Wednesday, November 2, 2011

J.P. Arencibia: Forever a rookie

Good Wednesday evening to you all, hope that your weekend is going well.  In perusing cards this evening searching for a topic to write about, I stumbled upon a couple of cards that I had thought about in the past when I had received them, but had not given them a second thought, until now.

Here's the question of the day, how long can cards receive a "RC" stamp on the front of the cards by our friends at Topps.  Naturally, since he's mentioned in the post title, J.P. Arencibia is the culprit here.

Exhibit A:  2010 Bowman Draft # BDP 103

Legit RC



All of the other cards listed in the magazine for this set have RC designations, so naturally this must be an RC as well.  I wondered since this card was from a draft pick set, it might be considered an XRC or an RC*.  But not in this case.  I also looked at the Topps Update (US-210) card from 2010, it has the RC tag on the front of the card as well.























Exhibit B:  2011 Topps Chrome # 182

Still has the RC designation.



Can't miss it, this card has the RC designation as well.  Now I realize I was out of the collecting game on a full time basis for quite a few years, but have the rules changed regarding the RC designation, or is Topps making the rules up as they go?


























I was under the impression that by allowing the RC stamp that collectors would be able to identify true rookie cards and not be worried about what unscrupulous dealers/sellers would tell them.  For me, this kind of throws a wrinkle to that theory.   Has anybody noticed another situation like this, where an RC stamp appeared on multiple years for the same player?  Or am I just missing something here?

Comments here would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading, Robert

(Words on this post:  314, total as of now, 915)

3 comments:

  1. I think it's the difference between prospect/minor league rookie and Big league rookie. I could be wrong. But I'm pretty sure there are two tiers of rookies based on when they get to the Bigs.

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  2. I agree with you. The last 2 years Topps has blurred the line that MLBPA drew in the sand to designate "true rookie cards" and prospect cards. Off the top of my head, I think Domonic Brown is another player that had is true rookie cards last year but has the rookie card logo on cards this year too.

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  3. Agreed. I think it also has something to do with the first card being from Bowman Draft and the 2nd is probably his first Topps base card. I think Topps kinda makes up their own rules with the Bowman line and how they handle rookies/minor league guys.

    I usually double check with BaseballCardPedia if I'm unsure.

    http://baseballcardpedia.com/index.php/Search_by_Player

    If you search by his name, it only lists the Topps card as the true rookie. But if you wanted to get all "1st card ever" about it, he has some 2005 USA Team cards apparently.

    Hope that helps :)

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