Collected Books: The Guide to Identification and Values. Allen OSB Ahearn

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СКАЧАТЬ not continue to be as useful a price guide as it has been because comparable copies of collectible books may not be for sale so readily in future years. Already, we find, in looking for certain titles, that where there were 50 copies online a year ago, with probably 10 of these being in collectible condition, now there may be only 10 copies and none in collectible condition. So, a search online for comparable, or similar, copies to one in-hand may not prove to be as fruitful as in the past. And, as condition is so important a factor in determining price, with a fine copy in-hand does it really help to know there are 5 low-priced copies in poor condition online? Not really.

      As mentioned above, the prices for highly collectible first editions rose rapidly in the 1990’s and continued to rise through the first decade of the 21^st century (although perhaps not at the same rate). But rapidly escalating prices on highly prized titles is only a small part of the overall trend seen in the collected books market. The advent of internet search engines, with ABE.com in the forefront, has revealed the true availability or scarcity of individual titles. Books we thought were relatively scarce a few years ago, we find are actually readily available on the net. The result has been that the retail prices for those books which might have been in the $50 to $150 range have dropped into the $10 to $50 range. Conversely, the titles we always knew were very scarce, if not rare, either are not on the web or, when they do turn up, are priced increasingly higher.

      In regard to our thoughts on the impact of the internet on the prices of titles in this volume, we feel most of the books herein are relatively scarce or highly collectible, and therefore the prices on these titles have held or increased. In general, our sense is that the non-fiction did better than the fiction over the last decade or so. Much of the Americana, particularly the western Americana, showed strong increases, as did books on travel and exploration, economics and finance. Children’s books included in the book did very well, although there aren’t a great number of them. Books on books have held their prices which is normal, as they haven’t shown much growth in prices over the years. In literature, prices for many of the literary authors from the last 20 or 30 years went down in value, most likely as a result of the internet revealing the abundance of copies relative to the buyers available. On the other hand, books published before 1950 held up well; and many genres, such as mysteries, detective, and science fiction have shown very good increases in values. A mixed bag, but as we all know this market is driven by supply and demand, as are most markets, and the internet has given everyone a much more accurate picture of the true supply (whereas before we were all making educated guesses).

      Please take a moment to look at the information on the endpapers. We believe this book will prove useful by providing estimated values for a selection of collected books based on the condition guidelines on the endpapers. We have based the estimates herein on prices of current copies offered for sale or prices realized at recent auctions. But many of the books have not appeared at auction for years, or on the internet, or in dealers’ catalogs. In these cases, we made estimates based on our years in the trade of buying and selling books and by consulting with the many helpful contacts we have made over the years. (See the Acknowledgement section.)

      We believe the vast majority of the information in this book is accurate, particularly the bibliographical information, which is based on the books in our reference library (see Selected Bibliography of Works Consulted for a list). We strongly encourage correspondence on errors or confusing entries. We believe the prices are representative of current retail prices, but with 20,000 or so entries it would be unlikely to get them all right. So consult other sources as well before making a final decision on buying or pricing an expensive book.

      As mentioned before, we used our own experience buying and selling, and auction, internet and catalog prices, or projections from these prices, to estimate our prices. But remember that a price guide such as this may under-price scarce or rare books, and these truly scarce titles may be priced far above our estimates when they finally appear on the market. The latter is reasonable, because the estimates on the scarce books have been based on very few or, in some cases, very old appearances at auction or in catalogs.

      Have fun and enjoy the chase. There are still a lot of good books and good people out there to meet.

      USING THIS GUIDE

      All books listed herein are first editions/first printings of the individual titles, unless otherwise stated. Each of the entries includes sufficient information to allow the reader to identify editions of the book in-hand. The prices are our best estimates for the books in the condition described below. What we have tried to do is outline how a publisher identifies their first printings (First Edition Identification By Publisher), and note exceptions. In other words, if the book you have is published by Random House and the First Edition Identification By Publisher states that Random House states “First Printing” on their books, and they didn’t on the book in-hand, the entry will say “first edition not stated” (otherwise there will be no exception noted and the book in-hand should, in this example, state “First Printing” — or it isn’t a first).

      Remember, we are not trying to tell you if a book is a $50 or $60 book, we are trying to tell you if it is closer to $50 than to $500. The more expensive it is, the more research you should do.

      The entries are composed of:

      Author, title, place of publication, date of publication, and only that additional information needed to identify the issue, the state or edition, and the value.

      All entries start with the first editions (first printings) unless otherwise stated. “Trade” is used to indicate the first general edition available for public sale after a limited edition has been issued; usually the same sheets are used for both the limited and trade editions. The later entries under the same title usually show the first U.S. or first U.K. editions, illustrated editions or other editions of some value.

      If the author’s name does not appear on the title page, the entry will start with the title. If the author used a pseudonym, the pseudonym will appear first and the entry will include the author’s name in parentheses.

      IMPORTANT NOTES:

      The section on First Edition Identification by Publisher is applicable to each entry unless otherwise stated.

      Author’s first books: There are many titles listed which state that the title is the author’s first book. In most cases, in our opinion, an author’s first book puts an upper limit on the value of his or her books. This is why the value of the first book can often be used as a rough guide to estimating the prices of later books. If a current catalog price or auction record is available, it could, of course, be more reliable. But if such records are not available and you find two books by the same author, one published in 1930 and one in 1940, the one published in 1930 will normally be valued higher, and it will be important to know whether the author’s first book was published in 1900 or 1929. This rule applies to unsigned trade editions only (often a signed and limited edition of a later book will be valued more highly than the first or earlier book). There are exceptions—for example, when a first or early book had a large printing; or when a later book is much scarcer and/or is acclaimed as an “important” book with lasting literary value; or perhaps when a popular movie has been made out of a later book.

      BAL, VAB, etc: Occasionally an entry will reference VAB (Van Allen Bradley's Handbook of Values, 1982-1983) if there were points in VAB that could not be found in any other reference work, and we thought they should not be left out. In addition, some entries include reference to specific bibliographies, such as Bibliography of American Literature (BAL), First Printings of American Authors (FPAA), Modern First Editions, by Merle Johnson (Johnson), and USiana by Wright Howes (Howes). Full titles of these and other bibliographies СКАЧАТЬ