When Did RC Become Most Important?

[Keith H. Thompson]

Originally Posted by scgaynor

Early 1980's. There was a monthly price guide that competed with Beckett (until Beckett sued them) that was really promoting rookie cards and hyping them by putting a "RC" after the players name. There was not really that much real time market information available back then, so the kind of made up the prices, but it really advanced the rookie card market by bringing in the investors. Pretty much any card with an "RC" would bring a premium. SCD was filled with ads of dealers selling the rookie card in lots of 25, 50, 100 for the investors.

Scott has it the closest, but my certain recollection is that the "Rookie Card" was uniquely the brain child of Mark Lewis, who with his brother-in-law operated a baseball card store on Highway 112 in Medford, NY. They published a price guide and introduced the notion that RC cards (as they defined them, of course) deserved a special premium, and their guide reflected this. Unfortunately, much of their price guide was an exact copy of Beckett's price guide, player by player, year by year. Beckett sued and won, and the Lewis Guide ceased publication. But the concept had been firmly planted that a Rookie Card was something special.

As an aside I will say that Mark ran a very good operation for collectors of then current material. Beginning in 1974 my two boys and I formed complete Topp's sets (x 2) by buying wax boxes and sorting until we were close and then traded with neighborhood boys with equal interest. Anyone who did this in the "old days" will remember that this scheme generaed hundreds and hundreds of duplicates that at the time had no value. Thus, Mark provided a valuable service. In the Spring every year he would buy cases of cards, hire a group of young kids, and they would sort into complete sets. I think he charged about 12 dollars for a set. He also bought anything that walked in the door and frequently had space fillers for those of us who collected sets. A wonderful, collector friendly store.

As many collectors have mentioned in this thread, about this time Fleer and Donruss entered the field and collecting was never the same again.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Keith H. Thompson

Scott has it the closest, but my certain recollection is that the "Rookie Card" was uniquely the brain child of Mark Lewis, who with his brother-in-law operated a baseball card store on Highway 112 in Medford, NY. They published a price guide and introduced the notion that RC cards (as they defined them, of course) deserved a special premium, and their guide reflected this. Unfortunately, much of their price guide was an exact copy of Beckett's price guide, player by player, year by year. Beckett sued and won, and the Lewis Guide ceased publication. But the concept had been firmly planted that a Rookie Card was something special.

As an aside I will say that Mark ran a very good operation for collectors of then current material. Beginning in 1974 my two boys and I formed complete Topp's sets (x 2) by buying wax boxes and sorting until we were close and then traded with neighborhood boys with equal interest. Anyone who did this in the "old days" will remember that this scheme generaed hundreds and hundreds of duplicates that at the time had no value. Thus, Mark provided a valuable service. In the Spring every year he would buy cases of cards, hire a group of young kids, and they would sort into complete sets. I think he charged about 12 dollars for a set. He also bought anything that walked in the door and frequently had space fillers for those of us who collected sets. A wonderful, collector friendly store.

As many collectors have mentioned in this thread, about this time Fleer and Donruss entered the field and collecting was never the same again.

I don't know if it was the same one, but I remember a widely distributed price guide that would mysteriously show up at shows in the Northeast, and dealers would scour it for arrows pointing ^ like so, to indicate a cards price was trending up...because collectors/investors would show up at shows and then clear your tables of all the ^ cards you had.

It became a sort of a game, to stay ahead of the price guide, or price a little bit above what the guide said, to predict for the next month. Do you sell all your stock, or do you wait for the price to rocket up again?

[scgaynor]

Yes, Mark Lewis, that was it. I think it was called CPU (card prices update?). It was actually my favorite price guide. If I remember correctly, Herman Kauffman sued him for Beckett because he used Beckett's checklist.