Customer Reviews

Beckett Official Price Guide to Baseball Cards 2002, 21st Edition (Official Price Guide to Baseball Cards (Beckett))

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To begin with, no other baseball card price guide even comes close to the number of sales as Beckett. Literally, the world over, Beckett is used by more people than in other guide on the market. This fine publication also has monthly guides covering baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. Beckett does extensive research on the hobby and sends analysts all over the world to keep track on what's happening in the baseball card market. Dr. James Beckett is an expert in the field of baseball card collecting and in this book gives readers valuable tips on how to preserve, store, and grade cards as well as lists in detail some of the most popular and sought after cards ever produced. With all the cards on the market, it is almost impossible to list them all in one book, so Beckett lists the ones that show the most interest to the general public. Now if you are into collecting rarities, you'll really want this price guide since Beckett lists some of the most rarest cards ever made. Many sets and singles alike are listed along with values on most all of them. Believe it or not, but, there are some cards on the market today that are so rare, a clear value cannot be placed on them, they are literally priceless. These include the very popular ONE OF ONES. These are cards where only one of each card in a set is produced.
If you are looking for a guide that has the most up-to-date information, the most listings and the most reliability, you can't beat Beckett. Please note this: If you go to Beckett or any other guide and cannot find a value for your card or cards, dont think for a moment that what you have is worthless. Like I stated earlier, with so many cards on the market today it is almost impossible to list them all, plus, some cards are produced that are so rare that NO ONE in the hobby may know about them until years later. For example, in 1990 Topps produced its regular baseball set including a Frank Thomas rookie. What no one knew was that there was also a very rare error card of Mr. Thomas produced. For years it was not even given a value, then finally the error card was listed with only a small value. Time passed and the card held that estimated value until it began a month by month rapid surge upward. As of August 2001, that same card is worth well over 500.00
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to find out what certain cards are worth or who would like to learn about some of the history of the baseball card market.

The beckett book was a great sorce to me because I have been collecting baseball cards sence I was 3 yr old and because I have over 7,000 cards so I think this book will be a good sorce for you to.

Not a practical guide in this collecting age. Does NOT have a comprehensive list; meaning it does NOT cover all manufacturers and, more importantly, for the ones it does, only provides listings of the base set. That means no insert or variation pricing whatsoever. Also, no oddball or minor league issues are listed. Generally speaking, unless you are collecting base sets prior to the advent of inserts and alternate versions of the base set, this guide is fairly useless.

A really nice guide plenty of little letters... you'll need a magnifying glass to read it !