Is Anyone Updating the SCD Card Catalog?
 

With the unfortunate passing of Bob Lemke about 6 years ago, I am wondering if all updates to the catalog have stopped. I believe PSA looked to the catalog and to Bob and I don't know what the process has been since he passed. If you find a new card for a checklist is it ungradable because it isn't on the checklist? What about and entirely new issue?

Don’t know the answer to that. I wish SCD digitized their paper content from back in the 90s. There were many great articles written from Bob and other writers. I asked Bob about this years ago and he said they didn’t archive any of it and most is lost or buried in collections (of those who collect papers).

The short answer is no.

The long answer should be that there is a governing body in charge of that. It should be made up of people not only involved in Sports Cards but across the breadth of the ACC and there aren’t too many of us that collect that way anymore.

-Rhett

I plan to retire in a couple of years, and after having published a couple of editions of books in my field and logging time as an associate editor for a science journal, I thought that this (writing an updated catalog) could be a great thing to take on as a project. But that thought was fleeting: I realized that in all likelihood, because of the issues already mentioned in this thread (and the fact that I seem to ask more questions on this board than provide answers!!!), it would be a herculean effort that would likely require a massive collaboration of experts and resources. It would be fun to be a part of a team that could put out an updated catalog, but with new information surfacing about new issues on a daily basis and a boatload of information that would need to be sifted through on the internet since the last edition was published, all of which would need to be verified to the best extent possible, it would take a village, led by a core of very dedicated individuals.

They do accept most online checklisting sites like baseballcardpedia; most manufacturers release checklists of nearly all sets/cards produced, so those also are acceptable to PSA.
They just recently agreed to accept group submissions from COMC, so it's possible that the COMC library of valid checklists and variations may be considered in the future.

When I ordered SCOVBC & SCOVFC I requested the pdf versions. I still have the last versions.

As an minor FYI -- I moved to the "Cataloguing" area of COMC about 13 months ago and that is adjacent to the area I had been in. I've always done cataloguing work for COMC as part of my day to day job and use my background to improve the information.

If you ever see anything in the COMC database which needs to be fixed just let me know

Rich

Problem with online catalogs is that people misrepresent and misreport things all the time through error or (worse) on purpose.

There are multiple cards listed on sites like tradingcarddb and places like that that simply do not exist and are just the result of people trolling.

There needs to be an actual independent entity doing it or it is worthless.

Just my opinion so take it for what it is worth.

Good to know. That's a great place for your knowledge and talent!

Thanks for the input.

I wonder if we could form a SABR-like committee that could have some bylaws around voting to make checklist updates/new sets/level of proof required, etc. The group might need to focus on pre-1930, at least initially, otherwise the amount of effort might be too great. And with each year after 1930, the amount known about the issues from those years grows, so I am less concerned about the need to have people focused on them.

How to start would be a good question. Contacting Bob Lemke's family to see about digitizing his notes could be a good start.

prewarcards.com is a good resource. I asked him one time if he was the new SCD and he said he was doing the best he can.

If anyone has a question about a set, or thinks they see something new, they can always make a post on here and people will chime in.

I'm talking like 1988 and back. I have no idea how anyone could track the new stuff.

Beckett is much the same, they've had many of the same errors in their data for 30 years. TCDB will correct errors if they are reported. It isn't an online vs cardcopy thing, it is just the nature of the beast. I can't imagine a more "independent" entity than crowd sourcing. I do wish there was more in the way of research references included on the various sites, so you know where the data came from, but that seems to be left up to the various blogs that find and document the sets.

And unfortunately, for modern realeases, Panini produces horribly inaccurate checklists, getting the card numbering and serial numbering wrong on almost every set.

A couple of years before he passed, I had communicated with Bob regarding my efforts to try and get vintage (pre-1948 Bowman/Topps era) rookie cards identified with an RC designation in the Standard Catalogue for future issues. Bob informed me that the last issue was published several years ago and that there were no plans on the part of Krause for future printings.

