The only resource I am aware of which can provide single source data relating to the

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

appreciation of baseball cards over the past 6 months, 5 years and 25 years is the Beckett Price Guide. Although this reference has limitations in short term analysis, do you think that a better resource exists for long term price history?

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Posted By: dd

I've accumulated a fair amount of price guides and catalogs dating back to the 1970's in the hope of one day putting it all together to do a retrospective analysis to support what we already know.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Darren: Although we are aware of the general favorable trends, it is several specifics which spur my interest. Such as "Would it have been better to purchase high, medium or low grade cards years ago; and which would have been best: commons, HOFers, minor leaguers, rarities, others"? Etc. But the level of effort in this type of analyzable data compilation appears high. Maybe it is best to wait and see what the Card Pricer type programs bring.

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Posted By: dd

In 1981, as an 11 year old I vividly remember buying 50's and 60's Topps cards. I'd buy them in Ex to Ex-mt to save about 50% off the NM and Mint examples. In particular I remember settling for a 1964 Pete Rose for $15 in ex-mt instead of paying the $35 for the Mint example.....a card that would grade 8 or 9 today.

My point being, the really high grade stuff sold for high book...little or no premium for exceptional examples.

High grade commons from 1900 to 1971 were the biggest steal prior to the grading era.

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Posted By: barry arnold

I think Rich K. et al of Beckett do quite a good job with such a
gargantuan task!


barry

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

In the 60s (no, it was the early 70s), as I recall it, there was no organization to the hobby at all. You would find sellers set up at antique auto club shows trying to sell packs of mixed '52 - '56 topps containing about 200 vg/ex cards for $5. And taking all day to sell a few packs of those.

Edited to add: Although tempted, I was not among the foolhardy who purchased a pack of those. Five dollars seemed too big to me, I guess. Perhaps the first in a continuing series of less than optimum choices I have made in this hobby.

By the middle of the '70s sellers were able to sell sufficient material to justify opening a storefront and establishing their business. Here is where I saw the cards we collect. Mostly I did not know what I was looking at. But I had a Sports Collectors Bible and sufficient awareness to note shoe boxes of nice looking Playballs, Topps, Goudeys and t206s piled four feet high.

You would think that in this type of arena a person with a little capital, a lot of vision and a bit of smarts, could become a Lew Lipsett.

In '79 Beckett began to bring cohesion to the baseball card circus by publishing their first widely distributed guide. A series of these publications shows the expansion of checklists, followed by their contraction to accomodate the new card listings, while maintaining guide size. So much potential information was lost to accomodate the interest in '70s & '80s material.

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Posted By: mcavoy

Maybe you could pull an earlier price series from one dealer's regular price lists. This is a little before my time. That list probably would not continue to today since many dealers from the 1970's may not be around.

Which year of Beckett's Guide is the crest of its vintage coverage, in your opinion?