The rating first appeared in issue #2 (#1 went without one), #6 had the first professional rater. From this point, it exploded (Hope I got them all from my files.):
Start End Habib 1 125 Jack 6 current Carmine 9 25 Matt 9 177 (with long interruptions) Holt K. 11 58 Wesley 12 current (natch) Jon 12 58 Jason 18 144 Allen 26 74 Tim 26 74 Bryan 32 58 Data I 32 58 Simon 37 49 Jeff 42 93 Lore 59 196 (first few ratings under Michael) Owen 60 160 Mike 60 74 MacPhisto 61 92 Ian 61 160 John 64 240 Phil 76 125 Conner 76 125 Cole 81 current GoOski 94 125 Mark 128 144 Movar 130 146 Serge 132 146 Ted 133 144 Andrew 134 144 Hal 143 current Heather 143 228 Tony 161 current Ray 169 current Q 197 current Leto 198 209 Ranger 214 current Data II 214 current Richard 229 237 Tania 231 current Nick 240 240 (can't beat *this* for a short stint ;-) ) Nanite 242 current Nouwa 243 current Rothspar 244 current Maybe you ?...
Wow, 43 of them. Didn't know that there were so many, and there are so many names in there not even I remember anymore. Phew, don't want to know how many of the ancient ones did by now give up STCCG entirely.
A few noticable ones:
Lore: he was a longtime companion and would still be here (after all, he was the initiator of rec.games.trading-cards.startrek), but he left for greener pastures in Middle Earth and is there running his own COTD empire (which also should be in the high 100's now). Of course, he now prefers being called Gandalf.
Jack: Can't believe that, a companion from all the way down to the single digits. Do you still remember the good old times when a COTD was 10 lines long ;-) ?
Conner: Can't say how much he did, but during the two phases where he was available his server was the best STCCG site on the entire 'net. Now, it's a ruin. Anyone care to take over (needs 2 MB, ftp account writable by me and Perl script language) ?
Habib: the Founder. Which gets me to:
COTD was founded by Habib (blessed those who still know him) back in March 95. In his 25th issue, he wrote that he wouldn't be able to do an ish every day, but hoped to be there every other day. Two days turned into weeks, then a month, then I sent him a quick letter applying to take it over.
Three days later I had my raters contacted (drafted?) and three more days after, I was on the net, with the one card everybody expected me to do.
#40 - first article with more than one card
#50 - the first COTD poll
#75 - a 75 card article, covering the uninteresting stuff
#100 - Captain's Holiday, the most cruel thing I ever did to you
#100(b) - Mirror Universe, the first COTD not based on an actual card
#150 - Fantasy world, a way to link Magic into STCCG
#197 - Decipher acknowledges the presence of COTD, with Q as a rater
#200 - the Internet expansion I, with 10 cards we might someday see.
After all, Q is reading us...
#238 - Classic COTD starts
#240 - The Wrath of Wesley appears in InQuest
#250 - Internet Expansion II - even better...
#250 - The History of COTD
[...]
#500 - The History of COTD, volume 2 ?
[...]
#726 - The last COTD appears because there are no more cards left? God
prevent this...
More history soon, with quotes, flubs, funny passages, etc.
Wes