Tuesday, February 3, 2015

A Little Light Reading

This beast of a book arrived last week from Amazon.



I would have scanned the cover but I feared it would pulverize my poor scanner.

A dealer at one of the card shows tipped me off the existence of the book, and I was able to use some gift card $$ from the holidays to essentially get the book for free!

This might be the closest I'll get to owning a complete set of 1952 Topps in mint condition - I could easily spend hours just poring through the various year's pages.

Leafing through the years helps my efforts to complete a vintage wantlist of Topps cards. It's kind of a bummer that the book doesn't have the card backs too, but the full color reproductions of the front of each card is a real treat.


There's even an index in the back so I can make sure I have all the Elmer Valos and Coot Veals I could ever want:




There a bunch of books out there about baseball cards, do you have a favorite?


9 comments:

  1. The baseball card Flipping, trading and bubble gum card is really fun to read. I also read Mint Condition, on the history of baseball cards, and it was very interesting, even though the chapter on graded cards was kind of boring.

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  2. I picked up that book at a library 'fire sale' a few years ago. I love it.

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  3. "Flipping" is a book I haven't heard about yet - thanks for the recommendation!

    I did read "Mint Condition" - the most interesting stuff to me was about Jefferson Burdick, the collector that coined terms for all the various Tobacco issues, and spent a big chunk of his later life cataloging his collection for donation to the Met in NYC...

    Just fascinating - here's a NY Times article about Burdick: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/sports/baseball/baseball-card-collecting-was-lifes-work-for-jefferson-burdick.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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  4. I've been chasing one of these. Found one that ends at 1985 for fifteen bucks. The one that goes to 1990 is $100. I'll take my chances on the old version...for now.

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    1. I had the same thought process when I found this thing on Amazon - the 1951-1990 book must not have been printed in the same supply.

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  5. I have the 1951-1990 version. I must have picked it up on markdown somewhere (Borders?) I also have the individual 1950's and 1960's versions. I also wish they showed the backs but I understand when they don't.

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  6. I'm going to have to track one down

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    1. A library sale (like the one CommishBob went to) might be a great way to find one cheaply - Amazon had a few reasonable used copies, otherwise it seems like it's being treated as a collector's item.

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  7. Yeah, that would be a pretty big book to get both front and back of every topps card, even with the slightly shrunk-down versions they have in the book now.

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