lookiong to start a collection

On 11 May 2007 00:17:07 -0700, yelrambob wrote:

thanks for youre help i didnt even think about being to broad with my
topic and all that everyone has said has helped in a way but i gess i
was thinking more along the lines of where would i go to find good
books of the collectible sort, what kind of books would make a good
collection, with the books i pb books i already have and love should i
go for the FE hardcovers of them, and how do i figure out what genre/
author/age books to collect


Try this:
1. Look at the books that you already have (assuming you have some
now).
2. Try and figure out what types of books you have : Fiction.
Non-Fiction, Technical...
3. Figure out which type you like the best.
4. Look at that group and find the author(s) you like best.
5. Buy those books.
6. Post here your hits and misses when you buy those books.


Or, if that is way too difficult, collect one of these topics:

The Modern Library
Stories of/by Catholic converts- pref. 1500's-1800's non- English
editions
Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books
Arkham House
Trans-gender Studies
NaCIO as a Preservative for Books

HTH,

Dave

wrote in message
oups.com...
just wondering if anyone could give me a couple hints on how to start
up a collection?

buy two books.....anything more than one book constitutes a collection. And
get the tattoo removed from your forehead that says "I'm a loser with no
common sense"

"yelrambob" wrote in message
oups.com...
thanks for youre help i didnt even think about being to broad with my
topic and all that everyone has said has helped in a way but i gess i
was thinking more along the lines of where would i go to find good
books of the collectible sort, what kind of books would make a good
collection, with the books i pb books i already have and love should i
go for the FE hardcovers of them, and how do i figure out what genre/
author/age books to collect



Collect what you love, otherwise, it's just investing and you might as well
"collect" stocks or gold coins as books. You already have a collection, even
if the individual books might not be considered "collectible." Look at your
bookshelves and you'll find that you've already acquired a number of titles
that appeal to you in one or more categories. Now it's just a matter of
upgrading and expanding or deepening your collection.

You can start upgrading by replacing your paperback titles with hard covers,
or replacing your book club editions with first editions. Perhaps, if first
editions are out of your price range, you could find your favorite titles in
nicer bindings. If you find a book in your area of interest that's nicer
than the one you've got, buy the new one and sell off your current copy.
eBay is good for both types of transaction.

By sticking with something you love, you'll find it easier to become an
expert in your chosen area. If you like particular authors, for instance,
you'll learn which publishers printed their books in first editions and what
the issue points were, what writers influenced them (and you might start
colleting those authors as well!), and something of their friends and
family, so that when you find a book on eBay inscribed to "Mary Jane -- I
couldn't have done it without you!" you'll surmise she it was the author's
sister, or wife, or whatever and snatch it up.

You can also make an interesting collection of things besides an author's
works. Almost anything that you find intriguing can be the basis for a
collection. Take hedgehogs. Why not? You could collect scientific works
about them, "gardener's friend" type books on their eradication, exotic pet
owner's manuals, books that cover them in folklore and myth, children's
books that have them as integral parts of the story or in illustrations.
There are a lot of ways you could go to get quite a number of titles on that
subject.

Do what you love, and the books will be there.

Alice

--
Book collecting terms illustrated. Used and out of print books for sale.
http://www.mywingsbooks.com/

yelrambob wrote:

thanks for youre help i didnt even think about being to broad with my
topic and all that everyone has said has helped in a way but i gess i
was thinking more along the lines of where would i go to find good
books of the collectible sort, what kind of books would make a good
collection, with the books i pb books i already have and love should i
go for the FE hardcovers of them, and how do i figure out what genre/
author/age books to collect



The OP's first post was correct in spelling and grammar. This is not. I think
we are being played.


Francis A. Miniter

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message
news:46453725@kcnews01...
yelrambob wrote:

thanks for youre help i didnt even think about being to broad with my
topic and all that everyone has said has helped in a way but i gess i
was thinking more along the lines of where would i go to find good
books of the collectible sort, what kind of books would make a good
collection, with the books i pb books i already have and love should i
go for the FE hardcovers of them, and how do i figure out what genre/
author/age books to collect



The OP's first post was correct in spelling and grammar. This is not. I
think we are being played.


It's possible, but the first post was only one sentence long and didn't
start with a capital letter either. On the occasions where book collecting
actually comes up in the group, I enjoy perpetrating the discussion. I'm not
too fussy about the motives of the original poster as long he/she is
somewhat on topic and not abusive.

Alice

--
Book collecting terms illustrated. Used and out of print books for sale.
http://www.mywingsbooks.com/

"Mr. E." wrote in message
ps.com...

Yes, buy Hardy Boys books. Buy many Hardy Boys books. Buy nothing but
Hardy Boys books.

Unless you're interested in ever seeing a naked women again for the rest of
your life, obviously.

