Personal Pre-War Set and Collector Survey

[BobC]

Originally Posted by ValKehl

Bob, I also lament the demise of the Standard Catalog. I think the current best hope for a comprehensive source of info re pre-War cards is the Old Cardboard website: https://oldcardboard.com/

Val , Does make sense, but how many know about and actually use their site? And then, how hard and diligent are the OBC guys in tracking down info and leads in order to make necessary changes? That is not their jobs to keep up on the things like it was for the SCD staff. And I remember when Bob Lemke was a member on here and always checking up on things that were posted and being found out, like this comment earlier in this thread about how W711 cards may not have been team issued after all. Or people would just contact Bob Lemke from here directly and let him know about new discoveries, and possible changes. Do the OBC guys have a dedicated contact line or person for anything like that? And anyway, OBC doesn't keep track of and report on and provide checklists for anywhere near the number of sets included in the old SCD catalogs.

I just did a quick look at the OBC site and there is no mention of W711 cards in the checklist section, nor any description of the set, card dimensions, illustrative picture of what a W711 card looks like, or anything. So if this revelation about the W711 cards actually being a dairy issue and not a team issue turns out to be true, where can that now be updated and reported so that collectors going forward can have a reliable source to easily look up and access this corrected information on the set......nowhere that I know of anymore now that the SCD catalog is gone.

And if I remember hearing correctly, didn't the grading companies even sometimes refer to and rely on the SCD catalog for information and verification of existing cards and sets? So what do they all do now if something previously unknown is discovered? Who is the single, new, and universally recognized authority in the hobby now that virtually every collector, dealer, and TPG will let make the call on what that newly discovered item is and go along with that authority's decision? I believe it used to be SCD, any more, I don't think there is one.

And this is no knock against the OBC guys and their site, they and their site are fantastic!!!!!! It's just that nobody before or ever since has turned out a single baseball card refererence source anywhere even approaching the sheer volume, size and overall inclusiveness of what was being reported in the annual SCD catalogs relative to baseball cards, going all the way back to their deemed beginning in 1869.