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Query: The House Called Hadlows by Victoria Walker
Sorry if this turns up a couple of times, the first time we tried posting
nothing showed up. I wonder if anyone can help us? We have recently come across a signed first edition of 'The House Called Hadlows' by Victoria Walker, and were all set to offer it for sale through our usual channels, when we checked for comparisons online. We were only able to find one matching copy, and this was being offered at over £1,200. From the little we have found, it does seem to command a high price, but we want confirmation of this before offering it for sale (and, just as important, choosing how we sell it). The details of the book are as follows. Author: Victoria Walker Title: The House Called Hadlows Publisher: Andre Deutsche (London, 1972) ISBN: 0233963669 Light blue clothbound hardback book in very good condition (there is a little wear to the edges of the boards, and a very small stain to the bottom edge of the last couple of pages). Dustjacket is very good with some wear to the edges, a couple of small dents and a couple of closed splits down the line of the edge of the spine on the back cover. The book is dedicated and signed by the author. The inscription reads "To Clem and Elliot, With the author's compliments. Victoria Walker, July 1986". Can anyone help? Graeme & Chris Williams |
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The two books by Victoria Walker are hard to find, and became famously so
after being mentioned by Neil Gaiman in his weblog last year. |
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Thanks for the reply Mike,
We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. In the end we contacted Bloomsbury Book Auctions who managed to find another copy for sale. After a lot of hard thought we are going to include it in their first edition sale on the 6th November. Slightly heart in mouth as we have never had a book that is potentially worth so much. Regards, Graeme & Chris www.exe-libris.co.uk |
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I'm not in any way trying to dissuade you from selling through Bloomsbury, who I
like a lot - I recently suggested to a friend that she sell some Iris Murdoch letters there at their manuscript sale later this year, and I've bought there as a collector (though not of modern 1sts) on a fair number of occasions in the last couple of years. However, you should probably be aware (if you're not already) that Bloomsbury's very much a dealers' auction house - very few collectors buy there, so the prices fetched are generally "wholesale" rather than "retail". That's one of the reasons I go to auctions there, in fact - I can afford to buy much better books there than I could direct from a bookseller, because the prices are (generally) significantly lower than they would be elsewhere. I couldn't tell you much about how modern 1sts do there in general (and obviously it's in Bloomsbury's interest as well to get as much for your book as they can), but you might want to check out prices realised for similar books at recent sales - see http://www.bloomsbury-book-auct.com/html/archive.htm. Unfortunately the prices and catalogue from their last major moderns sale in June are no longer online, but the General Books sales since then have had a fair number of modern 1sts in them, so by tying up the lot numbers from the catalogue with the prices realised page, you should get an idea of how comparable books sell there. (Although there are links for sales and prices going back to #422 in Feb 2002 on that page, a lot of those are now broken; I dare say the auction house might give you copies of the old catalogues and price lists if you asked nicely, though.) Apologies if you've taken all this into account already, but I thought it was worth mentioning; the other folk in the room at Bloomsbury auctions are the same ones I see selling at the London bookfairs every month, and while I can't necessarily name all of them, I've bought books from most of them at one time or another. Sandy "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Thanks for the reply Mike, We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. In the end we contacted Bloomsbury Book Auctions who managed to find another copy for sale. After a lot of hard thought we are going to include it in their first edition sale on the 6th November. Slightly heart in mouth as we have never had a book that is potentially worth so much. Regards, Graeme & Chris www.exe-libris.co.uk |
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"Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Thanks for the reply Mike, We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. I've seen furious bidding for "The Winter of Enchantment" on eBay. Hadlows might be less popular as it is the sequel to Winter, and presumably has less interest, and according to reviews is inferior to the first book. My experience is that I've been able to find every rare children's book I wanted at auction at between 10-50% of dealer prices. See these other newsgroup postings too: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...ws&sa=N&tab=wg |
#6
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Well we are back from Bloomsbury book auctions. The book had bids of up to
£240 but we had set a high reserve so it didn't sell in the end. It was an interesting experience and the staff at Bloomsbury were great so we are not too upset. We also managed to find some interesting books while scouring the charity shops so not a wasted journey and best of all we can claim it all back from the tax man next year as it was a legit business trip! "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Thanks for the reply Mike, We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. In the end we contacted Bloomsbury Book Auctions who managed to find another copy for sale. After a lot of hard thought we are going to include it in their first edition sale on the 6th November. Slightly heart in mouth as we have never had a book that is potentially worth so much. Regards, Graeme & Chris www.exe-libris.co.uk |
#7
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Sorry your book didn't sell; one thing which interests me (as I occasionally buy
