Collection of Twenty-Seven De Witt, Beadle's, Spalding, and Reach Baseball Guides in thirteen volumes, 1870-1912
New York, Newark, and Philadelphia: Robert M. De Witt, Publisher, Beadle and Adams, A.J. Reach & Co., The American Sports Publishing Co., 1870-1912. Very Good. Item #26124
New York, Newark, NJ, Philadelphia: Robert M. De Witt, Publisher, Beadle and Adams, A.J. Reach & Co., The American Sports Publishing Co., 1870-1912. Collection includes 9 issues of De Witt, a single issue of Beadle's "The Dime Base-Ball Player," 12 issues of Reach, and 5 Spalding baseball guides in 13 uniformly bound volumes. Full list of individual issues below. Small octavos. Black and white illustrations including photographs, diagrams, and advertisements throughout. Recent maroon cloth binding, most original wraps bound in except when noted in complete list.
Light rubbing to edges of cloth, otherwise bindings sound. Very slightly ex-library with "Reference Dept. Feb 9 1922 N.E.A." to endpapers of each volume with occasional interior stamps. The De Witts are remarkably well preserved though Reach and Spaldings shows some rubbing and chipping to wraps. Overall a Very Good set spanning over 40 years of early baseball history.
Many volumes here were edited by Henry Chadwick, considered by many to be the "Father of Baseball," a pioneer of sports journalism credited with creating box scores as well as batting and earned run averages. Chadwick helped popularize the game through the baseball guides, "The Beadle Dime Base-Ball Player" being the earliest. Scarce with only a few individual issues of either publication in retail as of March 2023.
List of titles:
De Witt Volume I: Includes 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874 with front and rear wraps bound in.
De Witt Volume II: Includes 1880 De Witt, 1881 Beadle's, and 1882, '83, '84, and '85 De Witt.
Reach Volume I: 1887 and 1888 Reach. Front '87 wrap chipped with writing to front. Lacking rear wrap of 1887 and front wrap of '88. Heavily annotations to '87, and previous owner appears to have torn out a few headshots of ballplayers to '88, with two pages excised entirely.
Reach Volume II: 1889 and '90. Slight chipping to '89 wraps.
Reach Volume III: 1894 and '95, front wrap of '94 lacking.
Reach Volume IV: 1896 and 1897. Slight chipping and tape mending to front wrap of '96.
Reach Volume V: 1907. Rear hinge of boards cracked along bottom third, though binding holding soundly.
Reach Volume VI: 1908. Exposure to gutter of pp. 32-33, but binding holding soundly.
Reach Volume VII: 1909. Opens easily between gatherings with some starting, but overall binding holding soundly.
Reach Volume VIII: 1912. Chip to front wrap along top edge near gutter with general rubbing.
Spalding Volume I: 1900 and 1901. '00 lacking front wrap.
Spalding Volume II: 1906, lacking rear wrap.
Spalding Volume III: 1908 and 1909. Includes '09 rear wrap only, lacking the other three.
Also included is Spalding 1904 and 1905, though incomplete. Bound as above, but lacking wraps and defective, lacking title pages and first 8 pages of each volume.
[Grobani pp. 11-13].
Price: $7,500.00