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)