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brian pI do not personally believe that the Zeenut publication is worth $100+ for its checklist information alone, as both the SCD Standard Catalog and Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards provide the same basic information. The Horne book does give you a better idea of the variations available in each year, as well as some scarcity information within some of the years, although I imagine this information has needed revision multiple times in the past 25 years. There is also a nice overview of the production and distribution of the cards, and a couple of first hand collector accounts included.
Of the two main checklist sources for Zeenuts, I find the Beckett more useful (at least the 4th edition issued around 2000 that I have) because the player's full name is listed about 99% of the time, unlike in the SCD guide where just the last name is included, and the cards are listed within each year alphabetically by team (although unfortunately these teams are not identified). Why this would be important is that many collectors collect Zeenuts just for certain players or by team. Also, the Beckett gives the collector at least a passing idea of the popularity of a player by varying the prices of the cards within a year--instead of SCD's policy of making every card but the most obvious (HOF'ers, Jim Thorpe's, etc) a common.
Brian