Posted By:
leonI have been in the hobby a short while compared with many on the board. If you want informative reading and learning about cards .....
1. Lew Lipset's Encyclopedia's...VOL 1-3....they usually come as 1 book and can be readily found on ebay or elsewhere. Buy it...learn it...and you will have a good foundation to build on.
2. Krause SCD Baseball 2005- 2006 ('06 is about to come out). Buy it, read it, learn it....for this discussion you can throw away the back 3/4 of the book. It's the shiney new stuff anyway. You almost have to have a copy of this to collect vintage. Don't take all of the prices as rock solid as the market moves a little faster than a yearly book. The SCD (Big Book) will also include 100's of new vintage sets that were not found yet, or not catalogued yet, when Lew wrote his encyclopedia or the ACC (American Card Catalogue) was put out.
3. Get a subscription to Oldcardboard magazine. It's the link at the top of the page. It will get you into current trends and new finds and has good, current, articles about the hobby. It's just about the only vintage baseball card magazine around anymore.
4. Buy all of the back issues of VCBC. They can be found on ebay on any given day. There are thousands of great articles and info on the hobby and the cards.
If you do those 4 things, and memorize them as well as you can.....you will skip most of the "not knowing" part of collecting......
regards