Titanium Rookie?

[Sharky94]

Rare parallels will typically sell for more money

You would think so. In a sane world, they certainly would be. But I have seen numerous occasions when that wasn't so. Lots of people pay over market value for a so-called "True Rookie" because they are afraid they wont get one if they don't, while lower printed parallels sell for less.

The only reasonable explanation is the whole supply-and-demand argument. By creating the "True Rookie" phenomenon, Beckett has succeeded in creating demand for certain cards above what the norm would be, so creating a greater demand outweighs the lower supply. Of course, that is the only "reasonable" explanation, and we all know unreasonable things happen in the hobby every day. But then again, my "opinion is flawed."

[sedinfan]

I'm curious where the concept of "true rookie" comes from... as far as I'm aware Beckett doesn't tag cards as "true rookies" vs. "rookies"... there's just cards, and rookie cards.

As far as it being a Beckett phenomenon, that strikes me as odd... the occasional times I peruse the forums for the other sports, I frequently see references to hockey collectors being nutty in our obsession with base set rookie cards. I'd be surprised if it was shown that the folks at Beckett decided to tell hockey fans that rookie-year parallels are not nearly as collectible while telling collectors from the other sports otherwise.

If anything, the whole idea that only cards from the main set can be rookie cards doesn't seem to be so that Beckett can justify putting a higher price tag on stuff... I see it as the opposite, I see collectors wanting to consider their rookie card collections complete without needing to splurge on all the short printed parallels.

[Gallinator]

I think I probably agree that the genesis of the term "True Rookie" probably is found somewhere within the hobby around whenever those Private Stock Titanium cards were released (01/02?) and, as sedinfan noted, collectors were looking for the one RC they could hunt down and consider their RC quest complete for that set.

Somewhere along the way, the fear of paying too much for a "mere" parallel instead of an "actual" RC became an obsession for some collectors who are driven to define things to death. When it becomes difficult to tell the base RC from all of its parallels, for whatever reason, I blame the manufacturer for poor design and I tend to avoid those products like the plague. I just know that in 10 years I'll be looking at those cards and will have forgotten how to differentiate between the versions unless I have written it down somewhere. I like my parallels to be obvious parallels.

Sharky's points are valid, though, in the sense that there tends to be a lack of consensus, to put it mildly, when it comes to getting collectors to agree on a hierarchy of cards within a set, which can result in quite a bit of variance. I just try to keep it simple: Is the card from the player's rookie year? Yes - great! Is it obviously part of an insert set? Yes - not an RC; No - great, then it looks and smells like an RC to me. Maybe it's /100 and there is another version /77 and yet another /10. If they are not discernible as parallels of one another, then they are all RC in my book and I'll snag one or the other or maybe go for a rainbow. What I won't do, however, is worry about which one is the "true" RC - that means very little in this case.

Look what Leaf is doing with the Eichel autos this year. Many people say these aren't true RC, but in my book they certainly are and satisfy my desire for an Eichel RC if I am looking for one. See what Trilogy did with the multi-tiered and separately-numbered RC (the ones that would be a parallel but had their own separate card number). They are all RC and it is a matter of preference whether one thinks the one /799 is more of an RC than the one /199 (or whatever the numbering).

My rambling point, if any, is that defining an RC is getting a little muddy sometimes and I wouldn't waste much time worrying about it (not that anyone here is, LOL).

[Rraincock]

I think it is fair to say that the base rookie is more preferable to a parallel of that RC.... but in the day and age of super premium parallels, I wonder if the parallel is premium (thinking of the SPA autographed on the last jersey number invention for the 2015/16 set).

I also think that a hobby RCis just as viable of a rookie as a retail RC.

I think that an insert from the rookie year is not a RC...

When it comes to the super premium titanium set (or some of the SPA versions)... the line gets blurry.


I dunno anymore. I yearn for the days when Topps/OPC would put "Rookie Card" on the card and it would be as such.....

[10-4 collector]

When I collect a player, I only buy his true rc's. The cards in beckett with th term ''rc'' beside it.

[30ranfordfan]

I don't give Beckett a ton of credit, but one thing I will say is that they will listen to collectors and change their tags when the community at large demands it. With Rookie Cards specifically, I can think of two examples:

Crosby's McDonald's Rookie Card did not initially receive the 'RC' tag by Beckett, but they eventually gave in to demands and added it (a McDonald's card does not fit the definition they had been using). Follow up cards (07-08 Robbie Schremp comes to mind) also had the RC tag from Beckett, so it's not like they made an exception for one guy - they changed how they classified McDonald's cards, and any McDonald's card that would otherwise meet the definition (since) got the tag.

The other one is the 01-02 Titanium set. When Pacific released these, Beckett refused to tag the actual RCs as RCs.... they arbitrarily decided that a card had to have at least 99 copies to be considered a RC. I have no idea where that came from. I know many collectors simply ignored Beckett's decree, I'm sure others agreed with it. Since the rebirth of Titanium (and SPGU doing the same Jersey #d RC thing) they've accepted what the manufactures (and collectors) have wanted, and called the Jersey #d cards Rookie Cards. They went and changed the older Titanium stuff to fit this bill too.

I think the term "True Rookie Card" is grossly overused, and simply unnecessary. "True" doesn't need to be there. It's either a Rookie Card, or not. I think "True" started getting added by collectors (not by Beckett) to point out to others that "yes, this is the actual rookie card, and not a parallel of it" because many folks will call their parallels Rookie Cards.


As for lower numbered parallels not outselling the "base" or "true" version, from what I've seen - it really depends on the set, the player, and the serial number.

People will point out that Crosby's Cup RC /99 will outsell the Gold Version /87. It's true, it does. One is considered a Rookie Card, the other is not. The other isn't so much rarer that people will pay a premium for it - they want the "best Rookie Card" of Crosby, not the slightly rarer parallel.

But what about Ovechkin? His RC /99 from the Cup does NOT outsell his Gold Version /8. It's much rarer, and gets a hefty premium if it ever becomes available.

There's a lot of collectors out there that only want to collect Rookie Cards, and they'll take the manufacturer's definition, Beckett's definition, "The Hobby"'s definition (whatever you want to call it) and pay a premium for those cards, when they have to.


SPGU: You can often pick up the autographed parallel of a particular player for much less money than the Jersey #'d Rookie Card. If you like that auto'd card better, why would anyone argue with you? I don't think anyone else's definition of Rookie Card is all that important to finding cards you want to collect - but recognize that if you're going to try selling or trading those cards later, what cards actually have that RC tag is important to some.

You would think so. In a sane world, they certainly would be. But I have seen numerous occasions when that wasn't so. Lots of people pay over market value for a so-called "True Rookie" because they are afraid they wont get one if they don't, while lower printed parallels sell for less.

The only reasonable explanation is the whole supply-and-demand argument. By creating the "True Rookie" phenomenon, Beckett has succeeded in creating demand for certain cards above what the norm would be, so creating a greater demand outweighs the lower supply. Of course, that is the only "reasonable" explanation, and we all know unreasonable things happen in the hobby every day. But then again, my "opinion is flawed."