COBB'S ROOKIE CARD

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Question for Hal, and those of that ilk. If you eliminate postcards, what is Cobb's first baseball card?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Personally...I also eliminate anything BIGGER than a postcard...

like a W600...

so I believe that any card from 1909 would be considered Cobb's "first baseball card."

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Like the E90-1?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

1909 Anonymous Set of 50 E101
1909 Croft's Candy E92 Black Back
1909 Croft's Candy E92 Blue Back
1909 Croft's Cocoa E92
1909 Nadja Caramels E92
1909 Niagara Baking (E101) D355
1909 Philadelphia Caramel E95
1909-10 W555 W555
1909-11 American Caramel Co. E90-1
1909-11 White Borders T206 (All 4 versions)

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Posted By: Elliot

Clearly only two of Cobb's t206 cards could be considered his rookie by the above definition. Only the green port. and bat on were issued in the 150 series. Obviously the other two, along with those greens and bat ons that were issued in the 350 series could not be his rookie card.

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

So, the 1907 Dietsche Batting and Fielding postcards have to be Cobb's Rookies.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jay, you wouldn't happen to have an E90-1 Cobb? But great car- I told Judy all about it.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

If one considers a postcard to be a "baseball card"...

then that person would surely consider Cobb's rookie card to be any number of the 1907 postcards that were issued with his image on front.

Safest thing for a rookie card collector to do would be to get one of each: a 1907 postcard and a 1909 baseball card.

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Posted By: Lyle

since it was listed first alphabetically !

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I guess Jay will say that 90-1 comes chronologically before 101.

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Posted By: Wesley

Series 350 were made and shipped in 1909 also

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Posted By: barrysloate

Even if you have a propensity to eliminate large sized cards, the fact is W600 came before anything else, and that is the definition of a rookie card. What is the relationship between the term "rookie" and the size of the card? How can a card be too big to be a rookie? I go with W600.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

It is not a "card" if it is over a certain size.

Would a 24" x 16" painting of Ty Cobb done in 1906 be a "baseball card"??

Would a poster made in 1906 for the Tigers with Ty Cobb on it be a "baseball card"??

Don't we all scoff when "libertyforall" cuts a picture out of a magazine and tries to call it a "baseball card"??

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Posted By: Glenn

It seems to me the third dimension would be more important than the first two in discriminating cards from non-cards.

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Posted By: Anson

Lyle, I'm sure you're not biased like I am

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

I have to agree with Barry. Also what happened to the E102???

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Posted By: barrysloate

No, a painting of Ty Cobb couldn't be a card. It is a unique item. But W600 was a widely distributed set that featured virtually all the players of the day and could be collected with the goal of completion. That's as close to the definition of a card set as one could get. It might be bigger than a tobacco card, and it might not fit in a slab, and for that reason may be less desirable than a T206 or an E90-1. But take those artificial barriers away and W600 is a card set.

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Posted By: Lyle

of having a 1907 postcard and a 1909 baseball
Thanks Rhett !

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Barry:

Just because someone took an old 5" x 7" photograph of a baseball player and mounted it on cardboard...

it does NOT become a "baseball card" to me.

In fact, here is what the MAKERS of the W600 set put on the BACK of their photos:



They don't call their own items "cards"...

they call them PHOTOS.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Granted..

they are really COOL photos of baseball players...

mounted on really COOL cardboard mounts...

but I just can't consider them baseball "cards."

If the Braves produce a set of 5x7 individual photographs of the 2005 players and give them out to fans at various games throughout the season (for the purpose of collecting the whole set)...

that still doesn't make them "cards" to me.

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Posted By: Colt McClelland

Wasn't the E102 set issued in 1908, making that his rookie card?

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Posted By: Lyle

that because of several players including Dots Miller, Dave Shean,and Germany Schaeffer, the issue date could be no sooner than mid-1909 and most likely 1910, the only year that all the players in the set played for the teams they are listed with on the cards .

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Lyle is referring to the E102 set...

and he is correct.

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Posted By: Anson

c'mon Lyle. Show it! You know you want to

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Posted By: Lyle

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Posted By: jay behrens

I think I am responsible for the size bias I won't put anything in my collection that is bigger than a postcard. At least not until I bought an R309 Ruth. Couldn't turn down a vintage Ruth card for $75.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: leon

If a 1906-07 period (listed in SCD this way) could be his earliest on a card, knowing his debut was 08/05, then maybe the 1906-07 Sporting Life Postcard could be it? Or is that a Postcard and not a "Card"? Personally I never thought the large paper premiums, such as this postcard's kin, were cards, but that's just me and if you think they are cards, then that is ok too. Can't we all just have world peace? VAM- (just for you )

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Posted By: Anson

Postcards are cool but not really the same thing. I would go with the 1909 issues.

