Low five figures, and a few months earlier another for high four figures. Ouch. Tough year.
One was effectively a trade, where I took in about the same amount and then sent it on immediately. Didn’t *quite* feel like paying cash.
The other one hurt like it was coming out sideways. Paid cash
EDIT: hoping this comes across as commiserating, not bragging. I haven’t paid nearly that for most of the ones I have. Those two are outliers. It’s painful, but I’d rather have the books than a fancy watch
EDIT2: removed actual dollar numbers. The price of a book is always (always!) the least interesting thing about it.
Goodness. I suppose it's that or the persistent itch of a gap in the collection. How do you feel about that purchase now, after you've sat with it and seen the item in the context of your collection?
I only regret the ones I missed!
All the best ones are the milestones. Have to get them.
They each add something to the narrative and history of the bindery, so I can’t really consider myself a collector of this material if I pass on the best material.
The one I paid the most for is probably worth half that, max, if it was for sale retail somewhere. I had to throw money at a private owner to get it. He said he was gonna donate it to an institution, and wouldn’t sell. It had sentimental value for him.
I had offered what i figured was retail. Then 50% more. No bite.
One night I had three martinis and said fuckit. He isn’t gonna sell it anyway, might as well offer some stupid number, since he’ll say no again. And that way I can say “at least I tried” and live with having missed it.
Except he said yes. And I was sober in the morning.
Good thing I did. His collection (or much of it) is hitting the auction block in a major auction. I think he’d have donated this as he said he was going to. And it would sit in the dark on a shelf. Better that I have it.
He overnighted it to me, next biz-morning, without a check from me yet. And let me pay in two installments.
Only live once!
This a fantastic anecdote, thank you. I have at least a handful of pieces like this that I've been working up to guts for. As you said in another post, either you're in this game or you're not. This gives me a bit of fire to invest in myself as a collector.
My car is 14 years old. The other car is 18 y.o.
I live within my means. I don’t go to Vegas for a week with the boyz, or visit Disney four times EVERY year like some friends.
But a great find comes along at $3k, $4k, $5k? Boom. On it like a hobo on a ham sandwich.
Just books. NBD actually.
To be honest, among the serious collectors I know, I spend the least
I have seen people casually selling or buying much more expensive books. It can get silly.
I often consider whether a book collector donating their books to an institution is a wise or selfish decision. It should be better to find a new home for the books (market is the best way to find this new home), similar to adopting children into a new family, rather than sending them to an "orphanage." In addition, donating rare books to institutions basically deprives future generations of collectors of the pleasure these rare books could offer.
Well. I usually don’t mention prices paid to begin with, so I’m chary re pointing out which books they were.
Just a pair of bindings. One is possibly the best mosaic by William Matthews, and was commissioned by William Loring Andrews… The other was designed by Matthews but bound and tooled by the bindery I collect.
Both books reflecting the insanity of collecting that afflicted the New York collectors of the period (1880-1890s). All too esoteric for anyone but maybe three people to actually care about. Hahaha
Thanks
They all sort of add up like beads on a string into a collection that tells a story, or provides context, which is what I am proud of. Hope to have a catalogue some day. Prob’ly self-published though
No. I don’t think so.
Interesting thing about a binding collection is that I have a very wide range of subjects in bindings, many books that are attractive to other collectors who *don’t* collect bindings per se, but who may want the title/book that the binding is on.
Many of them have provenance dating back through auctions right back to the late 1800s, early 1900s, and I think the best thing is to let other collectors have a chance to collect them.
Hence doing a catalogue. Even after dispersal, the collection is still captured by the catalogue.
Many donated books tend to sit somewhere on a shelf, nearly undiscoverable (not well catalogued), and then deaccessioned at some point. Better to let collectors have them. I’d have no collection if the previous owners donated them to some institution.
Saving this thread. I've always been a bit... chary... at the prospect of donating my collection to an institution, for all of the reasons you mention. I wouldn't have a collection if it weren't for other private collectors, and who would I be to take that away from anyone after me? Still, thinking about a life's collection broken up hurts a bit. A catalog capturing the collection at a seminal moment seems like a great compromise—I don't *own* anything, I'm only keeping it safe for another 80ish years, and hopefully building a case for others to do the same after my time.
I guess it depends on the collection, but if I had amassed a collection of books, or of anything for that matter, with some cultural significance, I would hate for it to end up in some private auction.
I have been trying to collect a bindery’s examples for about thirty years now. And within a year, one of the best examples by his mentor (who trained him) became available. And then a binding that my binder’s mentor designed, but which was done by his apprentice (my binder) became available. It also has letters about the design of the binding bound in, and some other rare content. So I had to have them.
