Football Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Collection

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by clamendo

The HOF rookie list is a fabricated list of many non-period cards of the players. Who choose who's on the list? It wouldn't take long to have the people on this board come up with the "real" list, but of course no one would be able to get them all, but it's a lot more fun chasing those than 1988 Swell Arnie Herber's, 1990 Pro Set Al Davis, or 1994 Police Bud Grant, 1974 Fleer Paddy Driscoll. I guess I'll have to settle for low grade examples of 1932 Walker Cleaner Packers Arnie Herbert, 1963 Coke Cap of Al Davis, 1954 Blue Ribbon Bud Grant, or 1928 Star Player Paddy Driscoll.
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I completely agree, Carl. To me its silly to call a 1988 Arnie Herber his rookie card. I believe the rookie card phenomenon is a manifestation of two things:

1) It seems to have always been the unwritten rule that a rookie card has to come from a "mainstream" set that was distributed nationally if at all possible. I'm not sure if this rule was pushed by Topps and other card manufacturers or came from dealers wanting to make sure they had plenty of rookie cards to sell.

2) The grading companies would never advocate that rookie cards be designated in scarce sets like Star Player Candy as then hardly anyone would work on a HOF registry set as completing it would be pretty much hopeless and hopeless equals less grading fees for them!

Either way it is clear that the driver behind rookie card designations is $$$$, not what is truly the players first card.

I'm very content to focus on trying to get "pre-rookie" cards of HOFers from the scarce sets you mention even if these cards aren't designated as rookie cards. I agree its a lot more fun chasing those but don't begrudge anyone who wants to try and complete an official rookie card set ... that's still a tall task!

jeff