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Questions about the Hall of Fame rookie card set

It's great that they added this Hall of Fame rookie set, but I wondered how accurate it is. Right now, the way it's listed (I was looking at Hal Lewis's 95% completed set), it seems like the rookie's of Pre WW I HOFer's are dubious at best. Honus Wagner with a 1915 Cracker Jack rookie? I'm not sure about the oddball/scarcer cards not listed in SMR, but Wagner has 1910 "rookie". The same with Ty Cobb, Zack Wheat, and probably others with "rookies" listed that are several years after their first cards came out. For the sake of accuracy, how should they include Pre 1933 cards?

Remember when Barry Halper had a uniform of almost every Hall of Famer (he was missing one)? I bet you a PSA 8 Hall of fame "rookie" set would be tougher to complete. Maybe some PSA 8 cards will never exist. PSA 2 anyone?

Comments

  • mikeschmidtmikeschmidt Posts: 5,756 ✭✭✭
    John:

    It is just a Hall of Fame same, not a Hall of Fame rookie set.

    From a "weighting" perspective, most people generally will agree that a player's rookie card is usually their most valuable and desirable -- hence HalleyGator's large number of rookie cards.

    But is is for ALL Hall of Fame cards, not rookies. One card of each Hall of Famer, any year.

    As a side note, there are definitely some Hall of Famers who have no mainstream issue baseball cards EVER. Hal Lewis' effort in putting this set together is absolutely extraordinary.
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  • Thanks, Smitty!

    John: MY personal collection goal is to get rookie cards ... but MikeSchmidt is right in that the HOF set is simply a HOF set, NOT a "rookie" set.

    And to answer your question: I do NOT care about "rookie" cards before 1938, since they only printed card sets so sporadically that it doesn't really work. MANY of the guys in the 1933 Goudey set did not have mainstream cards before that year ... but they also were NOT rookies by any stretch.

    Sure, I could get a 1915 Babe Ruth rookie card to replace my PSA 8 1933 Goudey Ruth card ... but I happen to prefer a colored card of him with the Yankees over one that shows a skinny pitcher for the Red Sox. Apparently the market agrees with me since the Goudeys go for more than the 1915 ones.

    Hopefully PSA will eventually weigh the set so that old cards are worth more than new ones...
  • It's great that he decided to scan all the cards. It's not every day you see a Candy Cumming's "rookie card". I didn't think he had any cards. I hope every Hall of Famer has at least one card, mainstream or not, that fits in a PSA holder.

  • You will love this one when I get it back from PSA:

    George Wright, Harry Wright, Al Spalding and Jim O'Rourke on ONE card !!!!

    This will get me MUCH closer to 100% !!

    image

  • VarghaVargha Posts: 2,392 ✭✭
    Very cool card!
  • I wonder if they are wearing their team uniforms? Seems tough to play baseball in a three piece suit! image
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  • JOHN (and Vargha and everyone else):

    I just got done talking with BJ again ... and she has FIXED the HOF registry so that you can now see what cards everyone has entered for each repsective HOF'er.

    For instance ... if you look at the 707 HOF set ... you can now see that they entered a bunch of 1976 Shakey's Pizza Cards and some "Nu-Scoop" commemorative cards.

    Not only are these not rookie cards ... they are not even true "cards" !!

    It sounds like BJ is going to find the time to make the "weighting" of this set tie directly into the SMR price for each card (what a trooper she is!!!). Thus, rookie cards will get some small advantage for being pricier ... while "Modern Pizza" cards will be worth one slice with extra cheese!! image
  • << Sure, I could get a 1915 Babe Ruth rookie card to replace my PSA 8 1933 Goudey Ruth card ... but I happen to prefer a colored card of him with the Yankees over one that shows a skinny pitcher for the Red Sox. Apparently the market agrees with me since the Goudeys go for more than the 1915 ones. >>

    Hal, I disagree - the market has shown that the 1915 issue easily outsells the 1933 Goudey's, pound for pound.

    Henry Yee had a 1915 PSA 4 that sold for close to $10k. Roughly 1 - 2 weeks prior to that he had a 1916 PSA 5 that sold for $7600. There was a 1915 PSA 6 and PSA 8 in a recent Mastro auction - the PSA 8 realized close to $60k and the PSA 6 realized over $13k. SportsCardsPlus also had a 1915 PSA 6 (weird cut?) that was in the ballpark of $13k. No 1933 Goudey even comes close!

    Now let's take the 1921 E121 Babe Ruth (pitching pose) as of late. Henry Yee had a PSA 3 copy sell for $2150, a week later I sold my SGC 40 copy for $2250 and the PSA 7 copy has offers of $15 - $22k. Simliar pose as well, the York Caramel - I had my SGC 70 copy sell for $2750 on a "buy it now" a few months ago.

