabinets any less desirable. My N173 Cap Anson is one of my most prized possessions. But it's not a baseball card.

I'm definitely aware my take won't jive with a lot of others, particularly serious pre-war collectors. Part of my mission is to make pre-war collecting more palatable for modern collectors, with whom I interact a lot. And telling my fellow Cubs collectors that there are only half a dozen Frank Chance rookie cards in the world doesn't help.

That being said, my rule #4 is the least precious to me. I'm much more willing to call E107 a rookie card than M101-1. Large pieces of paper aren't baseball cards.