"John R. Yamamoto-Wilson" wrote in message
...
foaddoc wrote:

And the same advice is given to tyro horseplayers. It's ********.
In the first place, if you don't have a minimum amount of disposable
income, you shouldn't undertake the activity. In the second place,
no matter how meticulous you are with your fantasy investments, real
money in real time creates different pressures that people react to
differently. Third, winning and losing have their own psychologies,
to which people react differently. Paper trading doesn't teach that.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not thinking of it so much as a form of
gambling as a body of knowledge. Getting some sense of what makes a
valuable book valuable and finding out how the whole market works seems to
me a reasonable way to begin.

Handicapping is as much a body of knowledge as is booking - and to my mind
even more so - but perhaps we'll leave that for another day. I wasn't so
much drawing a strict analogy between the activities as I was to the
learning curve. I don't disagree that there are many roads that lead to any
one place. I find that there are things you learn hands on that cannot be
learned in books, whereas the opposite, less so.



Fourth, much book knowledge is tactile: you learn with your hands.
For my money the guy'd be much better off going to a library sale and
buying $20 worth of books that he thinks collectible and bringing them
home and examining the jackets and the binding and the number lines
and all the rest of it, and then seeing if his intuition as to value was
correct. Not to mention he'd have something to read.

Yes, that's a good suggestion. I don't know that it has to be either/or,
though. He could learn a lot from doing both.

Finally, the guy's never going to know if he enjoys collecting books
without collecting them.

I guess one does tend to think in terms of one's own position, so I'm
assuming he owns and reads books (it would be a bit odd if he didn't).
What I suppose he doesn't do, or hasn't done until now, is buy books with
a view to their collectible value.

OP didn't mention value, although that's may be a consideration. My own
collection - an archive of the cesspool of American culture - probably isn't
at all valuable, there's nothing intrinsically noteworthy of a copy of Old
Man and the Sea inscribed by Larry Hovis, but I like it, and that's really
all that matters.


I may be wrong, but I think he might stand a better chance of enjoying
buying collectible books if he knew just a tad about it before pouring a
lot of money into what may be a costly mistake.

Well sure. But I'm not suggesting that he run out and buy a Folio. Although
if he had that kind of disposable income it'd suggest he could afford a few
costly mistakes.


It may be that JYW is enamored of Ebay because of the peculiarities of
his situation: collecting arcane subjects written in English while
living in Asia.

Again, yes, my own position may make a difference, and I guess a
well-rounded set of tips should include advice to browse regular
bricks-and-mortar bookshops. But I was just throwing in my five cents, not
writing a comprehensive introduction to book-collecting. If other people
(such as your good self) throw in their own five cents' worth it'll all
make a muckle that the OP can pick and choose from as he pleases.

I wasn;t being combative, I was making conversation. I realize sometimes
it's difficult to tell.


Personally I rarely use ebay, except when searching for gems such as my
recently acquired Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook inscribed
by Dawn Wells, Tina Louise, and Bob Denver. Much of the joy of the
actviity, or my joy anyway, comes from browsing through the stacks.

I go through phases on that front. There have been times when I've come
home loaded with books from book fairs and bricks-and-mortar stores, and
other times when all I've got from a day's slogging around concrete
streets is sore feet. Conversely, I've gone through patches of total
disillusionment with eBay, getting cramped shoulders from sitting in front
of a computer monitor and despairing of ever finding anything worth
having.

I do not discount the interweb, but to confine yourself to it,
especially as a neophye, is silly.

Yes, I can go along with that, but it's still a good way of finding out
about books and how the book market works.

foaddoc wrote:

I find that there are things you learn hands on that cannot be
learned in books, whereas the opposite, less so.

Hmm. I guess I came to book-collecting via the route of being a bookish kind
of person. I mean, there's stuff books won't cut, and those things can make
books and book-learning look pretty damned foolish, but the same can equally
well be true the other way around.

OP didn't mention value, although that's may be a consideration. My own
collection - an archive of the cesspool of American culture - probably
isn't at all valuable, there's nothing intrinsically noteworthy of a copy
of
Old Man and the Sea inscribed by Larry Hovis, but I like it, and that's
really all that matters.

Yes, that's probably the main thing the OP needs to realise.

I'm not suggesting that he run out and buy a Folio. Although if he
had that kind of disposable income it'd suggest he could afford a few
costly mistakes.

If he had that kind of money he could afford to pay for advice, instead of
taking the kind that's apt to be worth less than what he paid for it! (Of
course, I'm not suggesting that it *is* worth less, just that that's the
risk one takes when one fishes for free advice.)

Again, yes, my own position may make a difference, and I guess a
well-rounded set of tips should include advice to browse regular
bricks-and-mortar bookshops. But I was just throwing in my five
cents, not writing a comprehensive introduction to book-collecting.
If other people (such as your good self) throw in their own five
cents' worth it'll all make a muckle that the OP can pick and
choose from as he pleases.

I wasn;t being combative, I was making conversation. I realize
sometimes it's difficult to tell.

No, I got it. I mean, I *think* I got it. It's impossible to tell, really,
since all we've got here is words on a computer screen - no telling what
mental processes lie behind them, really - but I think I got it, and if the
OP sifts through all the things people have said here maybe he'll pick up
something worth knowing, even if the replies aren't quite what he expected.

John