What year did major league baseball cards first require a rookie card desination on all rookie cards?

Answer 1

There is no "official" designation on the cards. It is simply the first card that a player appears on in a major league uniform. There used to be joint rookie cards by Topps called "Rookie Stars". There was either a single card with the top two or three prospects of each team. Later they went to a joint card with the top four prospects for each position.

Back when the Topps cards came out in series, the higher numbers were much more rare; stores would not order as many boxes of Series 5-6-or 7 as they had boxes of the earlier series left over. In 1973 Mike Schmidt was on a rookie card of the last series. Not many of that rookie card were sold. In 1974 he had his first solo card and this sold well. Many people thought that this was his rookie card because it was the first Mike Schmidt card many people ever saw. This was the first year that there were the cards with the best prospects at each position.

Answer 2

2006.

It's stupid, because the revision to the licensing agreements left a huge loophole ("Bowman") that defeats the purported intent of the RC logo, making it worthless.

It was a bad solution to a non-existent problem.