Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

[Shankweather]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's mostly because of Beckett. Rookie cards were a thing, supposedly because most players didn't become huge stars until after the typical 3-4 year window for kids to collect so they didn't get saved.
Think like early 50's, when someone might save a couple favorites from moms purge of "junk" Mickey Mantle and a couple personal favorites got saved, but that Aaron kid who only hit 13 homers last year? Nah, he's in the bin.

When minor league and draft pick sets got really big, some dealers hyped guys who might never even make the majors cards as "rookies" some definition was needed. So Beckett being the unofficial arbiter of everything (Kidding/not kidding ) Made one up.

Local issues, team issues, limited anything was out. Minor league cards were out, update sets were out. I forget exactly how it really reads, but it should have read

A rookie card is the earliest card of a player that exists in enough quantity for all dealers to benefit from the hype.

Total nonsense in my opinion.
Then since some complained, they came out with XRC for cards from update sets, FTC, FDC, FFC -first card for that plater from a manufacturer...

Other than peoples fascination with "firsts", there hasn't been a real reason for rookie cards being worth more since around 1977, maybe earlier. That was sort of the beginning of hobby shops proliferating, catalogs that listed what cards were in what set, people realizing they could buy a stack of 100 of almost any card they wanted to put away...

I don't see making any semi "official" checklist not include cards simply because of the expense.

BUT, for your own collection, I think it's fine to use you own criteria and collect as you want.
Heck, I've just changed mine to "the oldest card of a player I can get for under $10."... and now I'm complete at least pre-war.

I know Beckett had a major influence on those things, but it was all for the good in my opinion. And it's not all that complicated. First card in a widely distributed MLB set. That generally guarantees it's a card that collectors can actually find. It would be less good if Jackie Robinson's rookie card was the '47 Dodgers team issue or Bond Bread. It's better for collectors that his rookie cards are Bowman and Leaf.

Post-war collectors are heavily influenced by Beckett, no doubt. Pre-war collectors are heavily influenced by Burdick. All this is largely for the good. But just because something is "in the catalog" doesn't mean we have to bow to that. Receiving the designation W600 doesn't, in my mind, bestow baseball card status upon a 5x7 portrait one received in the mail.

EDIT: And expense isn't the issue. It's being able to find the card. If cards are virtually non-existent, why bother making a rookie card list at all.