As far as my specific request, Bob said, in short, that rookie card identification would be too subjective and would be extremely difficult if not impossible to get a vast majority to agree on the specific cards that would be qualified for each individual. I offered my comprehensive list of HOF’ers as a starting point, of which several dedicated and highly knowledgeable Net54 board members had worked together to compile. Unfortunately, the answer was still no but not entirely dismissed. At this point, I dropped the pursuit as it seemed like the entire Standard Catalogue project was not at a point to move forward anyway.

Is there any single edition that one should pick up that is more detailed than the others?

I just picked up the vintage baseball card edition 6 for a nice price but I have heard that deletions of items over the course of edition releases have occurred.


Butch T.

I keep the 2011 edition because it was the last one with post 1980 listings which is handy on occasion

thank you Al.

regards

I have about 8 of them, starting in 1997 and ending in 2011. I have one that is signed by Bob, somewhere around here. A lot of board members names are near the front, in ackknowlegments, for helping the cause. No one did it like Bob, in the "modern" era, (with respect to Burdick and his cohorts.)
Bob was a great hobbyist, and friend, and is sorely missed.

I would suggest the 2011 also.
.

I just want to state and I realize in this room it's preaching to the choir but

Cataloguing takes time and effort and a "corporate" push to understand why it's important. When I was at Beckett doing the Almanac back in the day as long as Dr. Beckett owned the company, he understood that element since he did price guides/cataloguing by himself in the 1980s the importance of doing both thereof.

Same when Bob was involved with Krause and they understood just how much profit (and rest assured the Standard Catalog was a money maker) that tome could generate and thus the work done would add to the bottom line.

I would love to for someone to take the bull by the horns and do a print version and update checklists, pricing etc.

Rich,

How would one (many actually) even begin to take on such a task? The transfer of intellectual data from Krause to the "new guy" would seem to me to be unwieldily enough to pretty much squash any attempt of a resurrection of such a catalog.

I am just a guppy in a sea of big fish (read you all, collectively). Considering such an attempt cost nothing for me to think about. Actually doing and following through with such a task would be way too expensive initially to even believe that something like an update and rewrite to the catalog would even be a break even endeavor.

Thinking out loud here.

Butch T.

Thank you as well Leon.

Regards,

Butch T.

I would love if the big book made a comeback, in 2 volumes (there's just too many sets and cards now to cover vintage and modern in one binding). But I doubt it's viable as the online resources just make so much more sense today. Hanging on to my copies until the end, physical is more fun.

My thinking out loud thought is just to focus on the vintage aspect of the catalog. With all the available web access to modern cards, not sure it would even be viable to include modern cards as well as vintage.

Then what would be the cut-off for vintage? 1979, 1973, 1986?

And how many would be willing to take this on?

What am I even saying at this point? I'm probably nuts for even bringing it up.

Cheers,

Butch T.

You keep bringing it up because it's your destiny Butch.

Damn, don’t pull the Darth Vader on me….. freaks me out. ;-)

I, along with a couple other well known collectors / chroniclers of the issue(s) have been working on an "update" of the Baseball Magazine posters(m113/m114) catalog.

At one point I reached out in a couple directions which I thought might potentially yield some helpful info for our endeavor but I didn't receive any responses.

Oh well, the journey continues.

Doug



PS - Lyman Hardeman's OldCardboard.com site is doing much that is being discussed in the thread.

I remember the day I picked up a significant amount of E98 commons and thinking what'm I gonna do now? Am I really the guy that's going to commit to finishing an E98 master set? I decided yes, stripped down and jumped into the deep end. It's that simple and difficult at the same time.

Good luck, I'll help with the west coast stuff where I can.

Bob Lemke was a distinctly different individual. Meticulous. Patient. Intelligent. Trustworthy.

And it is going to take a similarly special person to create an updated version of the Standard Catalog.

I communicated with Bob about a few corrections I had, one was changing the Lelivelt card from Jack Lelivelt to William Lelivelt, they were brothers. When I discussed some cards he had that he wanted to see in person, that meant I had to package my treasured Green Joyce card and mail it to him. He mailed it back. And after that, I was good with mailing him other cards for him to see. I'm sure others of you did that with him, or you got to meet him in person. I mention this because of what has been previously mentioned about not just trusting an email with a digital image that someone sends.