    The market embraces the "skinny" pitcher pose.
  • Hal,

    An amazing card and an even more amazing set. How long has it taken you to collect all these? Cooperstown should have a display like this featuring the first card of every Hall of Famer (I was last there in '96, maybe they've changed it alot since).

    Can you imagine being a PSA grader, and after endless refractors, chrome, super atomic cards, you get to grade this kind of a gem. Wow.
  • Thanks, John ...

    but apparently the graders remained in their trance-like comatose state while grading this one as well ...

    because it came back a PSA 1 !! image

    Probably the correct grade ... but just frustrating since it almost "blemishes" such a great card.

    Vorthian: As far as the skinny Ruth is concerned, I was just going off the old realized prices from a Mastro auction catalog from a year or so ago. I guess I should have bought the PSA 8 skinny when I could have gotten it for $30k or so!

    Maybe I should have said that "my kids" like my card better because it "looks" more like the Great Bambino on the movie "Sandlot" !! image
  • << Maybe I should have said that "my kids" like my card better because it "looks" more like the >>

    Your kids would love this...

    E121 Ruth PSA 7
  • It is indeed a beauty ... but he's still too skinny!! image

  • NickMNickM Posts: 4,895 ✭✭✭
    Amazing set, Hal.
    Now, BJ and the rest of the PSA staff, how about adding in those HOFers you left out because they were best known as managers?

    Nick
    image
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  • Nick:

    They had to draw the line at some point ... since there are 254 people TOTAL in the Hall of Fame (including Ozzie Smith) and only 200 of them were inducted as PLAYERS.

    This means that there are 54 people out there who were either managers or umpires or owners or negro leaguers ... and the large majority of those 54 simply do NOT have any baseball cards (unless you count some dumb 2001 metallic reprint set, etc.) that PSA grades.

    PSA is smart. They are NOT going to include people in a set that do NOT have cards ... because then there is no way to complete the set and collectors will not even try to do so. The 100% completion factor is something that drives most set collectors.

    When people think of the Hall of Fame ... they don't think of Tommy Lasorda or Earl Weaver or Ned Hanlon or Bill McKechnie or Bucky Harris or Frank Selee, etc. That's why PSA calls it a Hall of Fame PLAYERS set...

    I guess if someone really likes "manager" cards, they can request BJ to set up a HOF MANAGERS set ... which would include the 14 managers who did NOT have HOF statistics as players ...

    but I don't think anyone will be running out to buy Bobby Cox's rookie card anytime soon. image

  • They are all in the same Hall of Fame. I don't see how you can exclude a portion because it's going to be hard to find cards for them. I can understand not including Pete Rose and Joe Jackson on a HOF list, but you can't exclude HOF'ers for convenience. If all that exists is a "dumb HOF issue", then that is all anybody will have, and your collection will be just as complete and comprehensive as anyone else. They're HOF'ers for crying out loud.
  • Most of the non-player HOF guys do have nice legitimate respectable older cards. Here are the guys in question. Three of the guys in as pioneers, are even pictured on the card that halleygator provided above. A lot of the managers have Topps cards. You can knock off a few Umps in 55 Bowmans. And between Topps for Frick, Giles, and Harridge and 60 and 61 Fleer for a lot of the rest, you're almost home. It may not be free of "dumb cards", but you will have all those HOF'ers back together again.

    Managers - Walter Alston, Sparky Anderson, Leo Durocher, Rube Foster, Ned Hanlon, Bucky Harris, Miller Huggins, Tommy Lasorda, Al Lopez, Connie Mack, Joe McCarthy, John McGraw, Bill McKechnie, Wilbert Robinson, Frank Selee, Casey Stengel, Earl Weaver.

    Umps - Al Barlick, Nestor Chylak, Jocko Conlan, Tom Connolly, Billy Evans, Cal Hubbard, Bill Klem, Bill McGowan.

    Pioneers - Ed Barrow, Morgan Bulkeley, Alexander Cartwright, Henry Chadwick, Happy Chandler, Charlie Comiskey, Candy Cummings, Ford Frick, Warren Giles, Clark Griffith, Will Harridge, William Hulbert, Ban Johnson, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Larry MacPhail, Lee MacPhail, Branch Rickey, Al Spalding, Bill Veeck, George Weiss, George Wright, Harry Wright, Tom Yawkey.
  • qualitycardsqualitycards Posts: 2,811 ✭✭✭
    WAITTIL - I agree with you. A Hall Of Fame set should encompass ALL Hall Of Famers that are on cards. Not just the popular players or the popular card brands...jay
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