Most undervalued HOFers

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

That's a point my card collecting buddy from the early 1960's raised some 35-40 years ago. My reply at the time was that since a player's rookie card was his oldest card, it also tended to be his scarcest. That's how I think this whole rookie card thing started anyway but these days it's just silly.



To me the aesthetics of a sports card is a combination of three things:

1. The player's pose. Head shots I hate.
2. The design of that year's cards. For example, I much prefer the 1959, 1960 and 1963 Topps Baseball cards to the 1961 Topps Baseball cards.
3. The team for which the athlete played although that's not as strong a factor as the first two.

Yep. I go back and forth on head shots. Certainly when more action oriented stuff came about in the early 70's, that was a departure and I'm sure was preferable to many. I do like if posed, at least more of a profile or bat included shot - the '58 Clemente is a good example of this.

But I don't hate head shots / Topps profiles. In some cases it was cool to get a glimpse of the player close up. The '58 Ted Williams is one I just love because of that; he looks pissed at the world. It's like "wow, this is what Ted really must be like."

As a kid, with no knowledge of hobby history or set rarity or anything, I gravitated towards the idea that the older the card was, the better. Thus by this logic, a 1952 Topps Duke Snider was worth much more than a 1956 Topps Duke Snider - even if I really liked 56's and would have maybe objectively come to the conclusion on my own that it was the better card. I don't think that way anymore, lol.