jock123 Moderator
|
#16 · Posted: 25 Feb 2015 09:53
Hi, frenchie46, and welcome!
Sadly you aren't sitting on nest-egg there; as you will see if you read back through the thread, and similar discussions on the boards, there is not really any great call for second-hand paperbacks - they never seem to have attracted collectors.
Outside of hardback first editions, there are few obviously collectible books in English; there might be a slight difference if they have the old-style writing, as opposed to the later digital type currently to be found, but I don't know that it makes much of a difference to value.
We don't have the precise information about printing history, edition variations and suchlike that forms the structure of the French collector scene, but we also don't have nearly such an avid collector market for BD either.
I would save the £9.99 a month for information about the value of books, as without any concrete information about just how many copies of the books were printed, and how well they sold, and if there were specific differences between editions, it can only be supposition and speculation.
Dealers and speculators try to build up certain titles as being "rare" or "valuable", but with no real evidence for it.
The Making Of double albums are a prime example of this - given that they were widely available for a period of years, and the number which come up for sale, the books are not that uncommon, but prices were driven ever upwards.
This may have been because those that really wanted them really wanted them, but casual observation of how things performed on places like eBay suggests it being more like sellers trying and failing to sell at those high prices.
Personally, I'd not bother paying for information about pricing on the English-language books; for one thing, it is a charter to treat them as commodities, and that isn't good for the genuine fan collector, as you end up competing for items against those solely interested in making money on an investment, which is inflationary.
Another reason against it is, as I said, that the substantive data needed (publication numbers etc.) just isn't available (several of us have tried to get it over the years, but due to one reason or another it no longer seems to exist). Any listings will be entirely speculative, so the chances are that prices will be fixed with no more accuracy than stick a finger up in the wind and guessing.
If you are thinking of selling (or buying), it is probably best to make such researches yourself - look at how things do on eBay, not just as sales, but items which complete without selling, then you can get a better picture of what the monetary value at any given time is.
|