Where to find First editions and how to get the right price?

I often scout out the second hand book stores for first editions. There seems to be a huge price range for similar works - excluding the obvious condition issues (DJ, spine, overall condition). Wondering where the best place is to

a) get a good idea of current values.
b) find the book I want.

I have tried Abebooks which has been helpful - is there any other suggestions out there?

Abebooks is good; a couple of my local used bookstores use it to help them price their books.

You can also try Alibris.

I like bookfinder.com too.

I like Abe for the quick searches and bookfinder.com does the best comprehensive search across a wide array of dealers. Another oprion is: http://www.addall.com/

A very good book search site is www.vialibri.net , a lot like bookfinder.com but searches different book websites.

On a different note: Among other things I collect hypermodern first edition historical/ mysteries and try to buy new authors first novels in this genre. To that end I noted a very positive review of Clare Clark's 2nd novel "The Nature of of Monsters" in the NYTBR. So I thought I would buy the first edition of her first novel. Turns out that the search sites list three publications as firsts, a Harcourt US edition, a Viking uk and a Penguin uk. All of these are hardcover but which is the true first? The author has lived in the uk and may still do so (a possible vote for a Brit first?). I am gussing that the Viking and the Penguins are the same issued as Viking/Penguin but Penguin still seems to issue independent hardbound novels in some countries so.... Since all three versions were issued in 2005 which was published earliest in the year? The sale listings do not indicate the month of issuance but after some searching I found that the amazon uk site lists Viking/Penguin? as a February release and the Harcourt us as an October release. So I selected a Viking uk copy from the dealer sites for purchase. What do you think? Did I make the right choice or should I go back to OCD school and retake anal retention 101 :-)

#7 Well - that sort of careful analysis certainly leaves me in the dust.

Ijust bought the same book The Nature of Monsters (touchstone not locating correct title) by Clare Clark after reading the NYTBR also. I imagine the London edition is the true first - but I don't think that it probably makes much different in the end. In some cases, the US firsts become more valuable.

If you really want to cover your bases, you could buy both!!! That would satisfiy both eventualities. I bought the US copy - Harcourt - as it was available in the stores.

Do you really think it will be a book worth owning in the long run.

Have you bought any other books recently that you think are future collectors pieces.

#7 & #8, Yeah, it leaves me in the dust too. Whenever I get into a quandry, my husband always asks me "Why are you collecting? Is it only for the possible future value of the book, the best condition, etc? Is it to own a complete set of a certain author? Or something else?" Maybe you can help me with my current problem. I have obtained two copies of Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler. One is a first edition, complete number line, etc but is ex-library and has very obvious sun fading to its cover. The other is a pristine and beautiful book club edition. Which one is best for my collection? I haven't been able to decide.

> 9

I think the answer to your question depends on the reason you're collecting (to echo your husband). If you really want to collect true firsts, then the former is the one you want, even though the value is seriously reduced because of its condition. But if all you care about is having a copy of every one of Chandler's books, and condition is important to you, then go for the book club edition, understanding that it isn't going to have much monetary value (because it's a book club edition).

#10 Yes, that's the answer I had pretty much settled on. But I'm such a sucker for a nice dust jacket. Too bad the books not the same size or I could swap them out!

#8, 9
Yeah, it's easy to lose sight of why you are collecting these books and become obsessed with the details. I just remember that I had a nice copy of Hillerman's Blessing Way which was a uk 1st which was vaued at about $250 (it was signed). The Harper & Row us firsts are selling for about $600 to $850. So it can be a significant down the road if the author is a success. Personally, I love to see those bright, pristine dust jackets on the shelf as well as to hold a book which has personal meaning for me. Every one of my collectibles has multiple stories behind it although only one is on the printed page.

I have picked up a couple of other first novels that I thought were worth a spec investment: Medicus by R. S. Downie (it's a signed uk 1st bearing the Michael Joseph imprint which, ironically, is a Penguin issue) and The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies, a us 1st.

