Baseball Hall of Fame Rookie Cards Discussion

rhettyeakley · #1 10-14-2023, 04:07 PM

People always make this subject way more complicated than it really needs to be.

I personally want the first distributed collectible featuring that player (hopefully by themselves) doesn’t matter if it is a card, a disk, a pin, a leather, a stamp, or an 8x10 team issue.

The parameters we all put are all by their nature completely arbitrary and will make sense only to the person making them.

I will tell you this…the criteria used by Beckett are insanely stupid. They list Babe’s 1933 Goudey as his rookie! Insanely stupid!

Exhibitman · #2 10-14-2023, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

People always make this subject way more complicated than it really needs to be.

I personally want the first distributed collectible featuring that player (hopefully by themselves) doesn’t matter if it is a card, a disk, a pin, a leather, a stamp, or an 8x10 team issue.

The parameters we all put are all by their nature completely arbitrary and will make sense only to the person making them.

I will tell you this…the criteria used by Beckett are insanely stupid. They list Babe’s 1933 Goudey as his rookie! Insanely stupid!

+1

bcbgcbrcb · #3 10-14-2023, 07:17 PM

Rhett is exactly right, all seems quite simple to me as well. A Eureka stamp can be a rookie, a Cameo Pepsin pin can be a rookie, a team issued premium can be a rookie, a Colgan’s Chip disc can be a rookie & an L1 leather can be a rookie. I think I covered them all, huh?

The M101-4/5 is a Babe Ruth rookie card, it’s a rookie collectible and I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree on this one, it’s also a card. That’s the difference between all of those others that I mentioned as compared to the Ruth. For some players, their rookie “collectible” as it might be called also fits the definition of a card, like the Ruth. Those are clear and easy to determine. It’s the other cases where the rookie “collectible” comes at least one year or more earlier than their first card distributed. Collectors like Rhett would prefer to have the earliest “collectible” and would gladly take an L1 leather of GCA if it was distributed a couple of years before his rookie card. Rookie card collectors would probably go with the earliest “card” instead. This is where your collecting preference comes into play, to each their own.

Peter_Spaeth · #4 10-14-2023, 07:31 PM

Why isn't the Baltimore News Ruth a rookie card? Because he was not in the majors?

bcbgcbrcb · #5 10-14-2023, 07:55 PM

Yes, Peter, a pre-rookie card is the term for it as opposed to rookie card. This does not take anything away from the importance of that "pre-rookie card", more times than not, especially in the pre-war world, the pre-rookie will be valued significantly higher than the actual rookie card.

Peter_Spaeth · #6 10-14-2023, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Yes, Peter, a pre-rookie card is the term for it as opposed to rookie card. This does not take anything away from the importance of that "pre-rookie card", more times than not, especially in the pre-war world, the pre-rookie will be valued significantly higher than the actual rookie card.

So why is (just to use one example from the early 90s) a 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera a rookie card? He was three years away from the majors. 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, at least a year away and maybe it was two. Or are you going to be consistent and go against overwhelming hobby consensus here and call those pre-rookies?

G1911 · #7 10-14-2023, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So why is (just to use one example from the early 90s) a 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera a rookie card? He was three years away from the majors. 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, at least a year away and maybe it was two. Or are you going to be consistent and go against overwhelming hobby consensus here and call those pre-rookies?

The traditional reason is that those are major league sets, and thus the collegiate and minor league players are still rookies. It�s all structured around achieving the outcome that the Topps card is the rookie, since people can profit more off of mass produced hype cards instead of obscure cards that not enough people can get onboard the profit train with to inflate.

Baseball Rarities · #8 10-14-2023, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Why isn't the Baltimore News Ruth a rookie card? Because he was not in the majors?

Since it pictures him with a minor league team in a set that features minor leaguers, I would call it a pre-rookie card, for whatever that is worth. Same thing for DiMaggio’s batting pose Zeenut card.

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