Sporting News Record books 1908 - 1941

[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.

[MK]

The first year they were published was 1909. The 1910 features Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner on the cover. Here's a picture of some of the older ones I have.

[mr2686]

Mike, of the ones in the picture, I've only seen the Sisler before. Very nice. I think this is going to be a fun project to complete...or try

[mr2686]

From what I can tell, here is a partial list of players per year. Mike, I couldn't read a couple of the names in your picture, could you help fill in the some of the blanks?

1909
1910 Cobb and Wagner
1911
1912 Eddie Collins
1913
1914
1915 Charles Comiskey
1916
1917 Joe Jackson
1918
1919
1920 Babe Ruth
1921
1922 Rogers Hornsby
1923 George Sisler
1924 Everett Scott
1925 Walter Johnson
1926 Max Carey
1927 Bob O'Farrell
1928 Lou Gehrig
1929
1930 Mickey Cochrane
1931 Hack Wilson
1932 Lefty Grove
1933 Jimmie Foxx
1934 Carl Hubbell
1935 Dizzy Dean
1936 Hank Greenberg
1937 Joe McCarthy
1938 Joe Medwick
1939 Abner Doubleday
1940 Bucky Walters
1941 Bob Feller (change in design)