The Globe and Mail highlights the fact that as books are potentially moving off more and more into the digital realm, actual books (specifically first editions of key books) will only go up in price.
From the piece...
Ten years ago you could buy a good-condition 1925 first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterwork from an antiquarian dealer or at auction for $15,000-$20,000 (U.S.). Today that volume, with dust jacket, will set you back $150,000-$170,000, even more if inscribed by the author. Mason remembers, about 30 years ago, paying $4,000 for a first-edition copy of Darwin's world-changer (roughly 1,300 copies were published in England in 1859), then trying to sell it for $7,000. Nothing happened until 10 years later, when someone agreed to pay $20,000. Today, Mason estimates, the volume would easily fetch $150,000.
Appreciation also has worked its magic on Torosian's wares. Two years ago, a copy of his 33-page book on photographer Frederick Sommer (1905-1999), published in 1992 in an edition of 200, sold at auction for almost $1,000 (U.S.) – almost seven times its original list price.
Unsurprisingly, “it's easier now to sell a $2,000 book than a $20 one,” Mason remarks. In fact, he predicts, as the common book fades away, he'll be “selling books the way antique dealers sell curiosities, as symbolic artifacts,” mementos of a vanished or vanishing era. Antiquarian dealers of his ilk will persist into this century if only because institutions like the University of Toronto will require his appraisal skills, and scarce books in superior condition always will find buyers,
But book collecting is “an acquired taste,” Mason notes. “If there are no bookstores, how does a young collector find out he's a collector? If you don't have exposure to older books, to other books – and where can you find such a thing except in a bookstore? – if kids aren't coming into bookstores to look for the $5 book, they're never going to discover the beauty and the pleasure in buying a $100 book or a $1,000 book.”
No comments:
Post a Comment