Papabear, mine is the second edition, and Jorge himself points out that the lion's share of the info in his book came from research gleaned by Al Reader over the years. He also mentions that many of the surviving Bear employees can't recall with any certainty the accuracy of some of the details and apparently there were few,if any, records kept. Not to mention the fact that a few of the bows produced were assembled using leftover material from a previous model run and that many times the Bear catalogs and brochures used photos that were not current production...it all adds up to a bowl of confusion soup and I think the second edition does an admirable job of organizing things, even if it's not 100%
Whether a new collector or a grizzled veteran, it's still somewhat of a crap shoot IMHO, but better than nothing.
Personally, I feel much better equipped to buy and advise others with, than without!