Sunday, August 26, 2018

Who's Cataloging The New Stuff?

In 2011, the last edition of the Sports Collector's Digest Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards was published.  It covered basically every single card issue of any company from the dawn of the sport to the present day.  Thoroughly cataloging every set, insert, parallel, and hit.  Arranged alphabetically by company and then by year, you could find any card product you wanted and there would be at least a little blurb on the production or features of the cards.


The next year, they came out with the "Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards".  It covers everything from about 1863 to 1980.  I agree with 1980 being the threshold of vintage.


 Since then, they have published six editions of the Vintage book.   The 2016 edition looks like this...  I have the 5th edition from the year before.


That's all fine and good.  The vintage stuff doesn't really change that much.  Makes sense to separate it from the rest of the years.  Not to mention the sheer bulk of the information.

My question is, Is anyone working on the next edition of the book about the newer stuff?

They should make another book with just the 80's and 90's.  All the bloat and variations would fill a big book.  Everything from the 80's to the turn of the century, including the Junk Wax Era.  I'd buy that.

Then go back and finish the third book that would keep getting updated.  The modern cards edition - 2000 through the present year.  Lord knows the Topps section would be 4/5 of the whole thing.

There hasn't been a catalog about every significant modern set produced since 2010 Topps Series 2.  That's eight years of modern cards with no reference other than online.

My guess is that since the passing of Bob Lemke, no one has taken over the reins.  Hopefully, the company isn't just full of millenials who don't have the attention span to type out a checklist longer than 132 cards.

The Trading Card Database is awesome, but I'd still like a hard copy (yes, I'm old school like that), to browse through and discover more obscure issues.  It is easy to call up the TCDB on my phone if I need to put a name to a card number, but there is no complete substitute to a real book you can hold in your hands, even though it would hurt to drop it on your feet.

What say you?  Would you still like a full Standard Catalog for the newer sets?

5 comments:

  1. I would have liked a hard copy a few years back, but I've submersed myself more and more with the websites that have the checklists for the sets I need to look up: Cardboard Connection, Baseballcardpedia.com and my new favorite, Break Ninja, which is perfect for team collectors.
    I've actually never used The Trading Card Database.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd like to have such a reference, but wouldn't want to be the poor soul who puts it together. I also have the vintage edition which meets my needs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It'd be nice. ... I don't know how often I'd look up stuff like that. I go to the Standard Catalog 99.999 percent for info on sets pre-1990.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Imagine the size of the book if all baseball cards and variations were put in print. Maybe 2000-2500 pages. It would be crazy. Cool, but crazy. Cool enough, though, that I'd probably buy one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It would be a shame if nobody out there is working on an updated version with all of the current sets. However with so much information available online, I could totally see why they wouldn't.

    ReplyDelete