Sell or hold my rare book?

October 10, 2005 12:15 AM

Sell or hold? My impulse rare book investment is appreciating nicely it seems. Maybe.

About five years ago I went looking for a copy of Propaganda by Edward Bernays just to read. Seeing the huge importance Chomsky, Goebbels, et al placed on the work I was surprised to learn it had been out of print for a looong time. As my discretionary income was much higher then I decided to buy a first edition(1928) from a dealer on abebooks.com figuring that maybe it would appreciate nicely someday. From memory I paid somewhere between $150-$180 for one of the nicest ones on the market at the time.

Imagine my surprise when a search today shows that asking prices for a first range from $1250-$2500. Gee. I wasn't expecting it to appreciate quite that fast. Hence my questions:

1. I read the thread about the LOTR firsts here on ask mefi. I can see how the movie would have pushed the prices up but what explains the massive, rapid increase in the asking prices for something relatively obscure like this? Did Karl Rove mention it during his appearance on Bizarro Oprah? In other words, how do I determine if this is some sort of bubble that i should cash out of quick or if I can reasonably expect prices to continue to increase? Should I try to sell or hold?

2. I believe my copy may be initialed by Bernays to the owner but I have no idea if it is genuine or not. At the time I bought it I doubt if anyone much cared if Bernays had signed it or not but now that some people think $2500 is a reasonable price for the book maybe they would. Would an appraisal attempt to verify the handwriting? Again, this is Edward Bernays we are talking about, not Tolkien or Hemingway so I have no idea how feasible it would be to validate it or if it would even be worth doing so. I'm not even a book collector...I just kind of made a drunken impulse buy one night.

posted by well_balanced to work & money (13 comments total)

I'm no expert, but it looks like you are after some opinions.
If you like owning the book, even at its inflated price, why not take a punt and keep it? Imagine if it appreciated the same percentage again in a decade!
I figure if you sold it for the midpoint of your range now, you would have a bit of cash, but nothing life changing, and a nice dinner party story.
If you hold and it drops, you still have a dinner party story, but a more rueful one, and you are no worse off financially than you were yesterday.
If you hold and it continues its flight, well, wait till it buys you a beach house then tell your kids and grandkids about the book that bought you a beach house and you'll look pretty cool.
posted by bystander at 3:46 AM on October 10, 2005

FWIW, finding the price of a book on abebooks.com or ebay is often useless. Unless you have a book that there is likely to be a frenzy over (Tolkien, JK Rowling etc) then you will likely not achieve prices like this. Sellers on abebooks and ebay stores (rather than auctions) are especially used to playing the waiting game, and while that seller might be asking $2k+ he is probably prepared to have the book sitting on there for as long as it takes to achieve that price, which could be years, or never.

If you can find a completed eBay auction featuring your book with more than one bid on it (i.e. several people willing to pay in the neighbourhood of the end price) then you have a better idea of your achieveable price. Unless, of course, you can find an individual actively looking for this book, and since there are unsold copies on eBay and abebooks that also looks unlikely.

If you find someone willing to buy it for $1250-$2500 then I would bite their hand off and take it.
posted by fire&wings at 5:14 AM on October 10, 2005

Last year I bought a pair of books for about £2 which I was pleasantly surprised to see listed on abebooks at prices of in the region of £250-450. I approached a few specialist booksellers with an eye to selling it, but could only solicit offers in the £60-80 range... so, like fire&wings wrote, there may only be a slim chance of getting a price like those you're seeing. Often, a bookseller will only want to buy at about 25% of the selling price they have in mind.
posted by misteraitch at 5:42 AM on October 10, 2005

Why not put it up for sale, just like those people fire&wings mentions? If someone comes along willing to pay $2,500, great; if not, what are you losing?

bystander, don't be silly -- the chance of this book going up significantly more than this, let alone "the same percentage again" ($40,000 for Propaganda by Edward Bernays?!) are about the same as the chance of your being elected president.
posted by languagehat at 6:46 AM on October 10, 2005

Thanks for your opinions thus far but one of my chief curiosities is why the market saw fit to offer this book at ~$150 five years ago but ALL the first editions on the market now are being offered at $1000+? Are these sellers looking at some price list annual that says the book is worth that much? Was there a recent auction in which bidding approached those kinds of numbers? Are booksellers involved in a perpetual game of one-upsmanship by pricing each copy that comes onto the market a bit higher than the highest current price on the market?

Normally, rising prices should indicate an increasing demand for a diminishing supply but as has been noted here, dealers may just 'shoot for the moon' as it were on a book in which they don't have a lot of money tied up. If this is the case here, why was the moon only $150 then and $2500 now?
posted by well_balanced at 9:42 AM on October 10, 2005

My first thought is that the books value has skyrocketed because of the current political climate. If this theory is correct, then the value would likely fall if we enter more moderate times.

I vote for selling it... and hedging that by using half the proceeds to buy some more interesting books.
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:49 AM on October 10, 2005

The first edition market is incredibly volatile, especially for 20th-c works, and there's been a gathering interest in Bernays, particularly thanks to Adam Curtis's Century of the Self. On the back of that, Propaganda was reprinted in 2004 after a 30-year gap, with a Mark Crispin Miller introduction. It was also featured on Morning Edition this year.

