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Posted By: Paul

I've always tried to collect the earliest card of Hall of Famers, whether the card is a major league card or minor league card. The minor league ones are actually my favorites. I have never expected to get a rookie card of every Hall of Famer. It's never really even been a goal. My goal has been getting ANY contemporaneous card of every Hall of Famer, which is enough of a challenge by itself. But I do particularly like the rookies, and I do collect them.

I think there are two basic factors contributing to the decline of interest in rookies. The first, which has already been mentioned, is some big rookie collectors selling off their collections. The second, in my opinion, was the election of a large class of Negro League players a few years ago, many with extremely rare cards from Cuba and Puerto Rico. It's only speculation, but I think a lot of people dropped out of the rookie HOF market when they realized how difficult it would be to get "rookie" cards of guys like Pete Hill, Biz Mackey, Cristobal Torriente, Willard Brown, and Andy Cooper.