VAMerican Caramels

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Posted By: Andy Baran

It sounds like there is some confusion regarding W600's. I'm not going to argue whether or not they are "cards", but they are not photo's affixed to a cardboard mount as they have been described earlier. I believe this confusion is because they are often referred to as Cabinets, which they are not. They have been mistakenly called cabinets for years because of their large size.

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

The reason I always called the Dietsche Cobb's rookie is b/c it has the date of 1907 on the back (one does not have to speculate at the date of issue). However, the Wolverine Postcards, W600 and Novelty Cutlery Postcards are also considered to be 1907 issues (the Novelty Cutlery is considered a 1907-09 issue actually).

Sure am glad I don't collect Rookies - too much of a guessing game on a lot of issues in that department!

Also, the E101's are considered to be issued before the E92's, as they look like a promo that was later taken on by Dockman and the two Croft's companies (proof being the additional print on the back of the Dockman's - added to the original print from the E101's). So, Lyle may be correct regarding the small card type early Cobb choices for Cobb's Rookie! And, with the Cobb Green and Bat On being issued before the Bat Off and Red Port., you can count out the Red Port. and Bat Off as being Rookies. So, that cuts out E92 Dockmans, E92 Croft's Candy, E92 Croft's Cocoa, E92 Nadjas, T206 Red Port. and T206 Bat Off Shoulder as possible candidates for being Cobb's Rookie (since there were cards issued before these - even if it was only a few months prior).

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Posted By: davidcycleback

As Andy noted, the W600s aren't photographs but mechanical prints.

Some baseball card collectors consider cards to be small like Topps cards or T206s or business cards, and consider a postcard or W600 to be too large to be considered trading cards. Beyond the coins, pins, posters and such, I'm sure we can each pick out things in the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards that we don't consider trading cards. I suspect few of us consider the Baseball Magazine Premiums to be cards.

I like the term "genre." As in, a 1959 Armour coin isn't a baseball card, but it's in the genre of baseball cards. To be in the genre, it has to be something that baseball card collectors collect.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hal- I know from experience that there are many advanced collectors who prefer small sized cards and do not collect the larger issues, so I wonder if we are excluding W600 by definition or excluding them as a matter of preference. Is there that great a difference between M116 and W600 except for the size? We all agree N172 is a card set; are we unanimous that N173 isn't? I know we've had this lively debate before about what constitutes a card and we should probably hear from those who actively collect W600, such as Scott and Jerry to name two, to see what their feelings are. I say we've entered a grey area, or in the case of N173, a sepia area.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Whether they are cards or not... let's all just be glad that we collect VINTAGE stuff and not the modern glossy crap!!!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Now we're in agreement! Modern cards are more like some kind chemical mutation- sometimes it's hard to tell what they really are.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Interesting how strings evolve. Barry's mention of N173s got me thinking. I can't think of a more visually appealing, undervalued 19th century set. Given where card prices have gone in the last year I would think that these rarities (as Lew Lipset pointed out so beautifully in his Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, every N173 is rarer than the T206 Wagner) would be rocketing upward in price. I guess the issue is that they rarely ever appear on Ebay or even in the major auctions. The five figure price for the N173 Whitney with Dog may look like a bargain in the future.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Maybe collectors are a bit intimidated by how difficult it would be to put together a fairly comprehensive grouping.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Again, just a personal thing...

but N173's are also too big for me to collect as "cards"

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Posted By: Jerry Spillman

Why should there be a criteria based on the size of a baseball card? Strip cards to the N142 cards have always been listed as and called baseball cards.


About 1980 Mark Lewis invented the Rookie Card. The values of the first year card of all players were significantly increased in his monthly price guide.

The contrived idea was a success. The demand for Rookie Cards increased. The fade continues. Extraordinary prices are paid for many of these cards today even though in many cases it is unclear as to which card is to be considered a players' first card.

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Posted By: Mark McCleary

In my opinion, there are two distinct questions we are touching on: (i) what is a card and (ii) what is a rookie card.

For me, the second question is easy - any card issued in the earliest year a card was issued is a rookie. I disagree with Elliot who thinks it's the earliest card to come out during the year, although this is another plausible definition.

As far as what is a "card," I think it's a "facts and circumstances" test, ie, a weighing off certain relevant factors. Two such factors not previously mentioned that I feel are important are i) was the primary purpose of the issuer to produce a collectible (the primary purpose of a postcard or game card, for example, is not that it be collected) and ii) is it manufactured on cardboard (that is where teh name "card" comes from after all).

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Posted By: identify7

I do not see this quite so easy, Mark. Specifically, when a player's first issued card comes after his actual rookie year, then it is no longer his rookie card, imo. As has been discussed before, Musial's initial card was issued in his fifth year of major league play. This is not so good. But some other players have had their first card issued after they had been playing in the majors for more than a decade. Jim O'Rourke is one example of this - he was 35 years old when his "rookie" card was issued, and he had been playing for about 15 years. Now this is way worse than the Musial example.

I won't yet touch on the subject of "what is a card" since apparently each collector sets his own criteria.