Beckett price surveys in SCD, 1977-1978

[Leon]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing David. I have some piles of old stuff like this, several feet high. Eventually all will be shared too. I love seeing where our hobby was many years ago.

[trdcrdkid]

I have a lot more of this type of stuff, including a complete run of SCD from the beginning in 1973 to about 1991 (and then most of the period from 1992 to 1997), plus a ton of other publications dating back to the 1950s. I bought them 20 years ago from Dan Even, a longtime collector who had put together a big collection of hobby publications but needed to get rid of them because he was moving. I also still have my own hobby stuff dating back to the mid-70s, some of which I've posted here, such as the 1979 price list of Paul Marchant, from whom I bought my first T206 and 1933 Goudey.

[trdcrdkid]

As an addendum to this thread, last night I found the following article from the November 1, 1976 Sports Collectors News, with an update from Jim Beckett on how his price survey was going and the feedback he was receiving. Sorry for the crappy photo quality, but I think the article should be legible. It's interesting that Beckett emphasized that he was not going to sell the survey results, but would make them freely available to the hobby. Obviously that changed as his price surveys grew way beyond what he must have imagined in 1976.

[Peter_Spaeth]

David, you have quite the remarkable collection of long-ago publications. I hope your living space doesn't look like this.

[toppcat]

The Trader Speaks had similar Beckett surveys and results around the same time frame. Very comprehensive for the times was Dr Beckett

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

David, you have quite the remarkable collection of long-ago publications. I hope your living space doesn't look like this.

Haha! Not quite, Peter. The vast majority of my hobby publications are kept downstairs in my storage unit, though right now I have some of the oldest ones upstairs for research purposes. I do have a lot of books, some of which are in stacks on the floor of my office either for research purposes or for lack of shelf space, but that's mainly in that one room, and it's not quite a "Hoarders" situation.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

Haha! Not quite, Peter. The vast majority of my hobby publications are kept downstairs in my storage unit, though right now I have some of the oldest ones upstairs for research purposes. I do have a lot of books, some of which are in stacks on the floor of my office either for research purposes or for lack of shelf space, but that's mainly in that one room, and it's not quite a "Hoarders" situation.

My wife is like that with the books, and she thinks the solution is not to give any away (like children's books from decades ago) but rather to buy more and more bookcases.

[Rich Klein]

As an FYI; SCD ran those surveys over several pages so their "editorial" content could meet federal guidelines (I remember reading that at the time". That way they could qualify for a reduced shipping rate and be a certain type of publication. That is why the surveys ran for all those pages almost every issue of SCD in those days

Rich