Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

[Exhibitman]

I tend to go with the earlier collectible items and a broader definition simply because the more restrictive the criteria, the more items are left out, often to the point of absurdity. A player might have ten or more years of MLB cards, yet that history will be ignored in favor of an artificial distinction. Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It is easy in an era of nationally issued cards to demand a mainstream issue across the country to be a RC, but that just wasn't the experience before WWII.

So many of our concepts in this regard are based on tradition or inertia or some guide that someone wrote.

[BioCRN]

It would be nice to be able to accurately rank the hobby's opinions about what aspects of a pre-war RC actually matter. I'm not as experienced with the audience of opinions as some of you guys, but the people I've talked with are as all over the place as the opinions in this thread. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's something to talk about and that's part of the hobby.

There's opinions on RC's that I can understand, but I don't personally follow for my collection.

I'm not willing to die on the hills I choose to stand on in the "What's a RC" battle, but there's stuff I count as RC's that others have a legit reason to say they don't count (regional issues, (WG)game cards) and some stuff I don't count (oversized/exhibits) that others argue absolutely count.

Until the hobby finds some consensus on things most people can agree on I'm collecting my way and arguing my view on why my 1934 Batter-Up Augie Galan is his RC while others would call it a XRC and some would say it shouldn't count as either because it's a "novelty" card and not a real baseball card.

[bcbgcbrcb]

All that you mentioned would qualify as rookie card candidates to me.