RE-EXAMINING THE ROOKIE
hofautos
Posts: 1,934
Rookies have almost always been the most sought after card of any one player. Typically, collectors value more greatly these first appearances which generally hold more value than later, subsequent card issues.
This was true even for the 80s-90s rookies before the advent of "EBAY", because collectors didn't truly realize how big the supply was over the relative demand. I vividly remember both McGwire's and Gwynn rookies selling for over $300 before the introduction of ebay.
Now that it is common knowledge how many of these rookies exist and how demand will never exceed supply, it just about killed the rookies of that era.
The card manufacturers have realized this and have since been manufacturing "rare short printed" rookies in addition to base. With minimal effort and a quick search on ebay will show that the ROOKIE collector is very much alive again, with SP rookies selling in the thousands for the short printed rookies of the percieved future hof'ers.
I strongly believe that the HOF Rookies will remain strong...but what do you do about all of those great players you watched who's rookies were manufactured in the hundreds of thousands that have no short prints, and would be sin to leave out of your collection just because they didn't have any short printed rookies?
For those that wish to partake in the HOF rookie collection, I see a few options for those players who's rookies were in the 80s and 90s.
1. Collect their Tiffanys (most are limited to 5000 copies, and if you get high grade, they are probably just as scarce or moreso than many of the vintage in high grade). These were originally manufactured for that purpose anyway, as a "premium" rare card, yet they never really gained that popularity. I believe that with more and more of the newbies focusing on the rare rookies only, that these tiffany's will soon regain their popularity.
2. Collect their rookie with an auto in a psa/dna slab.
3. Some players even have rare rookies that aren't tiffany but are very hard to find in high grade (1990 bazooka helton, 1992 desert storm chipper, 1997 donruss preview magglio, etc...there really are quite a few...with just a few exceptions, just about every player has some limited print rookie card).
Of course, you have to get over what the manufacturer wants to define as a rookie....even their rules have changed. To me personally, a rookie is any first year card....there are MLB rookies and Minor League Rookies, and then there are cards that aren't the first year but the manufacturers want to decide for us that it has to be in a base set, or it has to be this or that to qualify to "their" definition of a rookie.
BTW, this is just a preface to me sharing my PSA/DNA collection of the 80s-90s players (not nearly as impressive as Mike Navaro's collection of rookie autos). I also collect the rare rookies (tiffanys, glossies, oddballs, etc of these baseball greats)....will post a scan later on...
LONG LIVE THE HOF ROOKIE!
This was true even for the 80s-90s rookies before the advent of "EBAY", because collectors didn't truly realize how big the supply was over the relative demand. I vividly remember both McGwire's and Gwynn rookies selling for over $300 before the introduction of ebay.
Now that it is common knowledge how many of these rookies exist and how demand will never exceed supply, it just about killed the rookies of that era.
The card manufacturers have realized this and have since been manufacturing "rare short printed" rookies in addition to base. With minimal effort and a quick search on ebay will show that the ROOKIE collector is very much alive again, with SP rookies selling in the thousands for the short printed rookies of the percieved future hof'ers.
I strongly believe that the HOF Rookies will remain strong...but what do you do about all of those great players you watched who's rookies were manufactured in the hundreds of thousands that have no short prints, and would be sin to leave out of your collection just because they didn't have any short printed rookies?
For those that wish to partake in the HOF rookie collection, I see a few options for those players who's rookies were in the 80s and 90s.
1. Collect their Tiffanys (most are limited to 5000 copies, and if you get high grade, they are probably just as scarce or moreso than many of the vintage in high grade). These were originally manufactured for that purpose anyway, as a "premium" rare card, yet they never really gained that popularity. I believe that with more and more of the newbies focusing on the rare rookies only, that these tiffany's will soon regain their popularity.
2. Collect their rookie with an auto in a psa/dna slab.
3. Some players even have rare rookies that aren't tiffany but are very hard to find in high grade (1990 bazooka helton, 1992 desert storm chipper, 1997 donruss preview magglio, etc...there really are quite a few...with just a few exceptions, just about every player has some limited print rookie card).
Of course, you have to get over what the manufacturer wants to define as a rookie....even their rules have changed. To me personally, a rookie is any first year card....there are MLB rookies and Minor League Rookies, and then there are cards that aren't the first year but the manufacturers want to decide for us that it has to be in a base set, or it has to be this or that to qualify to "their" definition of a rookie.
BTW, this is just a preface to me sharing my PSA/DNA collection of the 80s-90s players (not nearly as impressive as Mike Navaro's collection of rookie autos). I also collect the rare rookies (tiffanys, glossies, oddballs, etc of these baseball greats)....will post a scan later on...
LONG LIVE THE HOF ROOKIE!
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