Wanted Info - Baseball Books
 

What books, in your opinion, are the best for collectors like myself who love to do research and study the game & cards ?

I have the following;
The Baseball Encyclopedia - ninth edition
Standard Catalog of Baseball Card - 1999 edition
Classic Baseball Cards - Frank Slocum

I loved the book Mint Condition from a few years ago.

The Old Judge book and Smithsonian Baseball are two of my favorites


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The new Mickey Mantle card book is a good reference book.

"The T206 Collection: The Players and Their Stories"
"Collecting Sports Legends: The Ultimate Hobby Guide" by Joe Orlando (of PSA)

The Old Judge book that another poster mentioned is "The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company (1886-1890)" by Jay Miller, Joe Gonsowski and Richard Masson (the first two of whom are members of this board)

You mentioned having the 1999 Standard Catalog, but you might want to get the most recent edition (5th, 2015) of the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards. It only covers cards from before 1981, and it includes a lot of stuff that was not known or catalogued in 1999.

Lew Lispett's The Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards (Vol 1,2 & 3) is indispensable....so much information about so many sets. A great resource.....

Z

Thanks everybody.....I just put bids on eBay on a couple of used books. Lew Lispetts and The T206 Collection; The players and their stories. Also ordered from amazon the latest issue of the standard catalog of vintage cards. I'm so happy to build an up to date library for my research. Thanks again !!!!!

Four books that are at the core of my baseball library have nothing to do with collecting. Instead they deal with the ancient players whose cards we collect. The SABR Deadball Stars volumes are choke full of short biographies, photos, rosters etc. There is also a 19th Century volume. The two Conlon photo books hold a museum's worth of exquisite baseball portraiture. Perusing the pages is 100% pure heroin to the deadball cardboard junkie. There are plenty other books that count as indispensable but my vote would be these four. Taken together they will bring your cards to life.

Deadball Stars
 

+1 for Kawika's endorsement of the SABR publications. You can find many if not all of the player profiles detailed on SABR's page. The bio's aren't overly detailed, often running 1+ pages, but they were helpful in getting a base understanding of the characters in a set.

Z