But you're always at a disadvantage when selling to rare book dealers. There was a wonderful BBC radio series by Rick Gekowski on the subject a couple of years ago: the common theme was how individual collectors got screwed by dealers, or how books sold for decent prices got resold for astronomical prices a short time later. If you read Gekowski's book, you'll get a sense of that culture.

Now may well be a good time to sell: very reputable dealers are pricing the 1933 reprint at $600 or so. But unlike, say, a novel where the author's reputation is much more subject to fashion, Bernays' book is part of the history of ideas, and as such is never going to be neglected. My gut tells me that the price will rise in the long run, and spike when popular interest rises again. But in the long run, we're all dead. (Longer than most for Bernays: he lived to 103, so you don't get the bump on the centenary of his birth, and have to wait 90 years for the centenary of his death.)

So: talk to dealers. Post on rare book forums. Get a sense of what sort of market is out there. (Btw, Bernays' signature is featured here. And you might well want to talk to the Museum of PR in New York to see if they're interested in buying.)
posted by holgate at 10:54 AM on October 10, 2005

There are only TWO first editions being offered right now on Abebooks, so clearly they're scarce, that may be why the price is up quite a bit. But those are antiquarian booksellers' retail prices, not a price you can get unless you can get a hot auction going on eBay, as noted above, which is unlikely.
Take it to a couple of dealers and see if you can get the initials authenticated and get a general appraisal. You may be able to realize the best price working with a dealer who is interested in it. But I wouldn't count on megabucks; misteraitch's experience is instructive. The used book biz is one with s l o w turnover of stock, hence high markups.
posted by beagle at 11:00 AM on October 10, 2005

ALL the first editions on the market now are being offered at $1000+

No. All the first editions that *haven't sold yet* are being offered at $1000+. That eBay store copy looks like it's been sitting there since mid-July, and I've only been able to find two other first editions being offered at all via Bookfinder and abebooks - one from A Cappella Books and one from Northwest Books. I'd disagree with fire&wings on one point; there are almost certainly folks actively looking for this book, but unwilling to pay prices they feel are unreasonably high. Since asking prices are often...hopeful, let's say, it's very difficult to know whether the prices on the copies you're now seeing are anomalous or truly reflect the market value of the book. When our store lists books like this, we almost always ignore, if not laugh at, the upper prices in favor of something a bit closer to the ground.

That said, just the fact that there are few copies available is a good sign. Does yours have a dust jacket? Those don't.

why was the moon only $150 then and $2500 now?

Growing interest in the study of spin? If so, it's probably not a short-term bubble that will burst and leave you sobbing. On the other hand, there was a 1998 bio (2002 paperback) that might have led to increased awareness. There's really no way of knowing how high it will go, or if the current prices are inflated and headed down, but try checking monthly for fluctuations; you'll be able to get a better read than with two snapshots five years apart.

The initials are a tougher thing; start by showing it to antique book dealers in your area and asking what you should do. If it's legit, it should raise the value significantly, and the dealer might decide to take on the research for you.

misteraitch: Often, a bookseller will only want to buy at about 25% of the selling price they have in mind.

It's closer to 33% at the store I work in, and can go up to 50% if the book is something very sellable. Electricity and rent cost money, you know. But unless there's a signature or a dust jacket, I'd be surprised if well_balanced could get $1000 for the book today.
posted by mediareport at 11:08 AM on October 10, 2005

the common theme was how individual collectors got screwed by dealers, or how books sold for decent prices got resold for astronomical prices a short time later.

For what it's worth, when someone wants us to appraise a collectible book for them, we usually talk them through each option, including the listings at abebooks, bookfinder, etc. before making an offer. There are unscrupulous dealers out there, sure, but there are plenty of scrupulous ones, too. (Besides, not all instances of a dealer recognizing value where the customer doesn't result in the customer "getting screwed.") Call around, ask on local newsgroups, etc.
posted by mediareport at 11:35 AM on October 10, 2005

Holgate, thanks for the pointer to Bernays' signature. The initials certainly look genuine to me...the 'E' is extremely similar. I would likely want to hold onto the book for a bit, get a feel for how the market is moving and attempt to sell it on ebay myself. I don't need the cash so badly that I am willing to get completely screwed by a dealer and diminish my dinner party story even though I don't really go to dinner parties. This leads to the question of who is qualified to validate the signature? Will an appraiser give me an official certificate of authenticity or something that I would include when I sell the book or would I have to let a reputable dealer sell the book in order to capitalize on the signature?

It is a fortuitous coincidence that I will be in NYC next Friday. If anyone would care to recommend an appraiser I would be all ears.
posted by well_balanced at 12:01 PM on October 10, 2005

If the owner's name is there as well you may want to investigate who it is. It would help lend support to the authenticity if the original owner was an associate or other plausible recipient of an author's presentation copy.
posted by beagle at 1:44 PM on October 10, 2005

One other thing: contact the original dealer and see if you can get some provenance. Antiquarian book dealers are usually good about that sort of thing, since they know that provenance matters.
posted by holgate at 4:01 PM on October 10, 2005