cards of great historical figures

[G1911]

Originally Posted by wdmullins

For several reasons -

4. To people who've collected non-sports for a long time, the whole idea of a non-sports rookie card appears to be an attempt by sports card speculators to identify and hype non-sport cards as being more valuable than they otherwise would be, given that their intrinsic scarcity and value isn't any greater than any other card from the same set.

This is exactly what it was in sports too; a speculative hype train started by those who stood to profit if people bought in on the sales pitch, and here we are with everyone on that train and chugging full steam ahead. I've never really 'understood' the rookie craze, but when one of my Discord groups is busy hyping a Trout rookie, it somehow seems less strange to me than when they're trying to hype Boba Fett's rookie card. Athletes, non-sports, I understand 'first card' appeal (which is different from rookie, with the loose and usually inconsistent rookie rules that seem to exist almost solely to exclude any card that isn't easy to get because it would be difficult to profit as easily on). First card makes sense to me. I don't get first card appeal for fictional characters in non-sports land. I get wanting the first card of a favored baseball player (which is rarely their "rookie" that is hyped for $$$$) or an actor or a historical figure (Good luck there identifying anonymous CDV's...) one admires or collects.

[wdmullins]

Originally Posted by G1911

This is exactly what it was in sports too; a speculative hype train started by those who stood to profit if people bought in on the sales pitch,

Eeh, maybe not so much when "rookie" cards first became a thing in sports cards. At that time, there was Topps. And that's it. There was no problem identifying Pete Rose's 1963 card as his rookie card, as there were no other cards that it could possibly be. There were no chase subsets, no parallels, nothing else to speak of. You simply identified the first card that a player appeared on, and 90%+ of the time, it was by default the rookie card.

All the hyping of one card over another came later, in the 1980s, as the number of cards proliferated.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by wdmullins

Eeh, maybe not so much when "rookie" cards first became a thing in sports cards. At that time, there was Topps. And that's it. There was no problem identifying Pete Rose's 1963 card as his rookie card, as there were no other cards that it could possibly be. There were no chase subsets, no parallels, nothing else to speak of. You simply identified the first card that a player appeared on, and 90%+ of the time, it was by default the rookie card.

All the hyping of one card over another came later, in the 1980s, as the number of cards proliferated.

In 1963 no one gave a darn about rookies at all and they weren’t special. The rookie as a special item is an invention of the early 80’s dealers. Since we are talking about collecting rookies specifically, not that they existed (of course players have had first cards or what we calla rookie now for the entirety of card history), that is the context used. There was not only Topps, many, even if most significant post war players first cards are absolutely not Topps; it’s just the Topps card that is branded the rookie.

[wdmullins]

Although I used a 1963 Rose as an example, the period I was thinking of was ca. 1979. I worked at a comic shop in Nashville then, and we sold baseball cards as well. That was the time when we first started seeing reference to "rookie" cards in the press (as it was), in guides, and started to mark such cards as "rookies" on stickers. This period - the late 1970s, when it was a Topps-only world, and before Donruss and Fleer came along -- was when rookie cards became the hypable thing they are today.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by wdmullins

Although I used a 1963 Rose as an example, the period I was thinking of was ca. 1979. I worked at a comic shop in Nashville then, and we sold baseball cards as well. That was the time when we first started seeing reference to "rookie" cards in the press (as it was), in guides, and started to mark such cards as "rookies" on stickers. This period - the late 1970s, when it was a Topps-only world, and before Donruss and Fleer came along -- was when rookie cards became the hypable thing they are today.

Okay. We'll move it from 1981 to 1979. Doesn't change anything. Topps was NOT the only game in town. They were the only huge manufacturer with an annual MLB wide release, but a ton of the 1956-1980 players have first cards outside of the Topps orbit. They appear in regional issues, in team issues, in a host of other sets that you will find in the standard catalog. I don't think there is anything to debate here...

[G1911]

Some more authors of 4 completely different literary types.

[Peter_Spaeth]

David is probably the leading collector of and expert on music cards in the world. He has moved towards adopting the term. Rookie card, first card, all the same to me.


https://imageevent.com/halpen/rockro...rww8caa1y1.cow

If only someone would do this for movie cards.