[aquarius31]

Bruce, great stuff as always.

Bill, as Bruce mentions, the prices vary widely and the further you go back ie 1820's and 1830's, the more expensive they tend to be especially if it's purchased from an antique book seller. A cheaper (and still very nice) alternative is the Babcock 1840 'The Gift of Friendship' book (more like a pamphlet) which has a baseball depiction on the front cover (I think I purchased mines from a board member several years ago). And if you're looking for color illustrations, there's the 1864 'American Boys Book of Sports and Games' book. You'll find both online and they're inexpensive yet wonderful pieces of baseball history. On the latter, you will want to ask the seller if the pages are complete as it's not uncommon for the lithographs to be pulled out of the book and then framed to look like they're stand-alone pieces.