[Mark]

Hi. Welcome to this side of the hobby. To my mind, collecting game used or pro model bats, caps, gloves, etc. takes the baseball collector much closer to the actual game.

If I were starting out, I would spend some time searching for bats on old Heritage Auctions, MEARS auctions, Robert Edward Auctions, Hunt Auctions sites.... they all have archives. This should give you a rough picture of what is/was out there and, in the case of very old bats, how often (rarely) they are available. If you have a favorite team, that can help you search. There a number of books, booklets, and a few articles that are useful if you become hooked.