O/T The concept of a non-sports "rookie card"

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by obcbeatle

As a retired performing musician/guitarist...amongst other musicians, 1st and foremost, Tom Petty was a great song writer. There are truly very few song writers on the planet (ever) that can/could write great songs by themselves. The great songs are usually collaborative efforts. Most musicians are very jealous of the great song writers But they still love the music! I suppose though when it comes to music, beauty is in the ear of the beholder. So I digress I love this thread, great cards!!

Me too. I love the cards on this thread And I especially love the articulate retrospects from the Net54ers. Much better than the "Stolen" threads.

[Shankweather]

I collect fictional character rookie cards and I love it. We should definitely call them rookie cards, because the term has taken a life of its own independent of being a rookie in a sport. Sometimes it's difficult figuring out what card is really the rookie card. Is it enough that they appear on the card, or do they need to be the main subject of the card?

What is Godzilla's rookie card? Is it one of these from the 1965 Donruss King Kong set?



Is it this 1994 Trendmasters that came in an action figure package?



1995 Amada Godzilla was the first pack-pulled set dedicated to Goji. Is card #1 the rookie card?



Or is it #34 because it's the first one that says "Godzilla" on the front?



Is there room for XRCs in non-sports cards? If PSA won't grade it can it count as a rookie card? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

[D. Bergin]

LOL, big fan of the "What type of skin cream do you use?" card.

[Cozumeleno]

I, too, prefer the First Card designation, as others have said. It's a little tricky in many instances compared to the rookie card designation, though.

Many players have more than one rookie card, which is accepted. They're all simply known as rookies. But 'first card' infers that it's an individual's very first card -- even if that technically isn't the case. And many non-sports subjects have more than one card debuting in the same year (i.e. Queen/Princess Elizabeth, who has a few from 1935).

I'll leave it up to the pros to figure it all out. In the meantime, here's a card of Beethoven. Given the abundance of cabinets, CDVs, and what defines a card, I'm not bold enough to call it his first. So let's just say 'early.'