General Forum

Hi - my card collection has been mostly centered on era of 60s thru 80s period. I'm looking to expand in collection of HOFer rookie cards and here is my question. Is there any generally established pecking order of value/desirablity between all the different makes. For example, I was just looking to add an Ivan Rodriguez 1991 rookie card and I have so many choices...Bowman, Fleer, Donruss, Score, Topps, Ultra, Upper Deck. Would advice be to usually steer toward one make that tends to hold its value better over time? I'm sure there are factors such as how many cards were produced by each maker, etc but just curious if a general pecking order exists in the mind of seasoned collectors. Any feedback is appreciated.

Thank you!

Based strictly on what I’ve traded the most on here I would say Topps is king. But the stuff from that era is never going to be worth a ton so I say go with the ones you like the best. 

I collect Ivan Rodriguez and I say go for them all; I am. And just enjoy collecting.

To my knowledge the First Card that came out is Considered the True Rookie and more Valuable. For example 89 Upper Deck for a Ken Griffey, Jr. would be the most valuable. I collect Topps because that is all that was available for purchase when I started in 1978. Donruss and Fleer came back out in 1981 I believe it was so I do have a lot of that from the 80s. There may be some other info on this but to my knowledge the Company that put that player on a Card first is the most Valuable. I am with Joshua also...Collect them all and enjoy it.

I'm pretty sure Donruss and Fleer had Griffey RC's at least a month or 2 before 1989 Upper Deck was released

Desirability changes from year to year and from collector to collector. For I-Rod's RC's, the Fleer Ultra Update card has the highest book value by 2x over his Bowman RC. Everything else falls in the $2-3 range.

Completely depends on the collectiblity of the set the card is from. 1990 and 1991 Bowman is usually not very desirable but 1992 Bowman is. 1989 Upper Deck is a more desirable set than the other 4 counterparts from that year (5 if you include the odd sized Bowman). True RC is from the first year, not the first set. Sorry to whoever said that, but that is not a correct statement. If Donruss came out before Topps & Fleer in 1982, it didn't make the Ripken any more of a RC than the RCs in Fleer and Topps.

In 1984, Donruss was perceived to be the set that was harder to find, so the Mattingly RC shot up. I think it peaked at $120 or so, while his Fleer and Topps RCs "lagged" behind at $60 - $70.

So the actual answer to the original question in this thread is - "It depends". It all depends on the year, and which set(s) contained the RCs. If UD hadn't had a Griffey RC, Fleer would probably have been the "better" Griffey RC (over Donruss, Score and Topps missed out on base set cards of him).

To borrow a phrase from Billy Kingsley...... " collect for the love of the hobby "..........I will say for me, I prefer Bowman or Topps.....I also believe Vroomed gave you the " correct" answer. 

Thanks to Dan for finishing off my thoughts on this topic. I replied quckly b/c I wanted to do what I came here to do first. I got caught by the thread title and had to check it out. I basically said the same thing as Dan without breaking it down further. I was going to come back to this thread and do that. But I had a 504-card box break today that I needed to add to my collection here first.

Thanks Dan for clearing up my incorrect statement. I learned a little myself through this thread. I wasn't positive my statement was correct that's why I stated more info could help.