Randolph,  Here's a suggestion for what to do with those catalogs.
There is a company near Rochester, New York, that makes a special
scanner that will scan those catalogs without harming them.  They
also have a self-publishing arrangement.  You can send them the
catalog (or book) and they will scan it for a small fee per page.
Then they will list it on their web site and offer copies for sale.
You get the original back, of course, plus a small fee for each
copy sold.  The company is Kirtas and you can see their scanner at
http://www.kirtas.com/  To learn about the books-on-demand details,
go to  http://www.kirtasbooks.com/ 

This way you can keep the original to sell on eBay plus make it
available to others who may like to see the content.

I happen to know about this because I once evaluated the page turning
system they use and the license from Xerox while I worked at Xerox
many years ago.

Regards
Craig Smith

By the way, Kirtas Books will do this for any out-of-print or
out-of-copyright book.  If you are the first with a really popular
book, you could even get rich!