Price increase of out-of-print book

Hello
I have been searching for the book
Douglas Nash - Hell's Gate. (it's a WW II book)

I found it on Amazon.com for $300 recently
(same search a few months ago had the lowest price
at $600 and I saw amazon sites of UK and Germany
had 700-800 at the lowest).

I know that when this book came out 2-3 yrs ago
it cost ~$50 on amazon and then soon went out of print.

My question is....
how can there be such jump in the price?
I know about supply and demand and all that
but since this is a very specialized subject book
can't be THAT much demand. And wouldn't it have to
be one amazing book to command that kind of $?

I am not going to buy this book at that price but
just want to ask readers here who know about
how this book business works and can explain this
price increase

(even if the book is so scarce and there are people
wanting to buy, would anyone really buy at that price?)

Thank you.

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 12:01:44 -0600, John A. Stovall
wrote:

I know that when this book came out 2-3 yrs ago
it cost ~$50 on amazon and then soon went out of print.

Should have bought a dozen copies...

I'm working on a time machine - want to set it for the the day in the
early 1980s when I was in a warehouse store (precursor of Sams' Club,
Costco etc.) and they had a whole stack of copies of the Codex
Seraphinianus for $20. It was a lot to pay for a book, but I bought
one anyway...

On 2005-03-04, wrote:
Hello
I have been searching for the book
Douglas Nash - Hell's Gate. (it's a WW II book)

What I would do is put a want on ABE (they're free)
and likewise one on eBay. A reasonable priced copy
will probably turn up sooner or later.

--
Jonathan Grobe Books
Browse our inventory of thousands of used books at:
http://www.grobebooks.com

Thank you for all the replies.

Great news that it will be back in
print.