1889 Spalding Guide on Ebay
 

Did anyone follow the 1889 Spalding Guide that sold on ebay last night? It was in superb condition and you don't see early ones like that too often, but over $1000! That is truly remarkable (could someone provide the link-thank you).

Barry:

I was watching that one all week and placed what I thought was a ridiculously high snipe of $999.99 because I really wanted it. I guess someone else wanted it more than me though.......... Go figure

Yea, and it went so low because it was mis-categorized.

Well, at least we can rest assured that--at that price--the buyer won't tear out pages, slab 'em, and try to sell 'em. Here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=180352411109

Phil- that was a really high snipe. But I have to say you almost never see one from the 1880's in that condition. Even the spine was completely intact. Someone else realized how great it was too. I'm sure you're disappointed.

I have never seen a finer example of an 1880's Baseball Guide in 15-20 years. I still think the price is too high, but you cant argue with the logic of buying the nicest of ANYTHING in the world of antiques. Also, most of these from this era have no illustrations aside from that of either Reach or Spalding in the front and this one has several beautiful illustrations.

Rhys

Yep...I was told that the first Spalding guides to have photos was from 1894, but obviously that is wrong as there are plenty in that 1889 guide...including the Joseph Hall cabinet.

I just checked my reprint set and 1889 appears to be in fact the first one with photos. They were sparse in those early years however.

1889 also appears to be the first with a glossy color cover. The guide used lower quality paper and black and white illustrations for its covers through 1888.

Dan and Barry,

The 1895 Spalding Guide was the first with a substantial number of team photos (for the 1894 teams), which thereafter continued on a regular basis.

The 1894 guide had none, the 1889 guide had only New York NL, Chicago NL and an All-Americans team shot (from the world tour I think), and a lot of head shots of execs.

I know it's blasphemy to say this, but I wish I'd purchased those cutouts of the Lincoln teams from those guides when they first appeared on ebay.

By the way, in case anyone has forgotten, the 1889, 1894, and 1895 guides are among the Library of Congress's online collection:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collecti...ng/titleS.html