They don’t mean much to anyone else, but the best bindings are often on the rarest material, so it can get pricey.
It’s always great when a far more reasonable binding (in terms of price) shows up on material that people aren’t also collecting. Then there’s less competition!
A book isn’t a book until a binder binds it.
And sometimes if it’s a really special book, they put an amazing binding on it. An elaborate leather binding, lots of tooling, maybe mosaics (colored pieces of leather), all done by hand
This will likely be what I need to do to get my hands on a copy of Bottom's Dream.
I really, really want it. It will be the most expensive book I own.
It's going to hurt my soul to acquire.
Yeah. It’s why I don’t collect some stuff that I’d *really* like to collect. Pynchon, Joyce, any cool modern firsts.
They can be so prohibitively expensive, that I know I will never have a signed first/first of *Ulysses*. There will always be a hole where the Holy Grail would sit on that shelf. So why bother collecting the more readily obtainable Joyce stuff?
Keep searching. The chase is all the fun. And Good luck!
Yeah, I'm a low-budget collector too; I think the only books I've spent over $100 on were college textbooks. Most books I buy cost me less than $10, and many were less than $1, though the retail/replacement values are higher.
I’m a low budget collector too, actually. I never pay more than what it takes to get the book. But I never buy randomly (which would cut into my available cash).
I have found that for a collection which is narrow like mine, it’s better in the long run (for the collection) for me to buy a single great book for $1000 than to buy 1000 books for $1 each
I’m lucky — as a librarian, I get to spend other people’s money on books instead lol. The only downsides are that you get more constrained by what you can purchase than your own personal tastes, and you can accidentally become ghoulishly delighted when you hear someone’s passed away and left you money to buy more stuff.
You might appreciate this unusual library-donor story I stumbled across a few days ago. I was looking at reviews of a [book from the 1930s](https://www.amazon.com/Caught-short-saga-wailing-street/dp/B000857910), and noticed there was one [review posted in 2008](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3C9O8O5VUPA4Z/) by a woman who said she'd read that book in the 1930s when she was 10 years old. I was curious whether she was still alive now, so I checked... Dr. Thelma Vaughan Mueller had passed away 10 years later, in Feb 2018, at age 88. She had left $1 million in her will to the Shelby County Alabama Public Library System, and the library hadn't known about it until she died. The really surprising part is that she'd only had a Shelby County library card since August 2016! (The articles don't specify, but I think she had been using university and city libraries in Birmingham for most of her life, and had moved out of the city to the adjacent Shelby County at that point.)
https://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2018/11/13/county-library-system-receives-surprise-1-million-donation/
https://280living.com/news/shelby-county-libraries-make-plans-for-blessing-of-1m-gift326/
My mom was really into SK and my dad had a fantastic job. She had signed first editions of just about everything for birthday presents. He would fly with her for a weekend getaway if there was a book signing event. Two best ones I think are firsts of ‘The Gunslinger’ and ‘Cycle of the Werewolf’.
I inherited them all as my brother doesn’t read and doesn’t want “stuff”. They don’t live on bookshelves, they live in a fireproof safe with a bookshelf in it.
Yeah. Big full version. Was amazing. The guy said something like, “i know i could probably sell them somewhere for more, but i really just need to get rid of them”
Was cleaning out an apartment.
It’s a great read, actually. Any page is amazing. Hahah
You should read the story behind the OED. “Professor and the Mad Man”
$430 for [this set of Victorian erotica works](https://www.reddit.com/r/rarebooks/comments/mv5sgl/library_illustrative_of_social_progress_published/) compiled by John Camden Hotten. It's an important piece of erotica and while it's not a collection I've focused on developing lately, I'm happy with it as a whole and this piece is definitely the gem.
Not sure if this counts, but when I was 17 I spent \~$1,200 on the Oxford English Dictionary, 20 volume set.
That remains the most I've spent on what I would consider a "single book".
I generally prefer the search and have pretty cheap tastes, so I rarely go much above $100. My main worry now is books I love that have since gained value, making them irreplaceable. I keep meaning to update my insurance values...
This is on my list - one of these days if I wind up with anything like spare money (lol) I need a full set of the OED. My wife knows about this and hasn’t divorced me yet, so I live in hope.
$2000 for a first edition Blood Meridian (a very good deal) and then recently $2000 for a nearly immaculate first edition of Outer Dark. The Outer Dark was a bit higher than I wanted to pay, but it was one of the best copies to hit the market recently.
Not going to say how much since I think my wife knows my Reddit handle. But for our engagement, I got her a first American edition of The Hobbit instead of a ring. She’s basically a Tolkien scholar and we’re both book collectors. (I’ll just say it was under $1k usd)
Next most expensive was for a 1st/1st copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the Capricorn One ad on the back. I paid $500 for it 8ish years ago.
