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Old June 22nd 06, 09:00 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default Mis-bound book values


"William M. Klimon" wrote in message
oups.com...
Keith Williams wrote:

How much value (if any) does having a mis-bound book add to its value?



I've been trying to puzzle out why misprinted stamps and misstruck
coins have great value:

http://www.invertedcenter.com

while misbound books (and most other defective collectibles, for that
matter) are valueless curiosities.

Perhaps the key is that the stamps and coins are issued officially by
governments. Quality control in such situations is usually exceedingly
high and thus such mistakes are exceedingly rare. Such things are also
either legal tender or tantamount to such. And finally the responsible
government agencies always seem to suppress such things.

Whereas book binders probably end up with lots of problematic volumes,
their standards are probably not so high, and the books don't have same
official value that their philatelic and numismatic counterparts have.
And, although they surely don't want such things circulating,
publishers, printers, and binders don't have police powers to go round
them up.

Just my 1955-Double-Die-Lincoln two cents.

William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com



Stamps are printed on sheets of between 400(?) and 1000 (?)

They're easily examined, but neverthesss if one gets into
circulation, then presumably another 399 - 999 will have done as
well. And so they're easily identified and catalogued. Their likely
rarity as compared with the entire issue of a particular stamp may
also be guessed at, maybe. Misprinted stamps can be objects of
research therefore.

Binding errors are more likely to be singular - in the machine era
from a machine handler clearing a blockage maybe - in the hand
ear from a binder stacking or sewing the signatures in the incorrect
order. Binding errors are only identified if someone takes the trouble
to collate each and every book at the bindery - unlikely in the machine
era at least - or even as a buyer - up until such time as they read the
book. Whereas as we know all good collectors collate every single
book they buy, immediately on purchase. Nevertheless as a consequence,
binding errors don't admit to easy identification, and classification
and are presumably all equally singular\rare. Misbound books are objects
of curiosity, but not in the main, of research. Unlike in the case of
broken type, where the presence of broken letters in a run of books
may be used as an indication of edition or priority but will have
no necessary impact on value either way.

Presumably coins are manufactured in batches as well. And whether
articles are made in batches on machines, or singly, ceramics etc
clearly affects identification, classification, and subsequent
evaluation.




michael adams

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