Bruce is correct, all copies begin on page 3.
So since I was a baseball book collector for many years, and wrote a well received article on baseball books for VCBC back around 1996, I have of course given a lot of thought as to why baseball book collecting is in decline. I can come up with a few reasons, so here goes:
1) Old time collectors are leaving the hobby, and the new collectors replacing them are gravitating more to cards and not to memorabilia. As much as I hate to say this, the slab is what is keeping this hobby humming. If they slabbed baseball books, more people would collect them. Blasphemy, I know, but sadly true.
2) Collectors simply don't know what is out there and what books are worth. Baseball cards are exhaustively catalogued and priced, and a collector can find out the value of a T206 in just a few moments. But rare baseball books are more exotic, less frequently encountered, and not always easily assessed. Not every collector is up for this challenge.
3) This last one is the toughest, and it's a tad political (sorry folks), but I'll call it the dumbing down of America. Unfortunately, and much to my chagrin, we are living in a society where educated people are often ridiculed and mocked. People who read are considered just a bunch of elitist eggheads, not to be taken seriously. Fewer people read today than ever before, so that has to have some effect on book collecting. This hurts me on many levels, but we'll leave it at that.
I'm sure there are other reasons for the decline, but we have to accept the fact that the hobby has changed since the 1980's and 90's. That's not to say that there still aren't many devoted book collectors out there, but their numbers are fewer.
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