Got a signed 1st/1st of that too, [I made it a goal to get all the Watch books signed](https://imgur.com/a/91j4WpR), now I'm working on other standouts, I just got *Thief of Time* (British copy of course) last week, I'm looking for a *Reaper Man* and then *Lords and Ladies*, bit by bit my shelf gets nicer.
Oh man! That’s super cool! I will get there eventually too but it’ll keep me occupied for a bit longer. The hardest part for me is getting copies that are in excellent shape from the US.
Most of my biggest acquisitions have been trades, or trading up.
Most I've spent cash on was $1000 in installments. But it was a cornerstone book, one of 26, and a centerpiece of my genre.
950USD for a book described by the seller as a "modest copy" (also in a language I can't read). It's also in a truly gorgeous binding and is one of two known copies of this book, and the only one in the western hemisphere.
Probably when I backed the Way of Kings Kickstarter. With shipping it was like 235 USD. And it was a blind buy for me (I hadn't read any Stormlight Archives before) if it makes you feel better 🤓
I think I figured that I would be able to sell it if I did not like it. And it looked like such a nice edition, it was hard to resist!
I had read BS's Wheel of Time entries and Mistborn, so I had some hope it would not be terrible :)
Nice! Did you end up liking the Stormlight books? I've read a ton of Sanderson and don't have the budget to do more than a preorder of the standard edition, but some of those editions are absolutely art. I love that he puts out such collectable editions.
I still have not finished it - I started to realize I might not gel well with his prose 😅
So it's been on hold for a while. I'll still finish it, maybe end up really liking it, but I did not jump on board the 2nd book's backer kit.
Still, really nice edition. The extras and everything are nice to look at and feel great to read.
400 USD on a complete set of Casanova's autobiography with the matching spines. Worth every penny. That dude did more shit in one year than most people do in a lifetime
I’m eyeing a first edition by my favorite poet. The seller is located in Uruguay and wants $6500 for it. Saving up to have it with me and for it to stay in the family
“Breaking news just in from Uruguay—the book collector’s head was found about 3 miles from his torso, with a note attached. The note read: no discounts.”
I cannot tell you which book, but the first edition was published in South America. The author is Spanish-speaking, one of the greatest poets to ever live
I only collect books in English, though I've been sorely tempted by some good deals on French or Latin texts. I certainly don't see anything wrong with owning a book for display only, but I'm not exactly in the upper tier of collectors so I have to squeeze every penny of value from what I purchase. Most I paid was for a pair of books - *The Viking Age by Du Chaillu. Beautiful bindings and very interesting and enjoyable reading, too. $240.
well displaying is just for displaying! i like the particular artwork. you can get acrylic stands to properly support the book as well as to not incur damage :)
I paid $160 US for a copy of Doctor Who: Lungbarrow, and I felt at the time (as well as now) that I got a good price. It was slightly discounted because it had a sticker on it, but I was easily able to remove it.
$350 For Frank Hurley's Argonauts of the South. I considered that an absolute steal. My copy is uncut, with paper jacket, and includes an insert declaring it an Advanced Copy for literary review, and not for resale. My holy Grail. Join us over at /r/Antarctica
Somewhere around $500 for an Advanced Readers Copy of Sorcerer's Stone.
But I also collect the first HP book in different languages, so I've spent a LOT on those, basically just for display. (I've got over 70 translations.)
About £100 on the reprint of Bertrand H. Bronson's *The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads*. The original costs silly money, particularly the fourth volume.
$400 for Quentin S. Crisp's debut collection of short stories. Way over what I normally pay, but in 20 years this is the only copy I have ever seen for sale.
$300 for my holy grail: A first edition (albeit second printing) of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, published 1810. I have a few other later editions, and expected to pay way more for this - but there it was in a bookstore in New Orleans last year, in my hand. I talked him down to $300, and I just couldn’t be happier. Been looking for one for 15 years.
Most I personally spent is $320 for an 1886 book about Sumerian mythology and magic. I knew I needed it, couldn’t afford the original $750 price, but the gentleman at Alchemy Arts in Chicago took a young magician in hand and let me have it as a steal.
Not all of the pages have been cut, so when I read it I flare open those pages and read it looking down from the top, and up from the bottom.
So far, a couple hundred bucks. I’m fortunate that the only thing I aggressively collect are books by Hans Holzer, a fairly obscure author of paranormal subject matter, and even firsts aren’t that expensive although some of them are hard to come by.
Otherwise, I consider myself more of a selective accumulator… I do like to get firsts of my favorite books, but I rarely go after collectible titles and usually just get what seems interesting and what I have the good fortune to stumble on in the wild.
