Do you need to get auction catalogs?

[Rich Klein]

This is what I wrote on the last thread -- and I think Bill Hedin actually made my point better than I did

"Is that, if you keep them, and something interesting comes up on the board; you can research and reference if and when you'd seen the item before in a catalog. On line, it's quite different research and harder to remember"

To wit, Bill James once wrote about his baseball abstracts in the 1980's that they sit around the house and a reader can re-reference his books. Being on line is not as "eternal" as print ---- and print is easier for people to remember than what they see on line.

I think Leon has a pretty good point, for "smaller" auctions on-line is fine but for bigger auctions, the more you have in front of you the better it is.

I prefer print because catalogs are fun to read through even after they end (Part of that is my Beckett heritage of researching all the items that may have needed to be added to the data base) while if all you are interested in is working on the 33 Goudey Set --- then on-line may be the way to go for you.

And to wit, and to mention some friends of mine -- and to bring up the Beckett reference --- John and Judy Burk have an auction which just began, in that auction they say they have an uncatalogued Steelers set from c.1973. With a catalog in print, I'd always remember that item --- now when that auction is over, I'll forget about that item real quickly.

Print lasts, on-line does not

Rich