A month into this blog, I featured my copy of the 1979 Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, which is the first of the James Beckett/Dennis Eckes annual price guides, which I purchased all through the mid-1980s. I don't remember when I bought the '79 copy. I'm guessing 1980.
It's shown up a time or two on the blog since. It's a cool peek into the past, starting with the cover, which looks nothing like the price guides to come -- no photos, just drawings. (The book is the rarer white-cover version).
As you can probably tell, I've handled this book a lot -- pages have been falling out for years. Probably most of the damage happened in the first year because, let me tell you, there was nothing cooler than someone assigning prices to cards. What a concept -- which ones were ones that I had? Answer: In 1979, almost none.
I brought up this book a couple days ago over on the House of Cardboard Discord site because the topic came up on "when did the concept of 'the rookie card' come to be?" I don't know the answer to this. All I can offer is my personal experience. As I've said here many times, I didn't hear about "rookie card" until whenever Rickey Henderson became a big deal -- some time in 1980. Then there was Fernando Valenzuela and Cal Ripken Jr. and things really started to pick up on the rookie front in 1983 and 1984, just when I was getting away from cards.
But before that time, my initial collecting years, there was no talk of rookies, unless we were bagging on the four-player rookie "stars" cards -- who were these guys? There was no chasing rookies. All of the chasing had to do with getting cards for the set or trying to complete a team set. That was the goal: from 1975 through the early '80s.
But I realize that this is unfamiliar to a lot of collectors. Think of it: If you were 10 in 1983, when Boggs-Gwynn-Sandberg were big, you were at the start of the rookie craze. And you've just hit 50 years of age. People younger than 50 do not remember a time when the rookie card wasn't king. And that's a lot of people: hell it's almost all the collectors I see on social media.
There are probably people who don't believe that rookie cards were never a thing, because they've been so pervasive for so long.
That's where the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide from ye old year of 1979 comes in handy.
I counted how many times "rookie card" was mentioned in the 221-page book. Here are all the times:
ONE.
TWO.
THREE.
FOUR.
Four times. That's it.
Notice that the rookie card references are to Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. They were considered part of The Big Four, along with Ted Williams, and they are mentioned by that nickname in the book.
They are the only players where "rookie card" seems to be an important concept in this book.
Another good illustration is how the book treats the rookie cards of players who were still active at the time of the book.
Reggie Jackson's rookie card from 1969 goes for $1.25 in perfect condition. That's less than Frank Robinson's card above, and it's less than a lot of stars in the '69 set in the eyes of this guide. Less than Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, "Bob" Clemente, Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Bob Gibson, Mickey Mantle, on and on.
Meanwhile, Reggie Jackson's card the very next year sells for a quarter less. The rookie-ness of the '69 holds very little extra meaning.
Meanwhile, this is the cheapest '69 Reggie Jackson on COMC today, a multiple-crease copy that goes for $120.00. (P.S.: I still need this card).
Implied in the book is that there wasn't a lot of value in being a rookie collector, unless you were pursuing one of the Big Four. Rookie cards of other legend players do go for more in the book, but not significantly so. For example, Sandy Koufax's 1955 rookie is $10.00 in mint shape. But that's still less than Ted Williams ($10.50), Hank Aaron ($11.00) and players in the high-numbered section of the set such as Clemente, Mays and Berra.
In the introduction to the book, there are several categories. One is "How to Collect," and a sub-listing is "Individual vs. Set Prices," which explains how the prices on individual cards don't necessarily jive with the prices for complete sets. In it, it mentions that many collectors don't collect sets, instead preferring cards of individual players. But the individual players it mentions as interests of those collectors are "stars and superstars." Rookies are not mentioned.
Compare this to my 1992 price guide (also manhandled) in which rookies are mentioned in probably the majority of the blurbs for each set.
Just a couple of examples, they're all through the book. I wish I scanned the 1992 Score blurb in which it mentions how Bob Zupcic is a key rookie card.
Obviously, I don't need to discuss in detail what the difference was between the 1979 price guide and the 1992 price guide. The difference was the 1980s and the rookie craze that fueled the hobby explosion. On that same Discord thread was a keen observation that the arrival of multiple sets per year (Donruss and Fleer, along with Topps) fueled the rookie card boom as competing sets tried to get an upper-hand by adding new players to their sets.
I turned 20 in 1985. I was pulling away from the hobby. By 1987, I was out completely. Wouldn't return until 1989.
So this is why I can't relate to what so many collectors can. When they relay their childhood memories of the excitement of chasing down some late 1980s rookie or the many error/variation cards that came out at that time, into the early 1990s, that's not my childhood memory at all.
My childhood memory is walking to the local drug store or corner store, buying a pack or two -- whatever I could afford -- pulling open the wax pack, discarding the gum, and shuffling slowly through the cards with "got it, got it, need it" running through my head. Every card had potential.
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