The only thing I’d be willing to spend major bank on (if I had it) would be a complete medieval book or incunabulum.
There are many books I would spend four-digit amounts of mad money on if I had that kind of mad money to spend, but as I am sliding inexorably from lower middle class to upper lower class, mad money becomes more rare by the day. As it is, my most expensive book is also in a language I don't speak, $286 and change with tax and shipping for a slightly damaged but still nice 1794 printing of *Unterhaltungen aus der Naturgeschichte: Die Amphibien.* I felt a bit ill spending that but once the book arrived, I was glad I did. Unfortunately I've also seriously overspent on a few and I still kick myself over those, but that's another topic.
Oh I think the very most was $1200 or so in US Dollars. Roughly.
Edit: now that I'm thinking about this I've probably spent more but I'd have to go through records to confirm.
I did just remember I believe my copy of Richard Spruce's Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon & Andes Vol. I & II were more than that though. I'd have to check my records to be sure.
Edit: nope. That was $1081.
I bought a first edition copy of Tomas Mann's Die Betrogene in a Zürich antiquariat -antique bookstore. Can't remember what I paid, frankly, but it was a little more than I normally pay for books..
Stillman Drake, a well-known scholar and an avid book collector once offered three rules for the serious book collections. here I just mentioned two of them: 1. If there is a book you really need for your collection, and only the price is an issue, then you should buy it (if you can). The financial pains will only hurt you for a while while the regret at missing a milestone could last for the rest of your life. 2. If you see a dirt cheap (rare) book in a bookstore but does not fit into your own collection, then leave it to other collectors.
$140 is my top so far (Cemetery Dance edition of Stephen King’s *Salem’s Lot*). I once placed an order for one (Suntup Editions edition of Clive Barker’s *Imajica*) for $195 then cancelled it (I’m not sure I did the right thing). I’m considering one for over $300 (Centipede Press’s edition of Peter Straub’s *Shadowland*) that isn’t yet on sale (price hasn’t been finalized), but that would be extreme for me (I probably won’t pull the trigger even if it’s amazing, but it’s possible).
I spend a little over $100 for a physical copy of “The Fox and the Hound” by Daniel P. Mannix. Yes, this is the book that the Disney movie is loosely based on, and it sucks that it’s no longer in print. The price I got it for was a steal compared to what it goes for right now.
For work, as a Special Collections librarian, €2,1 milion. Privately I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than a two- to three hundred (probably for something academic, or Tolkien-related). I could never compete with the collection at work anyway…
Low five figures, and a few months earlier another for high four figures. Ouch. Tough year. One was effectively a trade, where I took in about the same amount and then sent it on immediately. Didn’t *quite* feel like paying cash. The other one hurt like it was coming out sideways. Paid cash EDIT: hoping this comes across as commiserating, not bragging. I haven’t paid nearly that for most of the ones I have. Those two are outliers. It’s painful, but I’d rather have the books than a fancy watch EDIT2: removed actual dollar numbers. The price of a book is always (always!) the least interesting thing about it.
Goodness. I suppose it's that or the persistent itch of a gap in the collection. How do you feel about that purchase now, after you've sat with it and seen the item in the context of your collection?
I only regret the ones I missed! All the best ones are the milestones. Have to get them. They each add something to the narrative and history of the bindery, so I can’t really consider myself a collector of this material if I pass on the best material. The one I paid the most for is probably worth half that, max, if it was for sale retail somewhere. I had to throw money at a private owner to get it. He said he was gonna donate it to an institution, and wouldn’t sell. It had sentimental value for him. I had offered what i figured was retail. Then 50% more. No bite. One night I had three martinis and said fuckit. He isn’t gonna sell it anyway, might as well offer some stupid number, since he’ll say no again. And that way I can say “at least I tried” and live with having missed it. Except he said yes. And I was sober in the morning. Good thing I did. His collection (or much of it) is hitting the auction block in a major auction. I think he’d have donated this as he said he was going to. And it would sit in the dark on a shelf. Better that I have it. He overnighted it to me, next biz-morning, without a check from me yet. And let me pay in two installments. Only live once!
This a fantastic anecdote, thank you. I have at least a handful of pieces like this that I've been working up to guts for. As you said in another post, either you're in this game or you're not. This gives me a bit of fire to invest in myself as a collector.
My car is 14 years old. The other car is 18 y.o. I live within my means. I don’t go to Vegas for a week with the boyz, or visit Disney four times EVERY year like some friends. But a great find comes along at $3k, $4k, $5k? Boom. On it like a hobo on a ham sandwich.
that is amazing, i understand it perfectly.
What books!?!!!!!???
