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#1
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Are Book Collectors Overdoing it?
Hi,
I got a collecting fever several months ago after someone gave me a 1st Edition/1st Printing of HP4 OftP UK Children's Edition. Before this, I was not keenly aware of buying 1st/1st copies of books. I just wanted a copy to read and keep on my shelf. After receiving the HP4, I logon to the newsgroups on HP and saw some post that some versions were being sold on ebay, abebooks, etc at high prices than new ones. I was intrigue on this phenomenon. I then searched my bookshelf for 1st/1st copies. True enough, some were hb 1st/1st copies. I had bought Eragon, HP5, The Amber Spyglass, some Clancy, some Forsyth, etc. without knowing it! I then had this fever to go out and buy 1st/1st copies of HP series, then I wanted signed copies, deluxe editions. I then realised that these books were being made by demands of collectors. I asked myself what was I going to do with these special editions once I bought them. I might be repeating what I did in the 80s & 90s with comics. I bought them because everyone was saying one day it was going to worth something big. Well guess what, I could buy a 25 cent comics in a 2nd hand shop for something that was worth $2 in the 90s. That is depreciation not appreciation. Then I saw a post somewhere that said several decades ago there was also some children's book that had the saame phenomena as the HP series. But no one was collecting them now. In short this was just a fad created by publishers to lure in more sales. Rowling authorized the creation of both childrens & adult editions of her books to create 2x prints of 1st/1st. Add to that the Scholastic, Deluxe, TB etc and you have several editions of 1st/1st. This is too much for me to collect. |
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#2
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Im not sure the collecting phenomen was created by the publishers as it
wasnt until the third book came out that the collecting craze for HP really took off. It was at that stage that the publishers started to publish the de-luxe collectors editions and so they did jump on the bandwagon. Also to the credit of Bloomsbury they have printed such enormous quantities of the First Editions of the 4th and 5th books that they destroyed the market. Its quite easy to pick up firsts of books 4 and 5 for less than original retail. It is also clear that the bubble has burst on the earlier first editions with copies now selling for only 50% of what they were two years ago. Dolph |
#3
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I don't know if collectors are overdoing it, after all most collectors are
fairly obsessive to start with. But some publishers are sure milking the collector fever with numerous "collector", "special", "deluxe" and other editions. Harry Potter comes to mind and, to a lesser degree, "The DaVinci Code" has jumped on the bandwagon. -- Bob Finnan http://bobfinnan.com |
#4
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Bob wrote:
I don't know if collectors are overdoing it, after all most collectors are fairly obsessive to start with. But some publishers are sure milking the collector fever with numerous "collector", "special", "deluxe" and other editions. Harry Potter comes to mind and, to a lesser degree, "The DaVinci Code" has jumped on the bandwagon. This phenomenon extends to DVDs, with "special" editions, then "ultimate" editions, then "extreme" editions, and so on. DVD collectors hate this also. There, the term used is "double-dipping", which applies in particular to releasing a "bare-bones" version and a year later announcing a "special edition" with extras. Of course, there the goal is to get you to buy something again for slightly more content, while with publishers it seems to be entirely to get you to buy another copy for its value as a collectible. (Interestingly, one also sees a parallel to the traditional book publishing model of expensive hardcover followed later by cheap paperback, in films which appear as 2-disc sets with all the extras on disc 2, and then a year later a cheaper single-disc edition comes out. E.g., MOULIN ROUGE, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.) Phooey on all of them! -- Evelyn C. Leeper http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper I found a kind of party terrorism pervading and oppressing the minds of our best men. -James Garfield |
#5
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Evelyn C. Leeper wrote: Bob wrote: I don't know if collectors are overdoing it, after all most collectors are fairly obsessive to start with. But some publishers are sure milking the collector fever with numerous "collector", "special", "deluxe" and other editions. Harry Potter comes to mind and, to a lesser degree, "The DaVinci Code" has jumped on the bandwagon. Phooey on all of them! maybe a semi-phooey. the phenomenon can be frustrating, especially when it's done by a large profitable publishing division of a larger more profitable conglomerate [as in the examples above]. however, the practice seems most advanced among small and specialty presses; in many cases trying to get all the revenue sources they can is the best or only alternative to losing money at a rate which can't be sustained, leaving both readers and collectors with the one thing provably worse than too much new product. besides, we obsessive completists can use a periodic reality check: collecting everything, or any particular thing, or anything at all, is not mandatory. the fancy collectors' editions are usually not firsts, giving them a position in the collecting universe more akin to lladro figures or "limited" edition lithos than fine antiques. in theory collectors can opt in or out of that market with less psychic pain than giving up first editions or other key items. heck, even reading is not exactly mandatory, although a convincing case can be made that there is more important personal and societal value to readers having maximum access to many voices than there is to having more collectibles. libraries are not dead [yet?] though, and thanks in part to ms. leeper there is more access than ever to on- and off-line sources of used books, so readers still have some means of opting out of the latest special editions. all, in all, i'd rather have publishers not try to grab every one of my collecting dollars with overpriced faux-limited solely-for-the-completist marketing ploys, rather than let me concentrate on legitimately scarce and bibliographically important material, but as long as i keep buying both someone will keep selling them to me, and who am i to blame them for trying? chiwito who would, if he could afford it, start a small press primarily to put out fancy durable parallel editions of Go books, some for libraries and Go clubs but some primarily for collectors. |
#6
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If you're collecting the 1sts and limiteds for investment purposes, I can
only say good luck. If you're doing it because you enjoy it, then welcome to the club! There are some authors I love so much that I'll buy (if possible) any edition any big conglomerate cares to issue, including "super-special extra-deluxe." Other authors, not so much. Just pace yourself, because, unfortunately, we all have to eat and drink. ---Mike http://www.booktouronline.com wrote in message oups.com... Hi, I got a collecting fever several months ago after someone gave me a 1st Edition/1st Printing of HP4 OftP UK Children's Edition. Before this, I was not keenly aware of buying 1st/1st copies of books. I just wanted a copy to read and keep on my shelf. After receiving the HP4, I logon to the newsgroups on HP and saw some post that some versions were being sold on ebay, abebooks, etc at high prices than new ones. I was intrigue on this phenomenon. I then searched my bookshelf for 1st/1st copies. True enough, some were hb 1st/1st copies. I had bought Eragon, HP5, The Amber Spyglass, some Clancy, some Forsyth, etc. without knowing it! I then had this fever to go out and buy 1st/1st copies of HP series, then I wanted signed copies, deluxe editions. I then realised that these books were being made by demands of collectors. I asked myself what was I going to do with these special editions once I bought them. I might be repeating what I did in the 80s & 90s with comics. I bought them because everyone was saying one day it was going to worth something big. Well guess what, I could buy a 25 cent comics in a 2nd hand shop for something that was worth $2 in the 90s. That is depreciation not appreciation. Then I saw a post somewhere that said several decades ago there was also some children's book that had the saame phenomena as the HP series. But no one was collecting them now. In short this was just a fad created by publishers to lure in more sales. Rowling authorized the creation of both childrens & adult editions of her books to create 2x prints of 1st/1st. Add to that the Scholastic, Deluxe, TB etc and you have several editions of 1st/1st. This is too much for me to collect. |
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