As to whether a book is worth owning in the long run... I would sure hate to put my retirement investments on any selection. The odds are worse than those for picking the trifecta at Belmont. But an author's first novel is the best shot and improve if the print run was small and the book is made into a movie etc. etc.

The book collector's magazine Firsts did an analysis of the change in value of what they termed blue chip first editions (eg Hemingways, Steinbecks, Fitzgeralds etc) since 1975. I was stunned to note that a copy of Fitzgerald's Gatsby was now valued at $250,000. It could have been purchased for $500 in 1975. A $40 copy of The Sound and the Fury in 1975 now brings $50,000. Enough to keep you vigilant in the thrift stores. Despite increasing scarcity I still believe that, as far as books are concerned, anything can be anywhere.

On that note - I recently (one month ago) bought a copy of The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck on E-bay. It cost me $50 US and was a signed copy - although it had a dedication to Bob. I wonder if that was a bargain or not??

The Moon is Down apparently had a large initial print run ( stated by some to have been 65,000) and was not included in First's analysis of price trends. I also have a copy of this book and have determined it to be a "second state" first in VG/VG condition lacking the definitive point for first state editions. That point is the presence of a period on page 112 between "this that" usually paired with the omission on the copyright page of the identity of the printer as Haddon Craftsmen. If your copy meets these tests (no printer name, presence of period) with the Viking first published 1942 copyright statement it could be valued from $100 to $300 depending on condition. I have valued my second state copy at about $75. Now, if your copy bears a true Steinbeck dedication to Bob or even a Steinbeck signature alone, it would be similar to copies now selling for $3500 to $4500.

Scotchbooks - thanks so much for the information. Obviously there is a lot I do not know about first editions.

It seems that my book - although in good condition, has the identity of Haddon Craftsmen on the copyright page. I could not find a this that grouping on page 112 but it must be a second state copy - whatever that is.

I was told by the buyer that the signature was original - however now I am wondering. Does anyone know if there is a way of authenticating a signature - eg a webpage with the styles of signatures. I guess that does not mean it is a copy. The inscription reads 'For Don - John Steinbeck' There is also an exlibris sticker on the front page.

Would that value with an authentic signature be true for a second state copy??

Too bad - I thought I had a real bargain........

Thanks for the info - I appreciate it.

Actually - on reflection maybe I should be happy - there is a possiblility that the book is worth thousands - even if it is slim.

Out of interest, how do you research these details. I have collected various first editions - about thirty or so - and would live to figure out the values. I could have some in my regular collection that I am not aware of.

Thanks again, Scotchbooks.

Karen

First the signature: You can do a preliminary comparison by using the following signature site: http://www.purplehousepress.com/sig.htm
There are probably other comparisons available through a Google search but most of the sites I used have been taken down (they are useful to forgers also). I presume the exlibris sticker is from a personal library, hopefully that of somebody named Don. If not, that would make me suspicious. Will the seller give you a written statement of authenticity?
You would need some further information regarding the provenance of the item. It appeared to me that the signed items priced as I had described included a second state copy valued at $3500 but you can check for yourself as they may be found on bookfinded.com by using the proper screening parameters. The period may be found in the middle of line 11 on page 112 but it won't be there if you have the printer identified as you stated.

Sales values may be estimated by comparison of your copies with those found on bookfinder.com or Abe. But you do need to have some experience in judging condition and identifying first editions and points. Book collecting 2000 is a good place to begin.

Scotchbooks - very helpful info - thanks.

My book has a period on lin 11 between the words - way There's.

There is no - this that - on line 11.

I did look at the signature page as you suggest - it is hard to tell although this signature is more spread out that the webpage. It definitely could be. The Libris sticker has had the bottom name part removed.

Anyway I will look into your suggestion of book collecting. I have come to understand a lot of the terms - I think it would be easy for a novice to get totally hosed with some of the sellers out there.

I have never bought a first edition for more than a $100 for that reason - I probably would get braver if I became more well informed.

Have you ever come across a bargain - recognized as something valuable in a book store. I don't think I have ---yet.

Thanks again. Karen

Good luck on your Steinbeck signature.