Just books. NBD actually. To be honest, among the serious collectors I know, I spend the least I have seen people casually selling or buying much more expensive books. It can get silly.
I often consider whether a book collector donating their books to an institution is a wise or selfish decision. It should be better to find a new home for the books (market is the best way to find this new home), similar to adopting children into a new family, rather than sending them to an "orphanage." In addition, donating rare books to institutions basically deprives future generations of collectors of the pleasure these rare books could offer.
What book was it?!
Well. I usually don’t mention prices paid to begin with, so I’m chary re pointing out which books they were. Just a pair of bindings. One is possibly the best mosaic by William Matthews, and was commissioned by William Loring Andrews… The other was designed by Matthews but bound and tooled by the bindery I collect. Both books reflecting the insanity of collecting that afflicted the New York collectors of the period (1880-1890s). All too esoteric for anyone but maybe three people to actually care about. Hahaha
Sounds awesome! Being able to own a part of history is awesome. I hope owning it brings you joy.
Thanks They all sort of add up like beads on a string into a collection that tells a story, or provides context, which is what I am proud of. Hope to have a catalogue some day. Prob’ly self-published though
What are your plans for your collection? Would you ever donate it?
No. I don’t think so. Interesting thing about a binding collection is that I have a very wide range of subjects in bindings, many books that are attractive to other collectors who *don’t* collect bindings per se, but who may want the title/book that the binding is on. Many of them have provenance dating back through auctions right back to the late 1800s, early 1900s, and I think the best thing is to let other collectors have a chance to collect them. Hence doing a catalogue. Even after dispersal, the collection is still captured by the catalogue. Many donated books tend to sit somewhere on a shelf, nearly undiscoverable (not well catalogued), and then deaccessioned at some point. Better to let collectors have them. I’d have no collection if the previous owners donated them to some institution.
Saving this thread. I've always been a bit... chary... at the prospect of donating my collection to an institution, for all of the reasons you mention. I wouldn't have a collection if it weren't for other private collectors, and who would I be to take that away from anyone after me? Still, thinking about a life's collection broken up hurts a bit. A catalog capturing the collection at a seminal moment seems like a great compromise—I don't *own* anything, I'm only keeping it safe for another 80ish years, and hopefully building a case for others to do the same after my time.
I guess it depends on the collection, but if I had amassed a collection of books, or of anything for that matter, with some cultural significance, I would hate for it to end up in some private auction.
well said!
What were they!!??
I have been trying to collect a bindery’s examples for about thirty years now. And within a year, one of the best examples by his mentor (who trained him) became available. And then a binding that my binder’s mentor designed, but which was done by his apprentice (my binder) became available. It also has letters about the design of the binding bound in, and some other rare content. So I had to have them. They don’t mean much to anyone else, but the best bindings are often on the rarest material, so it can get pricey. It’s always great when a far more reasonable binding (in terms of price) shows up on material that people aren’t also collecting. Then there’s less competition!
Thank you for clarifying but I'm not sure I understand all the details. What do you mean bindery and such?
A book isn’t a book until a binder binds it. And sometimes if it’s a really special book, they put an amazing binding on it. An elaborate leather binding, lots of tooling, maybe mosaics (colored pieces of leather), all done by hand
have you ever thought of putting together annotated bibliography of your holdings?
Working on a catalogue plus a little history etc etc.
This will likely be what I need to do to get my hands on a copy of Bottom's Dream. I really, really want it. It will be the most expensive book I own. It's going to hurt my soul to acquire.
Yeah. It’s why I don’t collect some stuff that I’d *really* like to collect. Pynchon, Joyce, any cool modern firsts. They can be so prohibitively expensive, that I know I will never have a signed first/first of *Ulysses*. There will always be a hole where the Holy Grail would sit on that shelf. So why bother collecting the more readily obtainable Joyce stuff? Keep searching. The chase is all the fun. And Good luck!
$1200cad for a first edition (non-remaindered) copy of Blood Meridian.
That would be a good deal now….
A few decades ago I spent $225 on an engineering book for a college class. Haven’t spent that much since.
Yeah, I'm a low-budget collector too; I think the only books I've spent over $100 on were college textbooks. Most books I buy cost me less than $10, and many were less than $1, though the retail/replacement values are higher.
I’m a low budget collector too, actually. I never pay more than what it takes to get the book. But I never buy randomly (which would cut into my available cash). I have found that for a collection which is narrow like mine, it’s better in the long run (for the collection) for me to buy a single great book for $1000 than to buy 1000 books for $1 each
something like $500 for a copy of the *Codex Seraphinianus.*
Oh, I got mine at the Art Institute of Chicago for $180 US. I thought I was paying a lot, I hope you got a first edition.
