Posted By:
DavidI'm not a book collector, but have had a bunch of 1910s-20s Spalding and Reach Guides, and they are truely incredible publications. Worth every penny of thier high price tag. I had an c. 1890 Spalding Guide that had real woodcuts of the players-- including King Kelly, Monte Ward, Harry Wright, Al Spalidng!
What pains me most is that Libertyforall is, for a few bucks, destroying forever rare and wonderful items. I'm sure bat collectors feel similur when Upper Deck or whomever announces they will be destroying a Ty Cobb bat to make insert cards.
What is interesting is what Libertyforall is doing is essentially the same with the sale of 1800s Harper's Woodcuts, the Harper's Woodcuts being pictures pages removed from a magazine. The sale of Haper's Woodcuts is considered perfectly legitimate, while what Libertyforall is widely reguarded as fraud. While I agree that what Libertyforall is doing is deceptive to the point of being wrong (essentially presenting cutout pages as cards so as to fool the bidder to paying more), the Spalding versus Harper's 'cutouts' shows that a hobby's 'rules and regulations' is as much a product of collectively held subjective feelings than due to actual logic.