I very seldom pay $100 for a first edition but still find bargains at book stores and book sales. My prize is a $1000 first of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian which I purchased for 50 cents at a small town sale about 8 years ago. I have about 100 other books that I have paid less than $30 for that are now insured for$100 to $500 each but the internet has made this more difficult and internet phones promise to make things even more challenging. Oh well, the search is the fun part and I still believe that anything can be anywhere when you are collecting first editions.

Re: #'s 7 & 8

I dabble in the hyper-modern mystery and science fiction collecting areas. I've recently found that a relatively easy way to determine the release date of UK vs. USA books is to go to www.fantasticfiction.co.uk and search for the author. You can also easily determine the nationality of the author. In the case of Clare Clark, you will get a page with a little Union Jack flag next to her date of birth, so you know she's not American. There's also a short bio stating she was born, and currently lives, in London. Knowing the author's nationality is helpful for the cases where there's a simultaneous UK and USA release of the same book; in that case, the general rule is to "follow the flag" for the "true first" to buy for your collection.

Getting back to the release date determination, clicking on The Great Stink gets you a page with the release dates for the UK hardcover and paperback on the left, and the USA hardcover and paperback on the right. Of course, this information seems to be based on links to the Amazon sites, and Amazon does make a fair number of mistakes, so a search on bookfinder.com or even Ebay.com can be helpful in determining which book to buy.

Speaking of mistakes, Scotchbooks, you wrote you saw a hardcover Penguin copy of The Great Stink on Amazon UK. Looking now, the only Penguin version I find is the UK trade paperback, so I'm wondering if Amazon mistakenly had it listed as a hardcover and that mistake has now been corrected? ISBN comparisons are helpful here, again searching them on bookfinder.com, to see what book format the booksellers are listing under a particular ISBN.

I hope the above info is helpful. The fantasticfiction website is also useful for copying covers to your LT library, for figuring out the order of a series, for author pseudonyms, for aka titles of the same book in various countries, etc.

Regarding sources for book collecting information, a simple search on dogpile.com or google.com will overwhelm you with information. I'm constantly learning new things, or forgetting and re-learning things, as the case may be:)

Happy hunting.

Re: 21

Hello Bookstothesky,

Thanks for the site reference. The date listings will prove useful along eith the author and publication listings.

I did order a bookfinder/ABE UK first for the The Great Stink in hardcover. The copyright page does indicate that it is a Viking label issued by the Penguin publishing group. I don't recall if I saw the Penguin "first" in a book description or ISBN data field but my guess is that a seller made a descriptive errror.

Anyway, your information seems to confirm the UK edition as the true first.

Thanks,

For anyone remotely calling themselves a bok collector, he/she should have a subscription to FIRSTS -- the b ook collector's magazine. Most of their back issues are available as well. Each issue will give you something you will need in your collecting and at the least will turn you on writers and books you would normally ignore.

Just a tip to add for those ordering from ABE. I have found that more than 50% of the time, the very same book from the same bookseller, will be listed on Alibris. (I collect mystery first editions.) Now Alibris doesn't have a particularly well designed search or web site, however you can always use a coupon for 10% off the purchase price. Just google "alibris coupons" and you will get a listing of coupons of $1.00 off a $10.00 purchase, $2 off a $20 purchase etc.. all the way up to and over $10 off a $100 purchase. Therefore with alibris you are always guaranteed 10% off. I have therefore avoided abe when I can find the book on alibris. I have ordered from alibris many times and never had any problems. In fact, I recently ordered a book from alibris australia and it came relatively quickly.

Interesting. Thanks for the tip, songx.

I am bringing this interesting and informative discussion back. :)
Many things have changed since 2007 and 2011.
Now, everyone has a phone with the Internet, and most collectors know useful book search websites.
Do you find it more difficult now to collect 1st editions for reasonable prices than a few years ago?

>26 booksforreading: I think this is a very hard thing to judge. I am sure that some items have become more difficult for a reasonable price. But there may be very good reasons for this that have nothing to do with technology. For one thing, Covid has caused demand for some items. Basically people were sitting at home with nothing to do, so they started looking for books. Some items may have just reached the age where they will be in demand as a remembrance of the past. I still find bargains on books, but I also see many overpriced books. I think some of this can be blamed on amateur book sellers. I also see quite a few poorly described books. I have always said that collectors need to have patience and persistence to be successful.

