Why does this book cost 2k+?

[LittleTennessee]

http://www.bookfinder.com/book/9780...ate_battles_at_Blue_Springs_for_the_control_/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966064011/?tag=civilwartalkc-20


I have this book, it was garbage picked and give to me (lol) and I recently discovered it sells from $ 2-6,ooo...but why? Mine has a small tear on the back but is in near mint condition otherwise....do I sell it or keep it? It's rather good. I finished reading it before discovering what a gem it is.

 

[M.Warren]

Keep or sale is your choice without doubt. From someone who read "Miss Nan Beloved Rebel" (under order of my Mother) and ended up loving it! If you like it don't part with it. Whats a few fed reserve notes compared to something you can feel?

 

[Allie]

Note that asking that price is not the same as getting it.

 

[chellers]

but why?

Supply and demand

 

[ole]

It would seem that it's a rare book. As such, the collectors decide the value in that it is worth what they will pay. You can sit on it and take pride in your possession, or you can sell it and buy a nice library of books you can read and are interested in.

 

[Lnwlf]

It is difficult to believe that a book of such recent vintage could command such a price, and in paperback no less. Ole hits it well in his post, but add to that it may be of "regional" interest being centered in Northeast Tennessee. An internet search for the author and the publisher yielded next to nothing, well, nothing actually that is helpful. It may be one of the gems from the self publishing world, with a limited print run, that is worth the paper it is printed on.
Out of curiosity; does the book have a bibliography and source notes?

 

[MRB1863]

The book may be advertised at $2K. What price will a buyer pay? If a buyer will pay you an amount that will buy something else you may like better, then sell the book. If there's nothing of the same value you would like to have more than the book, then keep it. Is there prospect that the book will increase significantly in value, if yes then keep it for the investment. This is all good advice coming from someone who can't seem to part with ANY CW related books on my shelf. (Including duplicate and triplicate copies.) So do whatever makes you happy!

 

[KLSDAD]

I'll bet its more "rare" than valuable. Check out the odd prices ... ex. $2,432.64. There are probably automated programs that adjust prices based on other offerings that have caused a snowball effect.

 

[Lnwlf]

That does make sense. If there are few, if any, of the same book or similar ones in the system, it must be rare. If it is rare, it must be valuable. Therefore, ask a fortune for it and see who bites!

 

[Warren]

I came across a similar situation in trying to locate a copy of a book, "The Wheatfield At Gettysburg-A Walking Tour" by Jay Jorgensen. The only place I could find it was as a used book through Amazon and it was listing for around $200. I finally got an answer as to why it cost that much from a used book store owner:it was out-of-print. Apparently, out-of-print books immediately command higher prices and it just goes from there as to the demand for the book then determining the price.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

It's worth what someone will pay for it.

 

[damYankee]

There is no guarantee the value will stay high, so If taking profit is the goal jump on it.

 

[16thVA]

Here's something that might help explain.


http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358

 

[Bryan_C]

http://www.bookfinder.com/book/9780...ate_battles_at_Blue_Springs_for_the_control_/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966064011/?tag=civilwartalkc-20


I have this book, it was garbage picked and give to me (lol) and I recently discovered it sells from $ 2-6,ooo...but why? Mine has a small tear on the back but is in near mint condition otherwise....do I sell it or keep it? It's rather good. I finished reading it before discovering what a gem it is.

When I see people advertising stuff for prices like this it makes me think they're not that serious about trying to sell them.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

"All the market will bear."

There's been a copy of Walke's Naval Scenes and Reminiscences for sale by an antiquarian bookstore in Canada for $1,800 for a few years. I was tracking it for a while to see if they'd drop the price, then found another copy for less than half the price. Since I semi-regularly run searches to see what Walke material might have become available, I see it's still there, and still being offered for $1,800.

Now... if the book is in as good a shape as the listing says, that may only be a little on the high side as an asking price. There are a couple of factors at work here-- the inherent value of an original book from 1877 and its condition, the desirability of the book itself, and rarity. The availability of the text of the book as a free Google book and the availability of cheap reprints has probably undercut the market.

If the bookseller contacted me for a recommendation, I'd say they should drop the price a little, but not too far, since the book itself does have an inherent value that a reprint does not.

(Walke's Naval Scenes was issued in two versions, a regular edition and a 'deluxe' edition, originally priced at $2.00 for the original and $2.50 for the 'deluxe' (or "extra") edition. The deluxe has extra giltwork on the cover and spine, more than twice as many illustrations, and frequently extra notes and updates inserted. I have an original of both versions, as well as a reprint and a "Google Books" pdf... anyway, the $1,800 copy is one of the 'deluxes.')

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

. . . sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

$450? Piffle. That'll get you maybe a dozen decent books.

 

[Barrycdog]

I have seen people try to photocopy and sell rare books on ebay. Lots of scams out there.

 

[Barrycdog]

History of the 79th New York Cameron Highlanders, 1859-1876 1 edition
By William Arley Beard
Also this book.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

The first edition of my first book, Gettysburg's Forgotten Cavalry Actions, was out of print for about eight years, much to my great unhappiness. Now, understand that this was a 156 page softcover only book that retailed for $12.95 when it was published in 1998. Although about 8000 copies of the original edition were printed, it became very rare after a while because people seem to like the book and there were traditionally very few copies available for sale on the secondary market before the new edition came out in 2011. For the last months before the new edition came out, copies of the original were listed for sale on ABEBooks and Amazon for hundreds of dollars, which amused me to no end--I would periodically check to see just how high the prices had gone just for kicks.

Why the ridiculously high prices?

Econ 101, baby: supply and demand. Very, very scarce supply means high prices. But, as I said above, the book is only worth what someone will pay for it. At the current prices, someone would have to be very desperate indeed to pay those prices, just as someone would have had to have been desperate for a copy of my book to pay what they were asking for it.

Since the second edition was published--the second edition added 14,000 words of new material to the main text, several appendices, replaced a map, and lots of new images--demand for the first edition is pretty much non-existent because the second edition is such a vastly improved book. No demand, so the price for the first edition drops, regardless of supply (yes, I actually was an economics major long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away).