But I know what you mean.

It must have been about 20 years ago that my hubby and I saw some old Nevada phone books on ebay. Phone Books??!!!???! Who would want old phone books???!??! A little later it was "Hmmm...they might be interesting at that?!" By the time the auctions ended we had established a maximum price that we were wiling to spend. Didn't know if it would cover 1 phone book, or all 7 that the seller had up for auction, or some number in the middle. We sniped and won all 7 phone books. When they arrived it was such fun looking at them, finding ads for the old casinos, finding a listing for Benny Binion...and some other famous and infamous names. We spent hours looking at them.

Now we have about 70 phone books from 1931-2000 (or thereabouts...I'm not really sure what years the newest ones are). Some of the books from 1931-1956 cover virtually the whole state of Nevada. Others are from small towns and are only a few pages...of course some are from Las Vegas or Reno.

Glad I could either help out, or add to your confusion...!

I made "indexes" for a few of them. A project that I should get back to someday...