Wow, really awesome stuff you got there. As a history freak such things are like treasures to me.
We still have a collection of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyers_Konversations-Lexikon THe version we own is around 1902-1905. 20 books.
Further 3 called for example "Jahressupplement 1909/1910" I think thats jusz the additions, like adding an article to wikipedia
Got 1909/1910, 1910/1911 and 1911/1912 from that. There are also 2 more books though: "Ergänzungen", supplement in English
I think that are the supplements to the 20 book-encyclopedia.
I never looked into them a real lot, but they are all lined up in a usual bookshelf in a usual room. I'll do that right now.
From outside they look like being in a very bad condition, but from the inside it all still looks good and there are sometimes thick papered pages, which you can tilt up and have beautiful, coloured drawings then. A lot of things are written on pages with pencils, but I can not read them. Hand written old German letters are hard to read nowadays.
The books contain old newspaper articles from ~ 1920 to 1975, but also bills as well as random pieces of paper with hand-written stuff. I think around 1985 the books did not move around a lot anyomore and nobody ever took a serious look at them.
One of the most interesting things are old city maps of several German cities I have found.
Another interesting aspect was, living with the colonial policy and Imperialism of Wilhelm II, the ethnology of African peoples. With a lot of pictures of their faces (coloured ones on carton) and a lot of pictures of their weapons and tools they used.
Those books have been in this family for over 100 years now and I will do all I can to keep that up
I'll post some photos if you are interested. It's not nearly as interesting as "Easy Eight"s stuff though
cheers