General Forum

Hi, Ive just started collecting Baseball cards and I thought I'd concentrate on collecting Rookie Cards. The quiestion I have is which brand is better to collect, for example, would the Topps RC of Shohei Ohtani be better than the Donruss or Bowmans? With so many different RC's out there which one would be the best?

Thanks 

Welcome to the site. You may search the forum for other threads on this topic. 

RCs from base sets from Topps  baseball would be preferable in my opinion over Donruss/Panini due to the licensing allowing Topps to use logos. 

The RC market though is not like it was as late as the early '90s for example I'd love to own all of Alex Bregman's RCs, and they're very affordable, but there's over 20 of them available with all the various brands. 

i prefer bowman cards.  they usually put out rookie cards before other brands.

Welcome to the site, and to the hobby. I would say just collect what you want to collect. As you are exposed to more cards, brands, etc., you'll probably start to get a feel for what you like and which brands you prefer. Most collectors tend to lean more to Topps with baseball, however, because Panini (including Donruss) can't use team logos on the cards.

Thanks for the info, I didnt know about the licensing restrictions, I may stick to Topps as i like the team logos on the cards.

Thanks again  

All up to preference, especially for 80s-early 2000s rookies. I prefer Topps because they have been around the longest, their cards tend to be more iconic, and they are pretty stable in that I can see them producing a flagship set until the end of time (Or at least the end of baseball cards). I like them for the continuity basically. I know I can get a Topps flagship rookie for anyone from 1952-present. However, an issue that you may run into is if Topps undervalues a player and, for example, doesn’t produce a card of a player until his third season (a good example is Paul O’Niell back in the 80s). Now, you have to decide whether you’ll consider his first Topps card his “rookie” or will you go for the earlier produced card from another brand like Donruss? That’s something you have to decide.

I love my rookie collection, and this is typically how I do it: Topps flagship is preferred in all cases of equal year rookie production. Next, I see if any other company produced a flagship base set (or update/final version) rookie card of a player before the Topps did (Example: Pedro Martinez’s 1991 Upper Deck Final card was released even before his 1992 Bowman). Topps didn’t make a true Pedro card until 1993 or 1994 Topps, I don’t remember which, but I wouldn’t really consider either of those years a “rookie card.” I would count his 1992 Bowman though. Finally, it is kind of era dependent too. I consider Bowman rookies to be a suitable replacement for Topps rookies since they are also produced by Topps and were commonly depicting rookies before Topps flagship did. However, when they started separating the rookies from the regular base Bowman set (somewhere in the early 2000s), I begin considering those “prospect cards” and this not true rookies. 

So, long story short, it’s kind of dependent on what you. There are MANY factors to consider when trying to track down rookies of certain players. Some possible things to account for: how much am I willing to spend? Do cards with multiple players on them count as a rookie card? (See: Cal Ripken Jr and Thurmon Munson for example) Which version of this player’s multiple rookies look the best? Are consistent rules of which types of rookies to chase important for me? (For example: will it bother me to have a Fleer Wade Boggs rookie while chasing a Donruss Ryne Sandberg rookie? Or should I try to keep it consistent?) Do I consider the first flagship series’ appearance of a rookie to be their true “rookie card” despite its rarity, or do I consider their first regular base appearance to be their rookie? (Example: last year Topps released Acuna and Torres rookies as short prints in series 2, which are case hits. Now, does that count as their rookie card, or would their far more common Topps Update version count?)

So, my advice would be try to come up with a general set of guidelines of what rookies you’d like to collect (Topps flagship is my main target...), but keep an open mind (...but this Fleer rookie is far cheaper and looks just as good to me, so I’ll get this one). 

Ignoring all other replies in the thread (although I did read them all) and JUST focusing on MLB, your question is totally loaded for current MLB cards. Topps and Bowman flagship cards would generally be preferred by collectors now as true RC's, but the Chrome version will have more value for a longer time. And then there are the A&G, Archives, Heritage cards as well. Anything short-printed is going to have more value over the long run, but it won't always be the most interesting to collectors. Topps is really turning off true collectors with the SP's in their products. The "value" is high, but the interest really isn't. All Panini MLB products are not licensed by MLB (only MLBPA and Cooperstown), so not a lot of value is associated with them RIGHT NOW. Over time, they might become worth MORE than the Topps products though. Not a guarantee, just a possibility.

It's all about the time period of cards being manufactured over the history of the sport. For examples: the top card from 1989 is the Upper Deck RC of Ken Griffey Jr. and the top card from 1993 is the Upper Deck SP Derek Jeter RC. The Bowman, Topps, Donruss, Fleer and Score versions of those 2 cards are valued at about 10-20% of the value of those two. More recent cards have a closer relation in "value" b/t the brands. But now that it's just Topps Co. making "legit" cards, there's really no point in claiming one is better than the other. SO, as others have said, it's up to you how to collect your RC's and just pick the brand/set/design that you like the most. There is NO right or wrong answer, at least not for the next 5 years or so.