Posted By:
Max WederJason
ABE is of course a series of booksellers who upload their inventory. If the price is too high on an item, the buyer simply can choose not to buy. So ABE doesn't "get away" with anything; a buyer has to gain knowledge as to what price should be paid for a book that is offered. There are several baseball books listed on ABE that I would love to have, but the price is simply too high--by a factor of 10 in one case.
The baseball book market is also very thinly traded, much more so than cards. When one collector completes his interests, the prices will drop off considerably on subsequent titles. I believe that there are far fewer book collectors entering the market than card collectors.
That said, I don't even know if there was suspense over the 1863 title. It's called The Bobbin Boy. No game illustrations, and I can't say there is an abundance of a baseball plot, but there is at least one chapter on a baseball game, and for the price, is worth a pickup.
Max