Rookie Year vs. Rookie Card Distinction for Modern 2000+ Hockey

[mintacular]

Don't want to get into a HUGE semantic debate on this topic but would like to get a bit better understanding of how the hockey community handles this. I know baseball is it's own creature due to prospect cards, etc.

So with hockey in the modern era , let's just pick a player say Marc Andre Fleury. Any product he is featured in during 2003-04 (his rookie year) is either a rookie card or a rookie year card. And the distinction is that anything widely distributed through sets or unopened wax like his 2003-04 Topps card is a rookie card but any parallel or like special limited product is just rookie year?

Thanks guys, Pat (P.S. I'm mostly a vintage baseball guy so this stuff is new-ish to me although I do collect a few newer players....)

[tyrith]

Well, it is largely a semantic debate, because there's no official definition of this. The grading companies don't slap a rookie label on things, so without the rookie symbol that Panini and Topps use, there's a big element of eye of the beholder.

Here are the things I would say -

1) Any card from the rookie year can accurately be called a rookie card.
2) Cards that specifically say that they are rookie cards are generally going to be more valuable than cards that aren't.
3) Cards from the core rookie sets that are produced every year - YG, FWA, Cup RPA, then going into other stuff - will be more valuable than random rookie cards.

[mintacular]

What is FWA? How do you define CORE ROOKIE SETS?

[UD HighGloss]

What is FWA? How do you define CORE ROOKIE SETS?


Future Watch Auto. The rookie cards that command the most demand (transactions in the market) or are the most common in collections.


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[tyrith]

The big three rookie cards are the Upper Deck flagship Young Guns on the low end, Future Watch /999 Autos in the middle, and The Cup /99 or /249 base set RPAs on the high end. Then there a variety of rookie cards that are in the the perennial sets that would be the most demanded after that -

- Ice Premieres (especially if it's the top end players which are #'ed to /99)
- Premier RPAs
- Future Watch Patch Autos /100
- O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels and autos

But once you get into that tier, it becomes more and more what the individual collector is interested in, so the overall values go down versus the true rarity of an individual card.

[mintacular]

The big three rookie cards are the Upper Deck flagship Young Guns on the low end, Future Watch /999 Autos in the middle, and The Cup /99 or /249 base set RPAs on the high end. Then there a variety of rookie cards that are in the the perennial sets that would be the most demanded after that -

- Ice Premieres (especially if it's the top end players which are #'ed to /99)
- Premier RPAs
- Future Watch Patch Autos /100
- O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels and autos

But once you get into that tier, it becomes more and more what the individual collector is interested in, so the overall values go down versus the true rarity of an individual card.

Okay, this helps a lot. But all that you mention above still seem to be the bigger dollar cards. What about the average $1-$25 card, which products are considered/liked by collectors as a rookie card vs. all the other random products which are just throw-way "rookie year" stuff

[tyrith]

Most of the cards will say rookie or RC on them. There's not a lot of low-end "rookie year" kind of stuff except maybe some inserts. The rookie year issue is mostly related to higher end cards - The Cup has a bunch of perennial subsets that frequently include rookies but don't label the cards as such, for instance.

[mattr27]

Okay, this helps a lot. But all that you mention above still seem to be the bigger dollar cards. What about the average $1-$25 card, which products are considered/liked by collectors as a rookie card vs. all the other random products which are just throw-way "rookie year" stuff

The upper deck young guns is the standard rookie for hockey, they generally can be had for fairly cheap within the first year or two of issue, though blue chip prospects will command higher prices.

[kellmuff]

If you're looking to invest for medium/long term, I'd avoid anything but the Young Guns, FW, FWA, or RPAs tbh. Unless hockey really blows up (which it could as investors get priced out of other sports and view this as a better option) I dont think the other sets will carry much value.