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Posted By: Howard W. Rosenberg

Thanks to all the kind collectors who replied to my posting. It looks like I'll have a chance to see 5 of the 6 catalogs I mentioned that I hadn't seen (plus several other Mastro ones I was not aware of from as early as 1996); that now leaves only the April 1994 Sotheby's one as a Mastro or Sotheby's catalog that I know has 19th-century related stuff by virtue of containing at least one item related to Cap Anson.

In answer to Julie's question, my definition of "usual fare" are items that are part of a baseball card set that was mass produced, even if few of those items have survived. I am mostly interested in items that tend to appear in catalogs no more than once and specifically relate to major league baseball or the top teams of the pre-1876 era (as opposed to generic items like a clock or lantern of no baseball player in particular, although a Leland's auction catalog 1880s sled that is associated with Mike Kelly did make the cut for my Kelly book). I do find it interesting, in perusing catalogs, that certain seemingly one-of-a-kind items appear more than once, sometimes as close together as a few years apart. I always wonder whether the item didn't sell or whether someone is reselling it; it would be interesting, in either case, if catalogs contained a blurb to that effect, because then the public would know that there are not two rare copies of the same item.

Thanks again.