[Rich Klein]

I figured I'd add a few points here:

I was going to post this in the other Standard Catalog thread but it became long-ish.

I wish F+W would:

1) Use realistic grade points for pre-war pricing. F, VG and EX would make much more sense than what's in my '09 book, especially for the cards issued prior to World War 1. Each set could have a "kicker" shown for NM etc cards instead.

Answer from RK: I agree totally; however; I don't know how easy or hard that is with the F&W data base. I know at Beckett, we always wanted to do that but the man hours and the programming costs versus the reward never worked. There is no doubt that "we" all want to do that -- if this could be done easily and manually I'd saw go for it otherwise, we'll have to wait for a "global" change. Sets such as the Tom Barker cards which came in games are found in better shape then caramel cards.

2) Offer a pre-1981 version with larger print and expanded writeups, etc. I would pay the same for this or possibly even more if issued along with #10 below.

I love the idea -- but I don't know how many copies outside of board members here would actually sell. I will tell you, that one year we had a slight mess up with 1993 Topps in the Almanac and I swear we got at least one call a day about that -- if I had messed up Ramly's -- I might get 2 responses in a year.

3) Make some deference to graded cards in the pricing. Not sure this is do-able in terms of pricing the cards individually but most top graded older cards are more likely in slabs than not these days. If you have, say a true NM T206 common, their NM price is not accurate and is off by a considerable factor.

I know we were doing that at Beckett, and I would assume Bob is doing something very similar

4) Perhaps condition rarities could be identified better.

This could be noted in the set blurbs and many times the individual card prices reflect that as well

5) More illustrations of certain key variations would be great. Also, all sets should have at least a picture of the card front in the book.

I agree -- sometimes we never had one; and had to go on faith from our submitters. I suspect the way the book is set up; you can or should have only one photo for each set. If you could do more, great! And sometimes I would get a set listing from a long ago price list and have no more information that that,

6) Add pack or at least wrapper pricing for the R card sets like Playball, Goudey, Topps.

We did in the Almanac -- I agree with you here

7) Add more oddball listings; a number of well known ones are missing.

Please provide Bob a specific listing. I'm sure if the well known one is missing Bob would add that specific set

8) Offer a free download of the catalog with purchase.

That is up to F&W management

9) Bring the minor league listings to the front of the book again and alphabetize them with all the other pre-1981 listings. Pre war collectors do not seem to differentiate as much as modern collectors when it comes to minor league issues IMO.

I'll disagree with you here -- however; I do understand that many pre-war collectors treat zeenuts as just as important. I like leaving the Minors as minors

10) Issue a companion guide, or include in a pre-1981 package, of alphabetical (at least for major sets and players) and team (major sets) checklists. That would reflect how many people collect older cards, i.e. not by set but rather by player or team. Preferably every player would be identified by team eventually.

Alphabetical Lists used to be heavily needed at Beckett; now with the OPG, not as much there. I think that's up to F&W

I get a big book every other year but it is definitely due for an overhaul. Maybe that process will start this year; not sure if any of the above were incorporated last year or will be this year.

Have at it!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by toppcat; Yesterday at 02:56 PM.