Sporting News Record books 1908 - 1941

[mr2686]

I was curious to see if anyone here had information on the sporting news record books, specifically from 1908 to 1941. I've noticed that they have some in green and some in red..sometimes in the same year. Is one harder to find than another? Is only one player pictured per year? Also, I saw one 1928 Gehrig that the seller said was a reproduction...is there any sure way to tell a reproduction from an original (copyright, etc)?.
Thanks for any help.

[mr2686]

anyone collect these..anyone, anyone...Bueller, Bueller?

[barrysloate]

Mike- I've had some of these over the years but don't really know anything about them. Otherwise, I would have gladly answered your question. My guess is in the collecting world the color of the covers won't really make a difference.

[autograf]

Mike..........not sure I'll have the answers to all your questions.........the books come in red for ALL years and I've got a note that I have a 1915 Green with Charles Comiskey on the cover. Do you have a checklist of them all? The earlier years are VERY tough. The most common years are 1931-1940. Those must have been MUCH more heavily printed that the earlier years. I know Lyman Hardeman who runs Oldcardboard.com collects them as well. The oldest I have is 1910. The Joe Jackson 1917 issue is always the hardest to find and to find in really nice shape it seems. It will bring many hundreds of dollars in decent shape. I think actually that the green are harder to find but don't really seem to bring much of a premium unless you have two people really looking for them at once. You rarely see any from the 1920's or back on ebay. Just usually the common stuff. I think they're neat collectibles and for the prices pretty decent. The older issues will bring $100-$400 or more depending on cover and condition with the Jackson bringing quite a bit more than that.

[autograf]

and.....the Reprints are really easy to tell if you can get ahold of one and feel it. They have more of a washed out look to them as well when scanned. Not sure if they reprinted all years or not but I have about 8-10 reprints as I picked them up in a lot. They are on much cheaper paper than the originals which are on a slicker paper.

[mr2686]

Thank you Barry and Tom. I've been wanting to collect these for awhile and now have a chance to start picking up a few. Wasn't sure if it was worth my efforts to get duplicates (one in red and one in green) but I think I'll stick with one or the other and not both. I have seen a few from the 20's, but not too many...I guess I'll keep an eye open for those first. Still not sure if I'd be able to tell the diff between a copy and an original...at least from a scan. But from what I've seen, a lot of the sellers are specific about them being original.