|
Luke, I know what you mean about eBay prices. The thing is, books are so condition-critical for their value that most people are hesitant to bid top amounts when private sellers may "forget" the fraying to the dustwrapper or the snapped spine which you can't quite see in the pictures.
I know I come across as a bit of a book-snob sometimes, but I am aware of what the serious collectors will demand. Myself - I go for quantity of library rather than individual mint examples. My Autocourses are frayed and battered and I paid pennies for them in comparison to the mint prices, but I know that I would spoil a mint one in the number of times I take it down off the shelf. My "Racing With the David Brown Aston Martins" cost me a fraction of the £200 a decent set will cost, but it's yellow, rank and smelly having been in a heavy pipe-smoker's house until I rescued it from him by pressing a £50 note into his hand. It's never going to be worth much more than that, but that's okay, because there's too much good information in it for me ever to be disappointed.
The key thing is, if you want a reading copy of any book, it's never too difficult to find them, so don't go paying over the odds. In fact, I sometimes think that some books look better without dustjackets on them at all, but that's a very subjective opinion. Other people want them mint, just as the publisher intended, and that's where the money is, because by their very nature, mint examples will always be in the minority.
|