Rookie cards are among some of the most coveted cards in the trading card hobby. However, the hobby does not have a foolproof system for conveying what is and isn’t a true rookie card. What some collectors might consider to be a true rookie card, others would not.
Additionally, please note we only take into consideration the five major sports: Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey and Soccer. At this time, we only tag soccer cards in relation to their debut with one of these major leagues: Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), Ligue 1 (France), Bundesliga (Germany), MLS (US), UEFA Champions League (Any Qualifying Teams – including teams from other countries).
Rookie Card 
The red-colored ‘RC’ tag on COMC is reserved for cards that are recognized as true rookie cards. To satisfy the designation of RC, a card must:
- Depict a player in their pro uniform
- Be licensed by both the league and players association
- Come from a standalone nationally distributed set
- Come from a base set
- Be released after the player’s top-level debut
Some of the sets that we see as producing true rookie cards include the Topps flagship base Set, Topps Chrome, Panini Prizm Basketball, and Upper Deck Hockey to name a few. These sets are considered to contain a player’s true rookie cards because they are commonly accepted as major annual releases that have high relevance in the industry.
Rookie Year 
With defined criteria necessary to earn RC status, our yellow rookie year tag is applied to any other card released of a player during the same year as their rookie card. These cards can include parallels of rookie cards, inserts cards from sets that feature a rookie card, cards that are licensed by a player’s association but not a league (i.e. Panini Optic Baseball), stadium giveaways, and many more cards that do not meet the qualifications of a rookie card.
Pre-Rookie Card 
A pre-rookie card is any card that was printed prior to the year that a player made their debut at the top level of their respective sport. The most common pre-rookie cards are included in prospect-heavy products such as a Bowman Draft, Topps Pro Debut, team-issued minor league baseball cards, football rookies depicted in college uniforms in sets released prior to the start of an NFL season, and junior league hockey cards.
Rookie-Related
The Rookie-Related designation is a catch-all filter of all the cards that have received a rookie card, rookie year, or pre-rookie card designation. If you’re still a little bit confused over rookie card vs rookie year vs pre-rookie card, simply choosing the rookie related filter will show you ALL of those cards.
The Politics of the Rookie Card
One of the most common misconceptions on COMC is that the red rookie card symbol represents the most desirable cards belonging to a player. That isn’t true at all. While these items are considered that player’s true rookie cards, there are many instances where a pre-rookie card or even a rookie year card can be a substantially more desirable card than a flagship RC. Don’t believe us? We’ll let you decide which of these cards you would rather have in your collection:
Have any questions? Feel free to email our Customer Service Team at Staff@comc.com and we’ll be more than happy to look into your concerns. If you disagree with any of our assessments pertaining to rookie designations, you are more than welcome to submit a correction request for rookie years that you would like to dispute. However, please note that, while we will review each request, we will not agree with all of them, resulting in no change to the description of an item.
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