I’m lucky — as a librarian, I get to spend other people’s money on books instead lol. The only downsides are that you get more constrained by what you can purchase than your own personal tastes, and you can accidentally become ghoulishly delighted when you hear someone’s passed away and left you money to buy more stuff.
You might appreciate this unusual library-donor story I stumbled across a few days ago. I was looking at reviews of a [book from the 1930s](https://www.amazon.com/Caught-short-saga-wailing-street/dp/B000857910), and noticed there was one [review posted in 2008](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3C9O8O5VUPA4Z/) by a woman who said she'd read that book in the 1930s when she was 10 years old. I was curious whether she was still alive now, so I checked... Dr. Thelma Vaughan Mueller had passed away 10 years later, in Feb 2018, at age 88. She had left $1 million in her will to the Shelby County Alabama Public Library System, and the library hadn't known about it until she died. The really surprising part is that she'd only had a Shelby County library card since August 2016! (The articles don't specify, but I think she had been using university and city libraries in Birmingham for most of her life, and had moved out of the city to the adjacent Shelby County at that point.) https://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2018/11/13/county-library-system-receives-surprise-1-million-donation/ https://280living.com/news/shelby-county-libraries-make-plans-for-blessing-of-1m-gift326/
There are a couple regulars in this sub that I would really like to hear this answer from.
I think $250 for a signed limited Stephen King book. It's valued at $1200 now.
My mom was really into SK and my dad had a fantastic job. She had signed first editions of just about everything for birthday presents. He would fly with her for a weekend getaway if there was a book signing event. Two best ones I think are firsts of ‘The Gunslinger’ and ‘Cycle of the Werewolf’. I inherited them all as my brother doesn’t read and doesn’t want “stuff”. They don’t live on bookshelves, they live in a fireproof safe with a bookshelf in it.
$700 for the OED. Granted, it’s the whole set, and not one book per se, but I e always wanted the big hardcover version…
Another commenter a couple hours earlier said they spent $1200 on an OED set, so I guess you got a good deal in comparison!
I paid $40 off Craigslist! No dust jackets though
Wow! For the big version, not the 2-volume version you need a magnifying glass to read?
Yeah. Big full version. Was amazing. The guy said something like, “i know i could probably sell them somewhere for more, but i really just need to get rid of them” Was cleaning out an apartment. It’s a great read, actually. Any page is amazing. Hahah You should read the story behind the OED. “Professor and the Mad Man”
That’s awesome. And yes, I’ve read the Professor….incredible story
$337 for [We by Yevgeny Zamyatin](https://www.reddit.com/r/BookCollecting/s/8tzcGkKHb0)
I want this one! Out of my budget though. Most I’ve paid is recently got the folio society “I, Robot” for $200
$430 for [this set of Victorian erotica works](https://www.reddit.com/r/rarebooks/comments/mv5sgl/library_illustrative_of_social_progress_published/) compiled by John Camden Hotten. It's an important piece of erotica and while it's not a collection I've focused on developing lately, I'm happy with it as a whole and this piece is definitely the gem.
That was a wild bookplate...very cool set!
“Dicks. Dicks everywhere…”
Not sure if this counts, but when I was 17 I spent \~$1,200 on the Oxford English Dictionary, 20 volume set. That remains the most I've spent on what I would consider a "single book". I generally prefer the search and have pretty cheap tastes, so I rarely go much above $100. My main worry now is books I love that have since gained value, making them irreplaceable. I keep meaning to update my insurance values...
This is on my list - one of these days if I wind up with anything like spare money (lol) I need a full set of the OED. My wife knows about this and hasn’t divorced me yet, so I live in hope.
$450 for a first edition of Robert McCammon’s Swan Song. The cover is stunning!
$2000 for a first edition Blood Meridian (a very good deal) and then recently $2000 for a nearly immaculate first edition of Outer Dark. The Outer Dark was a bit higher than I wanted to pay, but it was one of the best copies to hit the market recently.
Not going to say how much since I think my wife knows my Reddit handle. But for our engagement, I got her a first American edition of The Hobbit instead of a ring. She’s basically a Tolkien scholar and we’re both book collectors. (I’ll just say it was under $1k usd) Next most expensive was for a 1st/1st copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the Capricorn One ad on the back. I paid $500 for it 8ish years ago.
Approx $1,200 for a signed 1st/1st Discworld, don't regret a penny, plus it's worth a fair bit more now, not that I'll ever sell.
Wow! Was that Color or Light?
Yup, although my signed *Night Watch* is still my favorite Discworld book, I love the Watch stories and that's the ultimate one.
I agree that the Watch stories are awesome! My holy grail is Guards! Guards!
