Rookie card
A rookie card is a player's first card after reaching the top level of their sport. Many modern cards carry a rookie card logo, and collectors often value rookie cards above the same player's later cards.
In more detail
The usual meaning is the first card made of an athlete after they have competed at the highest level of their sport. Makers print a rookie card logo on many of them, and in 2006 Major League Baseball set guidelines for which cards could carry its official logo.
The term has no single official definition. Most collectors agree that a true rookie card comes from a product's base set, so a limited insert is not counted. Upper Deck's glossary gives the term a second meaning as well: the version of a base card that is not a parallel, in a product from the player's first year.
An athlete can have several rookie cards, so name the exact card when you buy or list: the maker, the year and the set, and not only the word rookie. Cards of one athlete from the same year can carry very different prices.
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