Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards & Collectibles 2018 (Beckett Almanac of Baseball Cards and Collectibles)

I USE IT TO PRICE BASEBALL CARDS

For anyone that collects sports cards, especially Baseball, than this is an excellent source of reference. It helps you to find oddball sets and rarities that can help categorize your collection.

It's been 3 years since I've picked up a Beckett Baseball Almanac (used mostly for checklisting needs since prices can get out of date quickly on reasonably volume traded/bought/sold cards) and I am more disappointing with this edition than previous ones I"ve had.The detailed index of listings that used to be in the rear of the book to help find something specific quickly is now missing from this edition and the front index is only an overview as there are numerous sets and inserts listed in the book that aren't listed in the front index.There is tons of listings missing and the organization is poor. It took me awhile to find the 1952 Topps listing that I decided to look up because it's iconic enough that it should not be missing from any reference book. Many of the cards I was trying to look up from 2008-2009 are chopped out of the book (or not found because of the poor organization) and it seemed Beckett chopped out a lot of pre-2015 things to be able to put in more complete listings for 2015-2017. I know there has been an explosion of card releases and inserts since 1990 or so but you'd think all the stuff from at least the last 10 years should be in the book because that is what people are most likely wanting to look up or see a checklist for.This book is almost to the point it looks like Beckett is trying to give you an appetizer rather than something useful in print and then push you to their pricey subscription online guide on their website if you want complete content.For me, I'll have this book (and the one from 3 years ago and the one from 3 years ago before that) so I can piecemeal printed material together for all the various releases. If one started collecting recently or has a lot of pre-2015 material, it could turn into a online hunt for checklists or info for all the stuff that has been omitted from this book.