Babe Ruth Rookie

Orioles1954 · #1 05-05-2015, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

C'mon, Jay, that's not a very smart statement. Rookie Cards are part of the hobby, like it or not, and are here to stay. Who really cares about the thousands of Old Judge pose variations where Joe Blow has one card picturing his right arm at a 45 degree angle and another card where his right arm is at a 90 degree angle?

I actually do agree that while rookie cards are part of the hobby, their role is not as substantial or important as they once were. It seems more like the fore-mentioned construct from an earlier age in the hobby.

bcbgcbrcb · #2 05-06-2015, 12:03 AM

During the 1980's, greedy sellers were trying to place the rookie card tag on almost anything to inflate values. Remember the FTC (first Topps card), FDC (first Donruss card), etc. With all of the resources available in today's market, much of that nonsense has been eliminated and it is very possible to determine legitimate rookie cards for both pre-war and post-war baseball players. Much easier in football, basketball and even hockey, but to a somewhat lesser extent.

Orioles1954 · #3 05-06-2015, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

During the 1980's, greedy sellers were trying to place the rookie card tag on almost anything to inflate values. Remember the FTC (first Topps card), FDC (first Donruss card), etc. With all of the resources available in today's market, much of that nonsense has been eliminated and it is very possible to determine legitimate rookie cards for both pre-war and post-war baseball players. Much easier in football, basketball and even hockey, but to a somewhat lesser extent.

I agee. However, I work with many clients in the industry and have yet to find one who is actively pursing football, basketball or hockey Hall of Famers. Even those who collect baseball rookie HOFers seem to be dwindling. I may be in the vast minority, but as a collector, the prospect of paying several thousand dollars for Babe Ruth as a Red Sox pitcher is not very appealing....even though it is his first mainstream issue. By the way, we should cut the nonsense of national vs. limited distribution. If the card has an ACC designation, it can be a rookie.

trdcrdkid · #4 05-06-2015, 12:28 AM

I've never really cared about rookie cards either, maybe because I'm old enough to remember that when I started collecting in the 1970s, the concept of a "rookie card" didn't really exist, or at least wasn't a term than anybody used or cared about. The card that popularized the term around 1980 and the years immediately after was the 1952 Topps Mantle, ironically not his actual rookie card by nearly any modern definition. I remember hearing the term for the first time around then and thinking it sounded kind of strange, like an artificial construct somebody came up with to create demand.

From Dave Jamieson's "Mint Condition":
"As more card sets and hobby publications poured into drugstores and card shops, a new term emerged among schoolboys: "rookie card". In years past, collectors had never made much of a fuss over whether a particular card was the player's first to appear. Things changed in the early '80s after Mickey Mantle's 1952 Topps rookie card sold for around $3000, then a staggering sum for a postward piece of cardboard. Such sales marked the beginning of a long nostalgia boom, as the boys who'd collected those early Topps sets grew into professionals with incomes to throw around."

glchen · #5 05-06-2015, 12:52 AM

I don't think the concept of collecting rookie cards will ever go away in the hobby. Collectors by definition like to organize and categorize. Therefore to categorize and collect players by their cards from their rookie year makes too much sense. Also, if a baseball fan, but not a collector, asks a hobby friend, hey, I'm a big fan of this star (like Derek Jeter), and I'd like to pick up a card from him, but there are 10,000+ different cards for Jeter, what do you recommend? That friend will probably tell him to buy Jeter's rookie card. It's a lot easier to explain why you should buy a rookie card than to say, you know, most people buy Michael Jordan's 1986 Fleer rookie card, but I recommend you buy his Green Metal card. That's tougher to explain to a casual collector.

MetsBaseball1973 · #6 05-06-2015, 01:10 AM

Still no Ruth Rookie sightings here! Who won the $200,000 example in REA. Come on, bring it out ---- some of us actually love seeing awesome cards.

JLange · #7 05-06-2015, 04:45 AM

In pursuing that card that is the origin of someone's career, it always just made sense to me to try to obtain the earliest card possible. That's the card. Call it a rookie or not, but the earliest card in a player's career is generally undisputed. Now, if you stretch the definition of "card" to include everything that I do, you introduce more debate, but this rookie card stuff is just nonsense. Call it the "Earliest Card" and you generally can't go wrong.

bcbgcbrcb · #8 05-06-2015, 05:24 AM

Jason gets it, not that difficult of a concept. When I was doing the BB HOF RC collection, that's what I did. My collection included team postcard appearances, minor league cards such as Zeenuts, etc. Basically, the earliest "card" produced for each HOF'er. I also included things like Cameo Pepsin pins, M101-1's, etc. However, when I wrote reference material, I indicated what true rookie cards were for each HOF'er so the collector has the option to go with earliest collectible or true rookie card or even a mix of both.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
FS:R315 Babe Ruth,1920 W516 BABE RUTH, Mathewson 1927 York Walter Johnson,Hoyt ROOKIE	vintagehofrookies	1920 to 1949 Baseball cards- B/S/T	23	03-20-2015 06:36 PM
Babe Ruth Rookie (Pre-Rookie) Card	Shoeless Moe	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	9	03-02-2015 11:00 PM
Question about Babe Ruth Rookie	Wymers Auction	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	13	07-29-2012 03:28 PM
Looking for M101 Babe Ruth Rookie	Archive	Pre-WWII cards (E, D, M, etc..) B/S/T	0	09-06-2006 06:46 PM
Anyone have an M101- Babe Ruth rookie?	Archive	Pre-WWII cards (E, D, M, etc..) B/S/T	0	09-06-2006 01:23 PM