books at Bloomsbury - I was there on Thursday, actually, for the mss and older books in the first day of the same sale) is that you say you had bids of up to £240, but in the catalogue the estimate's £200-£300 (I assume your book was lot 881). Does that mean that at Bloomsbury the reserve might be higher than the low estimate, or was there a mistake in the catalogue? I know Sothebys, for example, guarantee that the reserve will be no higher than the low estimate, although as far as I can see Bloomsbury don't make the same claim anywhere. There always seem to be plenty of lots which don't sell when I've been at Bloomsbury sales, but they've invariably been where the bidding doesn't reach the low estimate shown in the catalogue; I've always assumed, though, that it wouldn't make sense to give a low selling estimare of £200 if the reserve was actually £250, say. I'm just curious - it'd be useful to know for future visits to Bloomsbury. Sandy "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Well we are back from Bloomsbury book auctions. The book had bids of up to £240 but we had set a high reserve so it didn't sell in the end. It was an interesting experience and the staff at Bloomsbury were great so we are not too upset. We also managed to find some interesting books while scouring the charity shops so not a wasted journey and best of all we can claim it all back from the tax man next year as it was a legit business trip! "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Thanks for the reply Mike, We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. In the end we contacted Bloomsbury Book Auctions who managed to find another copy for sale. After a lot of hard thought we are going to include it in their first edition sale on the 6th November. Slightly heart in mouth as we have never had a book that is potentially worth so much. Regards, Graeme & Chris www.exe-libris.co.uk |
#8
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It was interesting. When we enquired about the book we were told it would
make high hundreds based on a copy on the internet selling for £1600 (we had seen the same one). We sent the book and got back the catalogue with an estimate of £2-300. When we contacted Bloomsbury they said that the only copy they could find on the internet was £500. We checked and the copy that had been at a thousands had dropped by half! Shortly afterwards this copy disappeared from the internet so either it had been sold or removed from sale. Either way we figured our book was worth at least £500 and instructed Bloomsbury to increase the reserve to £500. They also issued an ammendment to the catalogue which was put up at the front of the rostrum with an estimate of £5-600. What we wonder is if the estimate had been £5-600 in the initial catalogue whether the starting bid would have been £500 but I guess we will never know. "Sandy Malcolm" wrote in message news:3faed173$0$27137$afc38c87@britishlibrary... Sorry your book didn't sell; one thing which interests me (as I occasionally buy books at Bloomsbury - I was there on Thursday, actually, for the mss and older books in the first day of the same sale) is that you say you had bids of up to £240, but in the catalogue the estimate's £200-£300 (I assume your book was lot 881). Does that mean that at Bloomsbury the reserve might be higher than the low estimate, or was there a mistake in the catalogue? I know Sothebys, for example, guarantee that the reserve will be no higher than the low estimate, although as far as I can see Bloomsbury don't make the same claim anywhere. There always seem to be plenty of lots which don't sell when I've been at Bloomsbury sales, but they've invariably been where the bidding doesn't reach the low estimate shown in the catalogue; I've always assumed, though, that it wouldn't make sense to give a low selling estimare of £200 if the reserve was actually £250, say. I'm just curious - it'd be useful to know for future visits to Bloomsbury. Sandy "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Well we are back from Bloomsbury book auctions. The book had bids of up to £240 but we had set a high reserve so it didn't sell in the end. It was an interesting experience and the staff at Bloomsbury were great so we are not too upset. We also managed to find some interesting books while scouring the charity shops so not a wasted journey and best of all we can claim it all back from the tax man next year as it was a legit business trip! "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote in message ... Thanks for the reply Mike, We found Neil Gaiman's site and a copy of The House Called Hadlows for sale for a very high amount. The problem with finding just a single copy is whether the book has a market. In the end we contacted Bloomsbury Book Auctions who managed to find another copy for sale. After a lot of hard thought we are going to include it in their first edition sale on the 6th November. Slightly heart in mouth as we have never had a book that is potentially worth so much. Regards, Graeme & Chris www.exe-libris.co.uk |
#9
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On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:17:44 -0000, "Graeme & Chris Williams"
wrote: It was interesting. When we enquired about the book we were told it would make high hundreds based on a copy on the internet selling for £1600 (we had seen the same one). We sent the book and got back the catalogue with an estimate of £2-300. When we contacted Bloomsbury they said that the only copy they could find on the internet was £500. Most surprising that a well-known house like Bloomsbury is basing estimates on what they find on Internet databases. Don't they have trained in-house experts? And what do they do when (as has become more and more prevalent) there's a 10 to 1 ratio in the price of the copies ordered, and their friends and customers who they know well represent the high end? |
#10
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R. Totale wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:17:44 -0000, "Graeme & Chris Williams" wrote: It was interesting. When we enquired about the book we were told it would make high hundreds based on a copy on the internet selling for £1600 (we had seen the same one). We sent the book and got back the catalogue with an estimate of £2-300. When we contacted Bloomsbury they said that the only copy they could find on the internet was £500. Most surprising that a well-known house like Bloomsbury is basing estimates on what they find on Internet databases. Don't they have trained in-house experts? And what do they do when (as has become more and more prevalent) there's a 10 to 1 ratio in the price of the copies ordered, and their friends and customers who they know well represent the high end? surely this is a common auction house ploy? they entice you in with high potential figures then dumb them down later. I sold some paintings in auction through another major auction house earlier this year and they did exactly the same they told me initially how good the realisations would be then when it came to estimates and reserves they completely changed their tune. ASD |
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