Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

[bcbgcbrcb]

Yes, Peter, a pre-rookie card is the term for it as opposed to rookie card. This does not take anything away from the importance of that "pre-rookie card", more times than not, especially in the pre-war world, the pre-rookie will be valued significantly higher than the actual rookie card.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Yes, Peter, a pre-rookie card is the term for it as opposed to rookie card. This does not take anything away from the importance of that "pre-rookie card", more times than not, especially in the pre-war world, the pre-rookie will be valued significantly higher than the actual rookie card.

So why is (just to use one example from the early 90s) a 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera a rookie card? He was three years away from the majors. 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, at least a year away and maybe it was two. Or are you going to be consistent and go against overwhelming hobby consensus here and call those pre-rookies?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So why is (just to use one example from the early 90s) a 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera a rookie card? He was three years away from the majors. 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, at least a year away and maybe it was two. Or are you going to be consistent and go against overwhelming hobby consensus here and call those pre-rookies?

The traditional reason is that those are major league sets, and thus the collegiate and minor league players are still rookies. It’s all structured around achieving the outcome that the Topps card is the rookie, since people can profit more off of mass produced hype cards instead of obscure cards that not enough people can get onboard the profit train with to inflate.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

The traditional reason is that those are major league sets, and thus the collegiate and minor league players are still rookies. It’s all structured around achieving the outcome that the Topps card is the rookie, since people can profit more off of mass produced hype cards instead of obscure cards that not enough people can get onboard the profit train with to inflate.

Sure, that was the rationale until the RC logo came along, but can you make an intellectually honest and consistent case for why the Ruth is not a rookie but the Rivera is?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Sure, that was the rationale until the RC logo came along, but can you make an intellectually honest and consistent case for why the Ruth is not a rookie but the Rivera is?

…. No… that’s my point.

[Peter_Spaeth]

What's Yaz' RC?

[Exhibitman]

Quite a few modern collectors treat the 1987 Topps McGwire as the RC and the 1985 as a pre-rookie, on the Zeenut DiMaggio theory. Not that it matters to most. Personally, I prefer the first card, not necessarily the first MLB card. I'd much rather own the 1977 Chong Modesto A's Ricky Henderson than the 1980 Topps RC.

[Shankweather]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Sure, that was the rationale until the RC logo came along, but can you make an intellectually honest and consistent case for why the Ruth is not a rookie but the Rivera is?

The rationale is that 1992 Bowman is a major league set, and 1914 Baltimore News is a minor league set.

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

I will tell you this…the criteria used by Beckett are insanely stupid. They list Babe’s 1933 Goudey as his rookie! Insanely stupid!

Nobody thinks Goudey is the Babe's RC, not even Beckett. But fixing it now would mean fixing Beckett's entire pre-war database and they're not going to do that. Beckett has always been a post-war resource.

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Rhett is exactly right, all seems quite simple to me as well. A Eureka stamp can be a rookie, a Cameo Pepsin pin can be a rookie, a team issued premium can be a rookie, a Colgan’s Chip disc can be a rookie & an L1 leather can be a rookie. I think I covered them all, huh?

The M101-4/5 is a Babe Ruth rookie card, it’s a rookie collectible and I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree on this one, it’s also a card. That’s the difference between all of those others that I mentioned as compared to the Ruth. For some players, their rookie “collectible” as it might be called also fits the definition of a card, like the Ruth. Those are clear and easy to determine. It’s the other cases where the rookie “collectible” comes at least one year or more earlier than their first card distributed. Collectors like Rhett would prefer to have the earliest “collectible” and would gladly take an L1 leather of GCA if it was distributed a couple of years before his rookie card. Rookie card collectors would probably go with the earliest “card” instead. This is where your collecting preference comes into play, to each their own.

I'm ok with the rookie issue/rookie card separation, but we don't really need to designate the rookie issue for all these players. Just look at the catalog and take the first one. Identifying the rookie card is the challenge, but I think it's worthwhile if we actually want to make collecting pre-war rookie cards a more appealing corner of the hobby. If you're a pre-war rookie issue collector, other people being pre-war rookie card collectors won't have any effect on you.

[steve B]

Nevermind a card not picturing a player in a major league uniform, that 92 Rivera doesn't even show him in any uniform. when I first saw cards from that set, I was thinking it's nice they included the groundskeepers.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Although it might seem like a pretty easy task on the surface, all pre-war baseball issues are catalogued, at least in the SCBC, in alphabetical order by set name. Thus, just looking for the first issue of a player and coming up with an instant answer is not only an impossible task but would take countless hours, literally months or even years to complete. As luck would have it, I already tackled this endeavor about 15 years ago now and posted a comprehensive list of every Hall of Famer's "earliest collectible" here on Net54. Separately, there is another thread which identifies rookie cards specifically. When I have a chance later today, I will post the links here so that anyone who is interested can easily access the info. Why reinvent the wheel if you don't have to, right?

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by steve B

Nevermind a card not picturing a player in a major league uniform, that 92 Rivera doesn't even show him in any uniform. when I first saw cards from that set, I was thinking it's nice they included the groundskeepers.

I always thought the Baseball Hall of Fame should have a separate wing devoted to best groundskeepers of all time.

Brian