>26 booksforreading:, so let's consider what a phone lets you do.

The book flippers will use something like ScoutIQ to scan barcodes and show which books are higher than average prices on Amazon (i.e. scarce).

But the barcode doesn't change with printings so the person still has to know how to look at the book and determine if it is a first printing.

If you are looking in a used bookstore and see something older that may not have a barcode, you can look to see asking prices on used book database sites via aggregation sites like https://used.addall.com or https://bibliofind.com.

Every book was once a first printing. Usually the ones that are valuable as first printings are ones that went through many printings because they are popular. A given used bookstore my have 50% or more of their books that are first printings. But is it important? Are they books you'd care about? It depends on the book and the condition.

James

>28 Keeline:
>27 Bernarrd:
For the last year or so, I see first editions of even very obscure titles go for outrageous prices on online auctions, week after week. It makes me wonder if, in addition to more-then-average financial possibilities, these buyers are lured by the ease of Internet bidding/search and fear of missing out on opportunities. Either way, it is getting more difficult to find great deals on online auctions. (I am not saying impossible.) And I agree that important titles usually go through several editions and printings.

>29 booksforreading: I suspect some of the high auction prices are caused by so called investors. People who have no knowledge of what they are bidding on. Books can go down in price as easily as up, and some of these people may find themselves unable to recover what they have paid. They are probably being pointed towards specific auction houses as reputable places to invest. They may soon find that they are getting poor investment advice. This is pretty much what happened to the conic book market. Now people pay large sums for comics sealed in plastic, that can't be read. This is all for the benefit of investors that know little to nothing about the market, or grading.

>30 Bernarrd: There are many who labor under the delusion that rare books make a great investment. Unless you have the bucks to get into the stratospheric end of it, books make lousy investments. Rarely does the increase in price keep up with inflation, let alone exceed it. *sigh* 'Twas ever thus.

>31 Glacierman:
And yet, auction prices in recent years are really getting out of proportion. Unfortunately, some dealers and, especially, book collectors are willing now to spend enormous amounts of money on "collectible" books, such as fine press books, vintage paperbacks, first edition hardcovers, etc., etc.
It used to be possible to find "hidden" good deals, but, alas!, my favorite auctions are not what they used to be. :)
:(
I hope that you are all having a great extended weekend.

>32 booksforreading: What you say is as true now as it has been in the past. The question is, "Will those books hold that value?" With the caveat that past performance is no guarantee of future performance, historically, such inflated prices have not held over time.

>32 booksforreading:, there are so many misleading factors.

I've been involved in selling antiquarian children's books since 1988. I did it full-time as the manager of a bookstore from 1988 to 2000 and as a side line since. We sell at book fairs and have a glass case in Orange, California, in an antique mall. We also communicate with people by Facebook Messenger, email, and sometimes phone and offer books to them.

On a random selection of 50-75 year old used books, only 1 in 1,000 has any resale value at all. Of these, only 1 in 100 that has resale value has significant resale value of the sort that you see mentioned in auctions.

With auctions it is typical that the price estimates have about 1/3 in the range, 1/3 below, and 1/3 above.

No one really talks much about the items that did not sell well.

For example, last year we took in a collector's lifetime curation (not merely "accumulation") of quality juvenile series books. He had upgraded over the years and had most items in dust jackets when such were findable. In more than 50 years he had gathered over 5,000 books of this type. He had a scary health diagnosis and wanted us to come right away from Southern California to his home in the Chicago area and take the books home. He was already in a hospital at the time. Thankfully he is in an assisted care facility still but he thought he had only weeks left.

Under short notice we could only get an 8 foot PODS container to send the books home. We packed up 330 boxes (12x12x8 inches, 11-26 pounds each) to add up to 5,200 pounds. We had to leave about 30 boxes behind because of the weight limit. Every box was moved about 5 times in the process, mostly by me. Rending and moving the container alone was about $5,000. A similar amount was for the last-minute airfare, hotel, car, food, and packing supplies.