I'd like to see an updated Standard Catalog. Could this board do it? Could we commit to prepurchase catalogs to raise money for remunerations for an editor or editorial team? It would be a long term project... but then it's not like anyone is printing new Old Judges, Collins-McCarthy's, Nadja's, or T cards to be considered.

Back in the 1970's Woody Gelman, Rich Egan and one other fellow I believe ,whose name escapes me at the moment (maybe Ron Greenwood) were planning on doing an updated ACC

What their plan was and I think it would be a great idea today, was to break it up and for "experts" in each "field" to head up and write about their area of expertise.

I was assigned Topps issues since back then I was writing articles in The Trader Speaks about Topps test sets and the like. I still have my records from then and visited Topps in Brooklyn to talk to Woody and go through Topps files as they were at the time. I recently sent copies of all this to Dave Hornish who has picked up on things Topps since on his superb site.

If someone would head it up experts could be assigned like Adam Warshaw for Exhibt cards, Doug Goodman for BB Magazine issues, Dan Mabey/Ken Marks for Post Cereal/Jello, Teddy Z. for Leaf and T206 etc.

I am not versed in pre war but I am sure you all know guys here who specialize in certain issues like Tobacco cards, Caramel cards, Strip cards, Hot Dog cards, Regionals .....on and on. Guys could volunteer to do certain areas/sets, research write up and post to a thread here for others to see/read/comment/correct etc. before publication

A group effort written by those who have collected and researched in their specialized collecting fields would make the most sense to me and break up the work into many hands in lieu of one person trying to tackle it all.

Excellent idea!

Funny, this is something we discuss in our office regularly. Several times in the past few months we’ve discovered errors and/or cards yet to be cataloged. Should be exciting hobby news, recorded somewhere for the collecting community to benefit from. Instead, we have trouble getting the grading services to recognize them at all. It’s been frustrating.


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First of all, I feel the top TPG's need to pull their proverbial heads out of their asses. Until they recognize W503, W575-1 etc... aren't hand cut, as well as many others, their opinions are clouded with inaccuracies. You would think they would have gotten those right by now. To me, it's like arguing with someone who still believes the earth is flat or man never landed on the moon. One can hope they correct their mistakes, then we can have a discussion based on reality and the facts. Maybe TPGs just don't need to be included in the mission, since they are quite inept at knowing things they should.

That said, I am all for an update, but only with collectors/dealers who aren't lemmings. Maybe CGC can help.....I don't think Andy B will follow the other lemmings.

And Fred, here is the making of the Egan update...again..

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=144460

My inclination would be to keep the TPGs out of the entire project. This would not be something that was being done for them as much as it would be done for the hobbyists. I just have a real hard time seeing any positive input from them in this endeavor. They are all about the coin, and this project would be all about the cards and such.

That being said, how could this product ultimately drive the TPGs to abide by the information within the many pages. Or maybe 'we' don't care???

More questions......

B.T.

The only way it would work is to have the individuals who are experts in specific fields serve as editors for those fields and have others contribute. For example, I wrote the Exhibit book but i can think of at least three other collectors who have better knowledge than I do about specific elements of the issues.

That is how we do it; the question of where we do it is probably an online database of some sort administered by someone on a nonprofit basis.

There is no doubt about the fact that if this is even seriously considered is that there must be input from many different experts. Honestly, I am just a tiny collector and hardly an expert in most if not all of this.

How would a consiortum of this magnitude come together for a common outcome? Who would these hobbyists look like and would they even agree to come together for such an undertaking. Who has access to these many individuals to even tweak an interest?

B.T.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years, and as Andrew stated earlier, something we talk about in the office all the time. It's actually the subject of my catalog introduction for the next auction.

Every year, we get a couple of cards or variations that should be reported to the Standard Catalog. But there's nobody to report it to. Very frustrating.

-Al

A few things to consider. And I will state this project is not quite as hard, it's not easy either, as people think

1) The hardest part of any catalog project is, ahem to CREATE the listings. Since we are dealing with a reasonably well known world, the adjustments, whilst it can be difficult, is not as hard as starting from scratch

2) Trust me when I say this. the TPGs have a vested interest in having correct catalog information. I wager, especially the bigger ones, have people on staff who can research unknown issues. A well-done catalog eases that burden for them. Working WITH TPGs is not a terrible option.

