Price guide

[Bigb13]

I don't know if it is just me but are any of you guys tired of picking up a book that weigh's like 25 lb's to check your vintage card prices? Why can't they just split this book into two books. Book one could have all cards up to like say 1969 or so and then the second book from like 1970 to present? Just wondering, Rob

[HRBAKER]

No idea but I would think it may be that they think they may not sell enough of each volume to warrant the additional cost(s). Also they may very well be pleased from a publisher's standpoint with the number they sell now. I am sure our inconvenience plays little in the equation.

[mintacular]

I agree, plus the pages are so cheap that they rip so my "bible" is misssing a bunch of pages I need...it's also organized wierd with some things and can be find to find pre-war stuff

[Bigb13]

Well I know one thing that if they do not do something I for one will not buy it anymore. What will it be next year 6 inches thick and weigh 40 lb"s. They should put all the new stuff I mean all the stuff after say 2000 on a cd like they did last year or maybe take it back to like 1980 to present on the cd. Rob

[ethicsprof]

i admit that it's mighty heavy but have to say that a day doesn't go by without my referring to it. Today i sat with it well over an our trying to decipher the mystery surrounding the Holsum bread and Herpolsheimer connection. Lemke does a tremendous job with an unbelievable amount of data.
It has some problems---some warts,if you will---but i still love it 'warts and all'. And i'm glad someone is willing to do this gigantic amount of work for the
rest of us. Yes, 2 volumes instead of one would be great. But one volume is great as well---in the meantime.
best,

barry

[Leon]

I don't know about ya'll but I would actually pay a bit more if they would ship it in 2, bound copies. One for vintage and one for modern. A few extra bucks would be well worth it...again, that is my opinion and I realize that $2 is way too much for some folks. best regards

[bigtrain]

I, too, would pay a few bucks more if it were shipped in two volumes. Shrink wrap them together in the stores, if necessary. I end up slicing up the book and binding it with duct tape. It is not pretty.

[shaunsteig]

neophyte question here, but what price guide are you referring to? and aren't most price guides (eg Beckett, SMA, VCP) available online anyway?
Thanks,
--S

[FrankWakefield]

The Standard Catalog.

It is well worth buying one. A fellow would do well if he were armed with The Standard Catalog; Mr. Lipset's Encyclopedias; a later edition of The American Card Catalog; the 3rd or 4th edition of Mr. Sugar's Sports Collectors Bible; Mr. Horne's Zeenuts 1911 - 1938; Mr. Egan's Handbook to U.S. Early Candy and Gum Baseball Issues; Scot Reader's work on T206s; and The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company by Mr. Miller, Mr. Gonsowski, and Mr. Masson. Those eight works would get a fellow a long way down the road of old ballcard knowledge. Then throw in all of the old issues of The Old Judge, for good measure.

[Leon]

neophyte question here, but what price guide are you referring to? and aren't most price guides (eg Beckett, SMA, VCP) available online anyway?
Thanks,
--S

It's the "Big Book" as it is commonly referred to. It's the Krause Standard Catalog of Baseball cards that comes out once a year. It has to be the #1 book to have if you are into vintage collecting, imo. There are others but no other one has this breadth of information. Lemke and company have done a great job with it. regards

[fkw]

My SCD BigBook is exactly 1" thick.

Ive been chopping out all the new stuff for at least 6 years now.

I do it the first day I get the book from Amazon.

I cut it along the spine (saving the top layer to overlap), remove the post1980 pages and then reattach the back (Chron Index and vintage minor league section) to the front. Last years book came out perfect, Ive got it down now :)

[insidethewrapper]

The Standard Catalog could save a lot of weight if it only listed the cards from 1981 + that are above the common price. For example: don't list any commons, just state the common price. If the card is not listed, it's a common. There could be an abridged and non-abridged version.

[Rich Klein]

One year in the Beckett Almanac we missed about 300 cards of the 1993 Topps set; and we got more complaints about THAT than if some obscure vintage set is missing. If you print a checklist, that checklist needs to be complete (or as complete as you know it to be)

Regards
Rich

[toppcat]

The Standard Catalog would be more useful if it listed all the cards by player for the newer issues. Does anyone really collect sets anymore of the post 1980 stuff?

