Like anything else, people look for bargains among the books. Honestly, I try to price the inventory in a way that the prices are competitive with any retail offering in the US. Most are under $5.
Some of the books are a little more valuable and command a higher price. Still, I compare with internet offerings and try to match the lowest price available.
When a customer looking over some antique volumes asked if she could “talk me down on some of these” I had to decline, knowing they are already priced below what would be asked elsewhere. Beyond that, she was inquiring about books priced under twenty dollars. Perhaps if she had been interested in that $400 leather bound set of early 1800’s philosophy it might have been different.
Even in our age of electronic reading, there are some big bucks being paid for bound copies. Here are some examples of volumes sold in June 2012, the top eight in ascending order, and courtesy of American Book Exchange:
8. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy – $6,000
Published in 1979 by Random House, an author-signed first edition.
7. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin – $6,500
A signed, first edition, first printing copy published in 1953 by Knopf.
6. The New Examen by John Paget – $6,750
A 1934 Haworth Press edition limited to 50 signed and numbered copies bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe and printed on handmade, water-marked, laid paper with deckled edges. Oh, and it was signed by the author, as well as Winston Churchill, who wrote the foreword.
5. The Art Institute of Chicago: 100 Masterpieces: Marc Chagall, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Miro, Ivan Albright, Willem de Kooning – $6,825
Full leather, numbered 1978 Rand McNally edition with the signatures of Chagall, O’Keeffe, Miro, Albright and de Kooning added on the 100th birthday of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. (Undoubtedly the signatures – more than the book itself – pushed the price.)
4. Contact: A Tribute to Those Who Serve Rhodesia by John Lovett – $8,000
A presentation first edition from 1977, bound in elephant hide, inscribed by the author to Gen. Peter Walls of the Rhodesian army.
3. Formulation: Articulation by Josef Albers – $8,542
A 1972 publication that contains 127 silk-screen prints of the artist’s works, which was limited to 1000 numbered copies, and was signed by Albers.
2. (Actually an envelope signed by Ernest Hemingway) $9,000
Published in 1952, a first edition of Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea contains an envelope laid into the book. The envelope was post-marked “Habana, Cuba” in 1946 and was signed twice by Hemingway. As with #5, the signature on the envelope likely elevated the price of the book to its final price.
1. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde – $20,120
A first edition published by Leonard Smithers in 1899, this edition was limited to 100 copies, bound in full crushed morocco and signed by Oscar Wilde. (An ironic title, to boot.)
You won’t find these items in our current inventory – although there is a first edition copy of The Old Man and the Sea. It’s a book club edition, though, and won’t make anyone’s “most expensive books” list.
Still, a nice addition to any collector’s library!