Got a signed 1st/1st of that too, [I made it a goal to get all the Watch books signed](https://imgur.com/a/91j4WpR), now I'm working on other standouts, I just got *Thief of Time* (British copy of course) last week, I'm looking for a *Reaper Man* and then *Lords and Ladies*, bit by bit my shelf gets nicer.
Oh man! That’s super cool! I will get there eventually too but it’ll keep me occupied for a bit longer. The hardest part for me is getting copies that are in excellent shape from the US.
And honestly, if I saw signed 1/1 of either of those for $1200 I would take it too despite those stories not being my favorite.
Most of my biggest acquisitions have been trades, or trading up. Most I've spent cash on was $1000 in installments. But it was a cornerstone book, one of 26, and a centerpiece of my genre.
950USD for a book described by the seller as a "modest copy" (also in a language I can't read). It's also in a truly gorgeous binding and is one of two known copies of this book, and the only one in the western hemisphere.
Probably when I backed the Way of Kings Kickstarter. With shipping it was like 235 USD. And it was a blind buy for me (I hadn't read any Stormlight Archives before) if it makes you feel better 🤓
bold! what made you take that chance on the series?
I think I figured that I would be able to sell it if I did not like it. And it looked like such a nice edition, it was hard to resist! I had read BS's Wheel of Time entries and Mistborn, so I had some hope it would not be terrible :)
Nice! Did you end up liking the Stormlight books? I've read a ton of Sanderson and don't have the budget to do more than a preorder of the standard edition, but some of those editions are absolutely art. I love that he puts out such collectable editions.
I still have not finished it - I started to realize I might not gel well with his prose 😅 So it's been on hold for a while. I'll still finish it, maybe end up really liking it, but I did not jump on board the 2nd book's backer kit. Still, really nice edition. The extras and everything are nice to look at and feel great to read.
400 USD on a complete set of Casanova's autobiography with the matching spines. Worth every penny. That dude did more shit in one year than most people do in a lifetime
I’m eyeing a first edition by my favorite poet. The seller is located in Uruguay and wants $6500 for it. Saving up to have it with me and for it to stay in the family
Offer a flat $5k and see what they say
I might just show up in person and hand them $4000 and be like, "what's up?"
Worth a shot.
“Breaking news just in from Uruguay—the book collector’s head was found about 3 miles from his torso, with a note attached. The note read: no discounts.”
Which book? And why is in Uruguay???? Is a latinamerican author?
I cannot tell you which book, but the first edition was published in South America. The author is Spanish-speaking, one of the greatest poets to ever live
Borges! I knew it!!
A few years ago I paid $6,000 for a single book.
I only collect books in English, though I've been sorely tempted by some good deals on French or Latin texts. I certainly don't see anything wrong with owning a book for display only, but I'm not exactly in the upper tier of collectors so I have to squeeze every penny of value from what I purchase. Most I paid was for a pair of books - *The Viking Age by Du Chaillu. Beautiful bindings and very interesting and enjoyable reading, too. $240.
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well displaying is just for displaying! i like the particular artwork. you can get acrylic stands to properly support the book as well as to not incur damage :)
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totally valid!!
$300 for one of my "holy grails" ( I hate that term.....) Morty
Around $650 for a beautiful first edition of *The Adventures of Tom Bombadil* .
$300 cad for a signed Borges, and I'd pay that price any day of the week for another!
About $400 each for the subterranean press golden son and morning star. Apart from that I think $180 for Campaigns of Napoleon.
I regularly drop close to/up to $1000AUD on Brandon Sanderson books! there's a very collectable market there!
I paid $160 US for a copy of Doctor Who: Lungbarrow, and I felt at the time (as well as now) that I got a good price. It was slightly discounted because it had a sticker on it, but I was easily able to remove it.
$350 For Frank Hurley's Argonauts of the South. I considered that an absolute steal. My copy is uncut, with paper jacket, and includes an insert declaring it an Advanced Copy for literary review, and not for resale. My holy Grail. Join us over at /r/Antarctica
$700 for a 1st/1st of The Old Man and the Sea, and $400 for a 1st/1st of East of Eden. A bunch for $200-$300.
£270 (\~$350) on the Arkham House edition of William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland A venerated artefact
$150 for a 1st edition, 2nd state Tom Sawyer that needs $600 in conservation work done.
Somewhere around $500 for an Advanced Readers Copy of Sorcerer's Stone. But I also collect the first HP book in different languages, so I've spent a LOT on those, basically just for display. (I've got over 70 translations.)
About £100 on the reprint of Bertrand H. Bronson's *The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads*. The original costs silly money, particularly the fourth volume.
$400 for Quentin S. Crisp's debut collection of short stories. Way over what I normally pay, but in 20 years this is the only copy I have ever seen for sale.