Standard Catalog staff needs to also make sure things are updated. I know there are personnel and cost issues with the book but some cards and sets have had no change in pricing for half a decade. To keep buying the book for vintage material and then not having it updated is maddening.

[FrankWakefield]

Initially, I agree with that "common price" abridgment. But sometimes it is nice to have that list of all of the cards so the particular number of a card can be ascertained, or whether a card is in the series at all. And the "common price" strategy would work for all years, not just 1981 and up. Realistically, there are guys who collect Topps only, and hate all of the old stuff that's in their way in the front of the book. I think 2 or 3 volumes, shrink wrapped together, might be the best strategy for us. For the publisher, they probably maximize sales doing it the way they are doing it...

[steve B]

Splitting it up could work very well for them. Maybe even changing the price point as well.

The Scott stamp catalog is 6 volumes, I'm pretty sure they're over 1000 pages each. Plus they make a "classic" catalog that's in color and only 1840-1940. Classic is over $100 and each of the 6 volumes are around 75. There's also a US specialized at around 75 as well. They seem to do pretty well for sales despite serving a hobby that everyone claims is dying.

Split it up, list more, include more details, and better pictures. Maybe include a detailed article or two like the US specialized. Make it a truly invaluable reference. Raise the price (I know, heresy ) And I think they'd be surprised at the response.

Steve B

[gabrinus]

I remember the good old days when there were no price guides(except Ron Erbe's book) to look up caramel cards, baking cards, etc. Only the standard tobacco issues excluding T213s, t214s, t216s. I don't mind the 25 lbs a few times a day.

[Bigb13]

Last year they put all cards from 2001 through 2010 on cd why could they not do that again? Rob

[redmansam]

Several years ago, I ran into Bob Lemke at the National and suggested the book be broken into two volumes-early through 1979 and a second from 1980 to present. The only additional cost would be to add a back cover(after 1979) and a front cover (starting with 1980). I asked if the cost would be prohibitive and I seem to recall he answered "No", but his concern seemed to be whether or not people would buy both volumes and total sales might go down.
I replied to just package them together, sell them at one price and let the buyer do whatever he wanted to do with either volume not used. I didn't have the impression this was to be Bob's call, so I dropped the issue.
I know nothing about the publishing business, but you'd think some common sense at Krause might enter in somewhere along the way.

[Fred]

About the only problem (for the publisher) if they provided two separate books is that people that wanted the vintage book would sell the other one and vice versa. My guess is that overall sales would drop because of people selling the book they don't want on the secondary market.

[Rich Klein]

But I'd wager if this book (and/or The Beckett Almanac) was split into 2 parts. The profitable book would be the modern book and the book that would take the loss is the "vintage" section.

It's been pointed out on the board that WE as a group are a very small but influential part of the card hobby.

Let's say that every single member (poster or not) of this board purchases a copy --- that would be about x number of members. The pool to buy a modern book is much larger and thus you need a much smaller percent of modern collectors to purchase a book.

This does not mean this is a bad idea, rather this is just one that is usually not financially feasible for a publisher and since neither F&W or Beckett are owned by "hobby people" any more we can say what we want but this is not going to occur

Rich

[toppcat]

I wonder why these books have not become "print-on-demand" titles? It also seems that a digital edition for Ipad/Kindle someday soon might work as well.

If you read Bob Lemke's comments here over the years, he does not seem to have any sway with the publisher beyond his editorial duties. Whatever financial decisions are being made are definitely not his responsibility.

I wonder how many copes each big book sells?

[buymycards]

I hope they don't go the CD route again. When I go to the book to look up a price for a newer card, which is often, I get frustrated because the price is on the CD rather than the book. Then I have to go to my computer and go through the CD. The CD isn't set up well and it is a real pain in the ass to use.

Two books would be great, but I would rather have 1 large book than 1 book and a CD.

Rick

[FrankWakefield]

I had trouble with the cd, and they kindly replaced it. It is neat to have it on cd, but I like books.

After reading through the posts, Rich K's has me thinking that if Krause busted it into two books, then sales of the vintage book would be so bad that they'd quit publishing it. Then we'd have no book, or only the old books. So it seems to me that we should be thankful that we get coverage at the front of the Standard Catalog. Thankful on Thanksgiving. But I'll leave that 'thanks' out of this afternoon's blessing.

