The Official Beckett Price Guide to Basketball Cards 2004, 13th edition (Official Price Guide to Basketball Cards (Beckett)) [Mass Market Paperback]

James Beckett (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: House of Collectibles; 13th edition (November 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140004863X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400048632
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,153,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Basketball Price Guide for those of us after older cards, March 19, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Official Beckett Price Guide to Basketball Cards 2004, 13th edition (Official Price Guide to Basketball Cards (Beckett)) (Mass Market Paperback)

Clearly the monthly price guides put out by Beckett are the way to go if you are trying to keep up with the explosion of basketball cards that are being put out each year. But all they can really do is focus on the cards of the stars, which is true not only for LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony today but Wilt Chamberlain and Pete Maravich from the olden days. But if you are really trying to But if you are trying to put together a set of 1971-72 Topps, 1986-87 Fleer or 1992-93 Hoops, then you really need to have a list of all the cards so that you are ready when you head off to a card show or shop and have to deal with dealers who organize their cards by number or team or name of the players. "The Official Beckett Price Guide to Basketball Cards 2004, 13th edition" serves your organizational purposes perfectly. The prices in this guide may well be obsolete, although the farther you go back the more accurate they tend to be. But you really want this book for all the lists of all of the cards compiled by the good doctor and his associates.

You will find that at 6.92 x 4.18 the size of this volume is below what we would have called standard size for collectible card price guides. This is of prime importance for collectors who want a book that we can take to us with card shows. If not, then you can still use this guide to put together your want lists. I am in the process of finishing off a 1971-72 Topps set of basketball cards (about two dozen to go), so I do not need to know how many types of LeBron James cards came out this year. I need to know what cards I am missing without having to pick up the NBA and ABA Checklists for that year and then copying my own list. A book is a lot harder to lose that a list anyway and dealing with the triplet cards Topps put out in 1980-81 is too much of a pain any other way.

That is why the boxes to check off for each card are exactly what I need, whether it is the exalted card from that 1980-81 set where the three players were the rookie "cards" for Magic Johnson and Larry Bird but also Dr. J. This is the book that will tell you that if you are looking for the first basketball card ever produced then you need to track down the 1948 Bowman card of Ernie Calverley. There are about two dozen card companies covered in the 50,000 cards for which prices are provided, which means Topps, Fleer, Hopps, Bowman, Sky Box, Ultra, Upper Deck and all the wannabee companies.

As is always the case with the Beckett volumes, there are tips on how to buy, sell, and care for your cards. These are valuable whether you are in it for the fun or the economics. The prices are always the least important aspect of these books for the simple reasons that the prices are out of date by the time the book hits the stands, which is why Beckett publishes a magazine on basketball cards. However, while that will give you current prices it will not tell you who was card #40 in that 1972-73 Topps set (Bob Rule of the Philadelphia 76ers). For the younger fans the magazine will undoubtedly suffice, but for those of us who remember the red, white & blue ball of the A.B.A. and when players in the N.B.A. knew how to shoot the orange ball instead of just dunking it, this Beckett book will fulfill all of our needs.