Here’s a scan of Dr. Jim Beckett’s first report on baseball card prices from the April 1977 issue of The Trader Speaks.
The survey he referenced was distributed across multiple hobby channels, but in keeping with The Trader Speaks theme, here’s the one from their January 1977 issue.
And here’s Part 2 of the Price Survey Results from the May 1977 issue of The Trader Speaks.
As I said, Beckett distributed the survey and results across multiple hobby channels; David Kathman provided a nice overall summary on the net54 boards, including when Dr. Beckett printed details in Sports Collectors Digest.
In the fall of 1976, Jim Beckett, then a professor of statistics at Bowling Green State University as well as a collector and dealer of baseball cards, got the idea of doing a survey of other collectors and dealers in order to determine the market value of various cards and card sets. He wrote up a survey, and the September 30, 1976 issue of Sports Collectors Digest announced his project, and his intention to distribute the survey at various card conventions and by mail. The October 31, 1976 SCD had a status report by Beckett, clarifying what he hoped to achieve with the survey, and the January 15, 1977 SCD printed the survey itself. The results of this first survey appeared in SCD in two parts: in the March 31, 1977 issue for Topps and Bowman cards, and in the April 30, 1977 issue for all other card sets.
Hobby History!