BOOKS/HISTORY/value

[Wildfireschulte]

Max - great book display. I love how you have "Bride and the Pennant" by Frank Chance rotated to display the colorful cover. I look at books as more than a great read or source of info - historical books are art when displayed as part of a great collection.

[aelefson]

Scott, here is the chapbook and a close-up scan of the illustration on the front. I am really happy to own it.

Alan

[jpop43]

We too very much enjoy early baseball literature, and although we do not have an abundance of it, I thought I might share with you one of our favorites.

This history of the Boston BBC (copyright 1898) was found at a street fair in NJ about 9 years ago...we simply love it!

Jonathan
www.dugouttreasures.com

[bgar3]

Jonathon, your History of the Boston BBC is a great book. Many people assume because the first numbered page is 3, that it is missing a page, i do not think this is is the case, i have never seen a copy that does not begin at 3 and i have been told that the cover and inside cover account for the other 2 pages, and i think this is supported by the list of advertisements page. If yours is different please let me know. thank you. (also i think it is copyright 1897, if yours is 1898, i might be a later printing which i think would be a new discovery and might have additional material, like the later editions of Spink and Ellard.)

[barrysloate]

Bruce is correct, all copies begin on page 3.

So since I was a baseball book collector for many years, and wrote a well received article on baseball books for VCBC back around 1996, I have of course given a lot of thought as to why baseball book collecting is in decline. I can come up with a few reasons, so here goes:

1) Old time collectors are leaving the hobby, and the new collectors replacing them are gravitating more to cards and not to memorabilia. As much as I hate to say this, the slab is what is keeping this hobby humming. If they slabbed baseball books, more people would collect them. Blasphemy, I know, but sadly true.

2) Collectors simply don't know what is out there and what books are worth. Baseball cards are exhaustively catalogued and priced, and a collector can find out the value of a T206 in just a few moments. But rare baseball books are more exotic, less frequently encountered, and not always easily assessed. Not every collector is up for this challenge.

3) This last one is the toughest, and it's a tad political (sorry folks), but I'll call it the dumbing down of America. Unfortunately, and much to my chagrin, we are living in a society where educated people are often ridiculed and mocked. People who read are considered just a bunch of elitist eggheads, not to be taken seriously. Fewer people read today than ever before, so that has to have some effect on book collecting. This hurts me on many levels, but we'll leave it at that.

I'm sure there are other reasons for the decline, but we have to accept the fact that the hobby has changed since the 1980's and 90's. That's not to say that there still aren't many devoted book collectors out there, but their numbers are fewer.

[murphusa]

I have about 300 baseball books and I haven't read one. To busy to spend that much time on one thing.

[barrysloate]

Not even one? Not all baseball books can be read- many simply have rules or stats, so there is nothing really to read. But some of them are really interesting. I would recommend you try at least one or two.

[Jason19th]

As an active, and younger (36) baseball book collector I think that the main problem is that the rare book people don't understand baseball books and the baseball collectors do not understand the rare book world. As a result there is so much misinformation and a lack of realistic pricing and reasonable availability Let me give an example. One of the books shown below is a book called Uncle Nat which is a children's adventure book published in 1865. The book contains the first extensive fiction about baseball in a great chapter that actually deals with the controversy between the New York and Mass. games and an argument about whether you can "soak" or hit the base runner with the ball to get an out. Its a great books and if more well known I think that a lot of baseball collectors would like a copy. It really only can be bought however outside the hobby in rare book sites (unless your are lucky to find one on ebay) and the rare book sites seem to think its old and its about baseball so it must be worth a mint and they price it at over $2500. Its a rare book and its valuable but not THAT valuable and as a result it sits on the rare book site and never gets into the hobby.

All that said I think that one theme we are missing is that not only do the book give us info on baseball history but also the way that baseball fit into the overall society at a given time. Unlike cards or photos books deal with issue like racism, education, the Red Scare etc. This is why I love them and think that they are undervalued as objects and historical touchstones

Below are a number of books which illustrate this point

In order
1. Earliest and only(?) Spanish Language history of baseball in Mexico
2. Negro in Sports -- a wide ranging history of black sports published in 1939 and 1949 and has the only treatment of the Negro Leagues while the leagues were still in action
3. Great Negro Ball stars -- give extensive histories and pics of all the first generation of black major leaguers
4. Little League Amigos a story of a young players journey from Castro's Cuba to the American little league
5. 20 Years Too Soon by Quincy Troppe -- a self published volume that allows us to see a player that seem to only had a cup of coffee in the majors but was infact a major influence in 3 countries over 40 years
6. McGuffey's reader 1840's -- shows that baseball was part of school lessons from before it was baseball
7. Uncle Nat
8. Boys Own Book 1844 (English Edition) showing that the Knickerbockers really didn't invent much


7.