Posted By:
DaveI am very much a newbie to vintage collecting. The first reference I got was Beckett, the second Krause - the Standard Catalog. I like the Beckett because it provided consise lists of major league, minor league, and southern league players (T206). I generally only go to Krause for reference now, though. I must admit I am only active in T206 collecting at this time.
I bought Lipset later, and would buy it today (this minute) if I didn't have it. I is a different world of information; the data it contains doesn't exist elsewhere in such an organized manner.
It is available in reprint for only $30 for volumes 1-3 on ebay - why wouldn't someone go for it.
I just searched ebay for "Lipset encyclopedia baseball", got two hits, here is the first. Both were buy it now for $30.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=641&item=5124423307&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW>