Commentary: RC vs (RC) Cards

I don't know about everyone else, but I find the "(RC)" rookie very irritating! I think that they should not have done this with players who already had RC's released in previous years. They should have made a clean start with, say, 2008 or whenever, and just let all those rookies from before stand as is. Now when you do a search for a player, like Prince Fielder RC, you get tons of 06 cards, along with the 05 "RCs" and 02 "XRCs". I tried to find Troy Tulowitzki's Auto rookie cards and the search results yielded 41 cards from 07, and ONE from 05 (the year of his initial or real "RC" cards).

It seems like collectors are still buying the "(RC)" cards though, so maybe most people don't mind. Of course the "RC" versions from earlier years are yielding better prices, but still...I wouldn't spend my money on a card that isn't really a player's RC card (in my opinion). When you look at your Beckett at the sets from 06, there are so few "RC" cards, along side mostly "(RC)" cards. I can honestly say that I did not buy one single box, pack or product from 06. I wonder if that was a low sales year for baseball cards? 07 products should do better, since they have some popular real "RC" cards of players like Daisuke Matsuzaka & Andrew Miller. This will probably continue until all of the prospects with pre-call up releases are either called up or become career minor leaguers. Then we can start fresh with the real "RCs", and go on with our collecting lives (maybe by 2010?).

Anyway, just thought I'd vent some of my ebay search frustrations.