There were a few extra-special books and he suggested that we sell them to recoup the costs. One of these was a first printing of the first Hardy Boys book, The Tower Treasure (1927). Unlike the other books that looked like good candidates (right format, right ad lists on the front flap of the DJ, etc.), this was the only one that qualified as a first printing per the bibliography for the series. I conferred with a couple other experts on the series. One told me that a similar condition copy (about as nice as they get) sold for $10,000 a couple years before. So I was hopeful that this book would go along way towards covering those costs we had laid out even though we didn't have that kind of money sitting around without call.

We used Pacific Book Auction Galleries and they did a reasonable job with the photograph and description. The first time it was offered, there were zero bids. A few months later it was listed again. The hammer price was only about $5,600. It had a little competition to run up from about $4,500.

Live auction houses have seller's premiums and buyer's premiums. Let's say that it is 20% on both sides though some houses are 25% or more. At 20% on both a $1,000 hammer price means that the winning bidder pays $1,200 + expensive shipping + sales tax on the whole. Meanwhile, the consignor gets $800 for the sale. The auction house keeps the sizeable spread (40% of hammer in this case or 50% of hammer for 25% SP & BP).

When looking at auction prices, what is the price shown? Is it the hammer? What are the fees? Those determine the real cost. And when selling, what was the seller premium that affected how much they really got. A book has to increase a lot to make those fees worthwhile.

People who have books to sell want to have ALL of the money. They don't realize that listing on eBay and taking payment and paying shipping all costs money, sometimes a lot. You might get a buyer to pay for shipping but they are not willing to pay for your eBay fees, for example.

These amateurs often don't know what they really have. In the case of the Hardy Boys books, I do know what to look for and even I was disappointed that only 1 of 6 red cloth books with top-quality jackets proved to be a first printing, first issue after all of the points were checked.

When people write fiction about booksellers (e.g. BookTown Mysteries), they almost never deal with this side of the business. There's the thrill of the purchase or the sale but never the wrangling over points of issue or weighing the condition to set a fair market price for your particular business. After all, there's no single price for a given book in a certain printing and condition. It depends entirely on who is selling, where it is offered, when it is offered, and who is buying. Like an airline seat, a book can have 100 different prices with a surprisingly wide range. It is not like selling gold or silve bullion coins where there is pretty much one spot price for all but a premium when you buy it.

It's fun to be around the books and learn about them and share what you have learned. Many will only buy if they can get a steal of a price. They are not interested in a fair price for what the item is or a "right" price as the subject of this thread calls it.

James

>34 Keeline:
Thank you for your very informative post! What you say is certainly true and correct. Thank you for sharing your extensive experience!
I am passionate about books, but I do occasionally sell some of my books to raise funds for other book purchases. Of course, in comparison to you, I am an amateur, but with good experience in buying and selling.
Yes, if one purchases a $1000 book at an auction, one pays a total of $1300+ with buyer's premium, etc. If that person expects to get her/his money back through an auction sell, the book has to sell for about $1800 just to get even.
This is not often very realistic.
However, if one purchases a $4000-$5000 book for $1000 at an auction, the expectations are different.

When I come to a physical used book store, I almost never ask owners to reduce prices for books I want. It takes a huge effort to run a business, and this is when the fair price or the right price comes into play. When I am at a store, I assume that the prices are close to being fair for that store's specific location, situation, conditions, etc. Also, when I look for a specially elusive and desirable book to complete a series, I am willing to pay a fair market price or even above it.

In most other cases, I am looking for deals -- like you said, "steal of a price", and I am willing to wait for a long time until an opportunity comes along. Because of this, most of my book purchases fall below the line of "fair price". I do not collect books to sell them, but when I do (on ebay), in 95% of times I end up with a profit on what I paid.
I was lamenting the prices going up in auctions, because good deals of the past are getting more rare.
I am also not that active searching all possible auction houses, because I am way too busy with my actual job, so it is possible that deals are still out there.