Re-Found Baseball Card Book

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Posted By: Judson Hamlin

Does anyone else out there remember "The Complete Book of Baseball Cards" by a Steve Clark? I just re-found my copy from '77 and it has some interesting interviews with Woody Gelman, Irving Lerner, Wayne Varner (poo-pooing tobacco cards), Mike Aronstein and even Renata Galasso. It also has bits on the old NYC armory show, with a quote from Bob Gallagher "This '54 Aaron was worth $2 a few years ago. Today it goes for $12." An unexpected reminder of one of the reasons I got hooked in the hobby.

Amazingly enough, not one word on cockfighting

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Posted By: boxingcardman

I got it when it came out, traded it a few years later for a box of 1960s cards, and bought another copy. Great fun for the long-time collectors to read and for newer collectors to get a taste of what it was like as the hobby took off. There is also an amazing amount of misinformation in the book--stuff that has been researched and debunked since it was written.

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Posted By: peter chao

Judson,

Was the book one of the reasons you got hooked...or the fact the Aaron went from $2-$12.

Peter

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Posted By: judson hamlin

The book - in part because I was fascinated (I was 9) by the different card sets shown. Looking back now, I would agree that there is much that has proven to be wrong. I am a tad envious of $6 T200's though.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

In 1978 our family's summer vacation was a trip to Cooperstown. I spent the majority of the brutally boring -- and long -- car drive from Canton, Ohio, to the holy grail reading and re-reading The Complete Book of Baseball Cards, the second edition of the Sports Collector's Bible and a catalog from Den's Collectors Den. The best part was that The Complete Book of Baseball Cards had a chapter that mentioned Cooperstown, the card shops that were there and some of the cards that were available to buy. Talk about whetting a 15-year-old collector's appetite!

Still have those books, too.