Who named the various pre war sets?

Any good books on the topic?

if your talking about names like H804-3, T205, W555, D303, M101-5, V122, then its the ACC that gave card sets their names. Jefferson Burdick wrote and updated the ACC.... ACC is "The American Card Catalog", 98% of the cards listed in the book are non-sports cards, so the book may not be for everyone, plus the price guide in the book is about 60 years old and a bit off ie T211 cards listed for 5 cents now sell for $500, T214s listed fro 10 cents sell for $2K + etc.

Reprints of the book can be had for $10-$20, original copies often sell for $100+ at times depending of the print number (older the better). The info in the book was started in the 1930s and was updated well into the 1950s. its the bible of card collecting but mainly non-sports cards.

PS its not just PreWar cards, Topps even has a ACC# its just that no one uses it now, same with Redman chew (the last Tobacco cards ACC# T232, T233, etc.) if you collect pre 1950 cards you better get to know some of the ACC#s, they are the best way to accurately ID card sets... dont say "1933 Goudey", say 1933 R319 or 1933 R319 Goudey...... because Goudey made many sets that over lapped years ie 1936 R314-1, 1936 R322 are both made by Goudey, same with 1933 R319 and 1933 R309-1, 1935 R321 and 1935 R309-2 are both made by Goudey in same years, etc. etc.

dont say "American Caramel" ........... American Caramel made many sets, ie E90-1, E90-2, E90-3, E106, E120, E121-80, E121-120, E122, E125, etc.

its not that hard to learn the numbers, there really arent too many of them for baseball cards...

There were American Card Catalogs by Jefferson Burdick starting in 1939 (500 copies printed) as the US Card Collectors Catalog and then every seven years until 1960. Then there was one more put out by Gelman in 1967. A most recent one is a must for serious pre-war collectors, imho.