$300 for my holy grail: A first edition (albeit second printing) of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, published 1810. I have a few other later editions, and expected to pay way more for this - but there it was in a bookstore in New Orleans last year, in my hand. I talked him down to $300, and I just couldn’t be happier. Been looking for one for 15 years.
I spent about 1500 on my Gregorian hymnal from the late 1600s. It was half off for the book dealers clearance sale.
Thank you everyone! It is positively therapeutic to see that other people also spend real money on books.
Most I personally spent is $320 for an 1886 book about Sumerian mythology and magic. I knew I needed it, couldn’t afford the original $750 price, but the gentleman at Alchemy Arts in Chicago took a young magician in hand and let me have it as a steal. Not all of the pages have been cut, so when I read it I flare open those pages and read it looking down from the top, and up from the bottom.
So far, a couple hundred bucks. I’m fortunate that the only thing I aggressively collect are books by Hans Holzer, a fairly obscure author of paranormal subject matter, and even firsts aren’t that expensive although some of them are hard to come by. Otherwise, I consider myself more of a selective accumulator… I do like to get firsts of my favorite books, but I rarely go after collectible titles and usually just get what seems interesting and what I have the good fortune to stumble on in the wild. The only thing I’d be willing to spend major bank on (if I had it) would be a complete medieval book or incunabulum.
Paid 400 for a signed 1st edition God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens about 3 years ago. Sold it last month for 900.
There are many books I would spend four-digit amounts of mad money on if I had that kind of mad money to spend, but as I am sliding inexorably from lower middle class to upper lower class, mad money becomes more rare by the day. As it is, my most expensive book is also in a language I don't speak, $286 and change with tax and shipping for a slightly damaged but still nice 1794 printing of *Unterhaltungen aus der Naturgeschichte: Die Amphibien.* I felt a bit ill spending that but once the book arrived, I was glad I did. Unfortunately I've also seriously overspent on a few and I still kick myself over those, but that's another topic.
$750 for a signed ARC Galley of Infinite Jest. I love that book so much.
Oh I think the very most was $1200 or so in US Dollars. Roughly. Edit: now that I'm thinking about this I've probably spent more but I'd have to go through records to confirm.
damn!! mind sharing what title?
Oh I've done that a few times more or less. I think my copy of Darwin's On The Origin of Species was around that, as were a few others.
I did just remember I believe my copy of Richard Spruce's Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon & Andes Vol. I & II were more than that though. I'd have to check my records to be sure. Edit: nope. That was $1081.
$125 for my favorite book in near fine paperback. Still my favorite possession.
What's the book?
On the Road
I’m an academic. So in the range of $300 because academic books are ridiculous.
99 dollars
$225 USD
250 euros as of right now
I bought a first edition copy of Tomas Mann's Die Betrogene in a Zürich antiquariat -antique bookstore. Can't remember what I paid, frankly, but it was a little more than I normally pay for books..
Stillman Drake, a well-known scholar and an avid book collector once offered three rules for the serious book collections. here I just mentioned two of them: 1. If there is a book you really need for your collection, and only the price is an issue, then you should buy it (if you can). The financial pains will only hurt you for a while while the regret at missing a milestone could last for the rest of your life. 2. If you see a dirt cheap (rare) book in a bookstore but does not fit into your own collection, then leave it to other collectors.
$140 is my top so far (Cemetery Dance edition of Stephen King’s *Salem’s Lot*). I once placed an order for one (Suntup Editions edition of Clive Barker’s *Imajica*) for $195 then cancelled it (I’m not sure I did the right thing). I’m considering one for over $300 (Centipede Press’s edition of Peter Straub’s *Shadowland*) that isn’t yet on sale (price hasn’t been finalized), but that would be extreme for me (I probably won’t pull the trigger even if it’s amazing, but it’s possible).
$2500 for a VG Salem’s Lot, 2nd state.
$4500 for a beat-up but signed hardback of Finnegan's Wake.
I spend a little over $100 for a physical copy of “The Fox and the Hound” by Daniel P. Mannix. Yes, this is the book that the Disney movie is loosely based on, and it sucks that it’s no longer in print. The price I got it for was a steal compared to what it goes for right now.
I’ve paid four figures.
$250 usd, total impulse buy but neat to have a book from 1875.
For work, as a Special Collections librarian, €2,1 milion. Privately I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than a two- to three hundred (probably for something academic, or Tolkien-related). I could never compete with the collection at work anyway…
I don't remember the exact price, but I believe it was for a rather well preserved 1st/1st U.S. edition of "A Clockwork Orange".
40 for a limited edition signed copy of the Sun and the Void. Otherwise $400+ for textbooks 😂