I was checking Barnes & Noble and Amazon for the book, The Official Price Guide to Mint Errors by Alan Herbert, and I about had a heart attack. This paperback book in new condition is listed for prices ranging from $200-$450 while used copies are selling for $20-$40. What is going on? Chris http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Official+Price+Guide+to+Mint+Errors http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the...tm=1&usri=official+price+guide+to+mint+errors
Something has to be wrong, I saw one in a store not long ago for about $20. I've got a used copy maybe I can double my money...
Not sure if this is the issue, but I have heard about bad algorithms driving up prices on some more obscure items on sites like Amazon. Something like one website sees the price on Amazon and prices their copy at $.20 higher. Then Amazon's algorithm see's that and updates their price to $.20 above that....repeat. Maybe this is completely unrelated.
Its common for out of print coin books to go up in value. Ancient collectors just assume this as normal. Try buying Walter Breen's Encyclopedia of US coins, (published at $75), now. A good coin book is collectible in its own right. By "good", I mean one not replaced every year or three with a newer edition, and well written and informative. I have bought many at issue price and is now worth 2 or 3 times that.
I bought my copy of Mint Errors, new, for $15, but these prices are ridiculous. It's just a 6" x 9" paperback with less than 400 pages. Chris
Probably a glitch at Amazon. The bad algorithms once made a book about flies cost over $100,000. EDIT: The price was actually $23,689,655.93.
Chris - the market for books is just like anything else, and books in and of their own right are extremely collectible. If you look closely at the links you provided you will see that the new prices, and the used prices, are for books from years past. Can you imagine how hard it is to find a book, brand new, that was published 20 years ago ? To a book collector, that book is worth a substantial premium over what it is worth in used condition. On Amazon it's worth 10 times as much. The newest edition I see listed there is 4 years old. The difference in price between new and used is 6 times as much. This is not unusual. The reason you find it rediculous is the same reason that people, non collectors, that coin are crazy for paying what they do for coins in MS coindition. They just don't see the items as being valuable. But everything has value - to somebody.
Well said. The Breen title I mentioned earlier typically sells for about $150-200 used, and sometimes up to $300 or more new. Coin books are its own market, and are actually much rarer than the coins. I would say my library has gone up much more than my coins have over the years. That being said, there is a reason. Coin books usually have small printings, and every year that passes more are destroyed by accident, fire, etc. Couple this with new collectors always coming into the hobby, and you have escalating demand for a dwindling supply. The reason the demand is there is due to the value of the knowledge these books contain, knowledge that can be extremely valuable in a collectible field, and for personal satisfaction. Like I said, this applies to books that do not get revised, and were excellent books when they were printed. In ancients, I am thinking of things like Dumbarton Oaks, SNG Copenhagen, Mitchiner titles, etc. For US coins, the Breen title is an excellent example. So many US coin books are "serials", being updated constantly, and these thoughts don't apply to those.
Actually, the good old days were when you could work under the hood of a car and reach all the spark plugs without taking half the car apart........
Last summer at the Boston ANA, Alan signed my copy of his book. He signed it on the bus when we were returning from a dinner cruise. Unfortunately, the bus was riding on a bumpy road so his signature is a little bumpy......
There is no understanding book prices sometimes. For example if you look at all the sellers for the seventh edition (most recent) of the Mint Errors book you will find that the last one listed is for a ex-library copy and they are asking $765.40 plus $4 shipping.
True, but some of these sellers count on the fact of rarity and many times a person really wants it and any other copies are unavailable. I have seen Crawford's Roman Republican usually go for around $300, but at times there are only copies available at $800 or more. Is $800 very high for that book? Yeah, but if no one else has a copy for sale, the seller might get a bite at that price. Such a seller only needs to sell a few books a month with this strategy to make it worthwhile. I would say doing that with a book that publishes updates is very dangerous game, but I see it played a lot. This is why most of my books I get at numismatic book auctions, and try to have patience. Edit: Btw, the same game is played with coins. There used to be a seller of large cents out of Omaha that had gorgeous stuff. The reason he had such high quality, large inventory was partially because he listed most stuff at double Redbook or more. He didn't need to move a lot of stuff many times, but what he did he made a lot.
I bought this book - http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Boo...umnarios+of+central+and+south+america&x=0&y=0 - new, when it was published in '99 for $75. That link is for a used copy selling for $500. I have seen recorded sales for new as high as $1500 and it is common to see used copies as high as $800. All for a book that is only 12 years old.
Some books attain a mythical status way above their true informational or educational value. I've seen this in a book on restoring military vehicles that was published in relatively low numbers, but had high demand before publication stopped. Initially selling for $19.95, it now sells for $600-800, and it's not even a very useful book.
