[Exhibitman]

I've been collecting for over 40 years and RCs have always carried a premium. In the 'old days' a lot of collectors would try to complete runs of favorite athletes, which meant RC determination and chasing. Beckett fomented the RC craze by listing them in its magazine. It was pretty much a postwar card collecting thing until the 1990s when people really started paying up for vintage rookies. What has changed over the last 20 years is the magnitude of the price differential between the RC and the other cards. In 1997, for example, I paid $1100 for a nice nm Aaron RC. A comparable 55 would have been about 25% of that. Now, it is closer to 10%.