Baseball book market: not dead, but merely resting? Beautiful spalding on ebay

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Posted By: barrysloate

I didn't answer Dan's question but I want to address it. Back in the 1990's, which can clearly be considered the golden age of baseball book collecting, there was a well known whale who lived in Seattle who almost single-handedly kept the market going. If he needed it, a record price was guaranteed. But the market was deeper than that, with a lot of mid-range collectors who were pretty active. I remember back then books were just about my number one pursuit, and if I could find a good collection I knew I was going to do well with it.

I will never give up on baseball books completely, and still find good values out there. But it is discouraging how few serious collectors are around. In fact, if I had a rare book for sale I'm not sure who I would call (maybe Max). But I still believe in them as great artifacts, they just aren't as sellable as they once were.