3) You would need to come up with a publisher or a way to sell ads or something to offset any costs. Many people on this board would do their work gratis for an ad credit but there are still start up costs

4) After you get the listings done, then the pricing comes up. Pricing is an art as well so you have to understand how to price items.

5) I suggest to start the target is what SCD currently does is pre-1980 and that tends to be acceptable for vintage which for this board works.

6) I could go chapter and verse into errors and variations but everyone has different lines drawn.

Happy to talk about this at any time

Rich

We just need to start an American Cartophilic Society already and get to work.

The British version has been well organized and doing the work for a LONG time…they have cataloged so much but we have been complete slackers 🤣

Any work that is done needs to be across the board and work for sports card people along with nonsports. They have always been inextricably linked in the ACC.

And we all need an attention to detail. This is an example of detail from something I did at work a few minutes ago.

I was doing some work on 1967 Coke Caps and saw we had Coke Caps which say Coca-Cola and...

There are also caps which say

Coca-Cola King Size

Yep those are distinct variations of the same item.

But who thinks of looking for something like that?

1967 Coke Cap collectors!

I vividly remember a guy, some might know him, whom I met when I set up at the Philly Show. All he collected is 1967 and 1968 Coke Caps....
.

That collector needs to edit/price/verify that part of any catalog :)

I don't think we need pricing any more. It is a giant time-suck to do prices. There are myriad tools that scrape and aggregate price data in real time, and for cards that do not transact regularly, pricing is just a SWAG anyway. What we need is an encyclopedia of vintage cards with checklists and write-ups explaining the nuances of issues, updated as things emerge. Sort of a wikipedia.

For a while, I've considered doing a catalog, but in looseleaf form.

But very detailed.
So if someone wanted to collect one set, they wouldn't need the full catalog with thousands of pages, just the pages for that one set.

Having been through collecting a couple sets in extreme detail, It's a massive task, one that would probably never be truly finished for any year.

One of the catalogs I use in a different hobby has basically three sections.
Here's the set you can pretty much see from a short distance.
Here's the specialized listings, shades, papers, etc. Stuff a specialist would work on.
Then a section for most of the major plate varieties.

And occasionally a note that if you're completely nuts there's a book with still more detail

Something like that, with listings and pictures for the set with all the major variations, and additional listings for the minor and trivial ones.

I respectfully disagree with this. For the members of this board who are well attuned to card values and are active, yes you can probably do this without pricing. However, the majority of the people who would be interested in such a tome would want some pricing information. It would be understood that not all pricing would be the final word and we understand things do change. But the pricing is what would make you a profit

Uncataloged Pricing?
 

I politely disagree about needing pricing.

I agree with what Adam said (hey Adam). We have enough pricing tools already. Prices can change quickly so anything printed will be out of date when it leaves the printer.
How are you going to price a card like this one below, which needs to be added if this project ever gets started? What we need is to add things to the catalog, imo. Burdick did it with his Card Collectors Bulletins and always considered his ACC as a work in progress. Full speed ahead!! (who's driving?) And of course, Burdick never liked the value aspect of cards, which is why he listed them low. He didn't want to see the hobby become what it has :cool:.

That being said, who said this has to be a for-profit project?

If one doesn't do pricing and doesn't do a physical book, then this work becomes pretty easy as a group. The infrastructure is already set up, the more modern side of the hobby has seen to that. There are online databases already, the coverage of the old stuff is just limited because from this side of the hobby don't really contribute to them and hasn't organized. TCDB, BaseballCardPedia, etc. are out there and set up with nothing stopping expansion into the older stuff to serve as a primary reference database like the old Standard Catalog.

I love physical books, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense at this scale. I doubt I will get to buy a new standard catalog to use anytime soon.

This is a fear of mine, if it gets built, who would come?

Butch T.

BTW: Excellent conversations gentleman. I truly like the idea sharing and collaboration with this conversation. Gives me a bit of hope.....

It saddens me, personally. It's so convenient that I can have 50,000 books on my iPad that take 0 space when traveling, but nothing is better in life than a good old fashioned book in ones lap.