[shaunsteig]

The Standard Catalog.

It is well worth buying one. A fellow would do well if he were armed with The Standard Catalog; Mr. Lipset's Encyclopedias; a later edition of The American Card Catalog; the 3rd or 4th edition of Mr. Sugar's Sports Collectors Bible; Mr. Horne's Zeenuts 1911 - 1938; Mr. Egan's Handbook to U.S. Early Candy and Gum Baseball Issues; Scot Reader's work on T206s; and The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company by Mr. Miller, Mr. Gonsowski, and Mr. Masson. Those eight works would get a fellow a long way down the road of old ballcard knowledge. Then throw in all of the old issues of The Old Judge, for good measure.

It's the "Big Book" as it is commonly referred to. It's the Krause Standard Catalog of Baseball cards that comes out once a year. It has to be the #1 book to have if you are into vintage collecting, imo. There are others but no other one has this breadth of information. Lemke and company have done a great job with it. regards

Thanks both for answering my question, and supplementing it with further advice. When free time permits, will be sure to pursue those references.
--S

[ValKehl]

I have long wished that someone or some group would produce a vintage catalog/price guide that is more comprehensive/thorough than, that has more accurate pricing than, and that has better and more illustrations than the Standard Catalog. I could see this being successfully accomplished via a collaborative effort by OC and VCP with lots of assistance/input from Net54 members, and hopefully, it would be a modest commercial success.
Val

[Rich Klein]

The price for that book for the amount of copies you would end up selling would be at least $69.95 if not more.

get a couple of thousand people to pay for the book up front and you'd have a chance.

Sounds great; but the biggest cost in publishing is turning on the presses. Believe me, I'm all in favor of what you are all suggesting -- the economics don't work


regards
rich

[mintacular]

How about you go to the website, "checkmark" all the years/sets you are interested in receiving, and then SCD sends you your own customized version with only the era/sets you desire. You could be charged per page or whatever. Maybe the user could manipulate the order the pages are organized and create choose their own cover/back

[Rich Klein]

Lets you check on any set/player per sport and is actually very fairly priced for all the information that it provides. You can even do speficic card searches at very cheap prices as one shots. It's a really good deal.

Regards
Rich

[powderfinger]

Hello Everyone,

A few days back, Frank referred to Egan's Handbook to U.S. Early Candy and Gum Baseball Cards. Where does one find a copy of this book? I've looked around the internet a bit, but haven't been able to find many references to it, much less a copy.

[Fred]

I haven't bought one of the big books in a few years. I used to cut out the new stuff and toss that section in to the trash and I'd tape the cut cover on to the portion of the book I kept. This cut down the size of the book considerably.

One question - as I mentioned earlier I haven't purchased a copy for a while - does the big book price guide take into account the "PSA book value" of a card? Or is the book value of the best condition material much lower than the PSA guide prices?

[ValKehl]

Hi Rich - I appreciate and agree with your comments and insight. Personally, I'd pay up to $100 or so in a heartbeat for such a book. And, I'd probably purchase a new edition every other year or so, as I have done with the Standard Catalog over the years.
Best, Val

[steve B]

A bit late to this one, been away a few days.

The idea of a Kindle or some other reader version seems very poor to me. While those things may be ok for light reading of stuff you'd never read again, I'd hate to use one for reference for a couple reasons
1. I use my big book regularly, browsing Ebay. I can pick it up and look up most anything pretty quickly. And I use it as intended- just a guide- rather than a real time tracking of prices. Having to start another device to check if a card I'm not totally familiar with is actually a short print wouldn't work for me.
2. With a reader you don't actually own anything except the reader. The "book" can be deleted at any time. Ironically this was done recently with a few books, including 1984.

Beckett OPG? Really? They offered me a free month of OPG if I signed up for a newsletter email. Close on a decade later, and I'm still waiting.....I still get the email, hardly ever read it. It's mostly month old sports news. (or older) Articles about the very obvious- Lebron James is a really good basketball player- And links to videos of guys that yell more than the home shopping channel guys opening packs. If the price guide is just as good I'm glad I didn't spend any money to not get it.

Other hobbies manage to support multi volume catalogs, multiple levels of detail in catalogs, and some very expensive catalogs. Some of the multi volume ones are even published by Krause.

Steve B