[Exhibitman]

+1 on many of the above points, and would add that with the nature of prewar card issues it seems silly to discuss 'rookie' cards when so many players have minor league issues, postcards, regional issues, foreign cards, regional premiums and arcade cards that predate the supposed 'rookie' cards. Take the Zeenuts, which I as a west coast collector find especially interesting. I lost all interest in 'rookie' cards when some people touting rookie card collecting discounted the Zeenuts of DiMaggio, Cochrane, Heilmann, the Waners, Vance, etc. The whole idea of a rookie is supposed to the the guy's first card, right? Well, if there are several professional baseball player cards that predate the rookie card, doesn't the whole thing then seem a bit pointless? If you stop and think about it, half the country had no MLB before the war, so the whole MLB thing itself was really a regional thing until after WWII. And what about the black guys who were barred from playing but who had cards issued in Latin America and had local postcards? Where do you fit them in? Separately but equally? Hardly seems right. And if their cards are rookies, why not the aforementioned cards of the guys who got the MLB chance?

The other issue I have is that the people who are most into the debate over the 'rookie' card often seem to be more interested in touting their own holdings as the 'rookie' card than anything else. There's marketing and scholarship, and they aren't necessarily the same things. I wish I could tout an R315 O'Doul as his rookie but how can I when I'm holding a trio of earlier Zeenuts?