Card catalogs fall into the sweet spot where the money just doesn't make sense. There isn't enough demand for a vintage card book to get a real publisher to invest into it; but there's also too much demand for you or I or something to print up the copies and just eat a small loss to put out a passion project. At this point, I suspect card physical books are going to be restricted to very narrow niche passion projects that are self-published where the author can just eat a small loss or break even and is doing it anyways because they want too, and perhaps some coffee-table like books.

I'd much rather a 2 volume actual book than a BaseballCardPedia type, but the later seems the only way to do it :(.

BOLLOCKS!!!!! BOOK GOOD, iPad... Backup.

JMHO.

This coming from a person that has well over 200 Civil War 1st and 2nd edition Hardback Books.

Give me a book any day of the year.

I love how you think! My home is stuffed with floor to ceiling bookcases with the books packed 2 rows to a shelf and then there's a bunch more boxed up I just don't have space to shelve but can't bring myself to part with. I use the iPad now for travel so I always have a book with me, but every evening I take a good old physical book and spend a few hours in one of my reading nooks or on the porch. Life is made the better with a real book.

I envision it as something like Lew Lipset's Encyclopedia of Baseball cards, which involved an extensive writeup of each set involving background information, date of release theories, relations to other sets, etc. It was a shame that only 3 volumes were created - 19th century (N), tobacco (T), and early gum and candy (E). There was a basic pricing section, but that was not a focus, and in my opinion definitely not something necessary.

Online the Old Cardboard site (which you can access with the tab on upper right of this page) and prewarcards.com site do a pretty good job with vintage card info, with Old Cardboard providing great images and checklists for many sets, and Anson with his prewarcards site approaching each set in a more thorough Lipset-ian fashion, with of course updated info and research since Lew's books were published around 40 years ago. Perhaps using Anson's output, combined with input from experts in particular sets, could create a great physical hobby resource....

Just a thought.

Brian

Leon, if this is not done as a for profit project, eventually there will be less people involved. And yes I get this board is good for not needing prices but I'm thinking of, ahem, a wider audience.

If you want to do a project for people of this board it's fine to think of updating a catalog this way. If you want a greater reach, you got to have prices at least as a baseline. Having actually, you know, worked for such an outfit, trust me when I say, pricing is what makes things go better. And that's why it's called a catalog. I guarantee you the #1 question you will get from anyone not active on this board will be: "What is this worth" and to have a baseline is a great start.

Y'all need to crowdfund this thing. If Leon, Al, and Rich are on board it'll get support.

Would love to see a 2024 edition why not. My 2011 will never part with. Just too much info i enjoy reading . Just saying

Sort of had this debate in a different hobby over a decade ago.

Small branch of a bigger hobby, club put out a monthly newslatter/magazine.
One of the leaders was very into computerizing everything.

Not that that was bad, his electronic catalogs included album page software so you could arrange a catalog as you wanted it. And they do small catalogs for super specialized stuff.

But they wanted to make the newsletter electronic only. "Oh, it costs too much to print and mail" - Yeah, that's what I'm paying the yearly dues for.
"It will be better electronically." Ummmm..... how? More actual content? (The print one was sometimes not much more than recaps of meetings and a scoreboard of sorts as to who had how many of the primary finite "set"

I wrote a letter they published about how I learned most of what I know from buying a nearly complete run of newsletters. And that while most people think the internet is forever, it's more ephemeral than most things.
And the main point, that if it's worth knowing it's worth committing to print.

They went electronic, with even less content than before... and I sort of drifted away from that niche. Still get some, as they come my way and are usually super cheap (sub $1 )

I now own the 2011 edition of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.

I will, strike that, must wear safety shoes whenever I bring this book out for referencing any card I wish to look for from here on out.

I will also need to ensure I use both hands and freaking lift with my back when I pull it off of my bookshelf to use. Due to weigh imbalance concerns, this tome will reside on the bottom shelf. Thus assuring an earthquake proof bookcase if nothing else.

I'm also considering a safety lift for this thing too.

Thank you gentleman for the advise.

Regards,

Butch T.