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RARA-AVIS: Prices, prices, prices
I am amused by the raging discussion on the prices of books - both
hypermodern and not-so-hypermodern. Amused mostly that anyone would bother
to rail about it. And get personal about it. It's a fact of life and has
been a fact of life in the collector's community for years. This isn't
something new. It;s something you deal with.
You get a lot of people with a lot of discretionary income and prices are
going to go up, up, up. It isn't that they want the item necessarily, they
want the prestige of having the item. Whether it has literary value is of
no consequence to them. Or most of them. (I hate to generalize here when I
am sure there are serious book people doing some serious collecting AND
paying some serious money ... but they love the stuff and will cherish it.)
But, I think most of them don't really care about it ... they have it as a
trophy. I have it because I can have it.
I love to go to the Book Fairs and watch the dealers. It's an education.
They covet what the other guy has ... and the other guy covets what they
have. And they sell back and forth ... probably driving the prices up, up, up.
On the other hand ... for some of us less affluent types ... it's the thrill
of the hunt. Like finding a signed Cornwell Postmortem first in a trading
paperback shop one afternoon ... just sitting there in the cash only rack.
I figure it's better to find it that way than to go on Bibliofind and find
one for $850 and send off a check.
Finally ... there is the style over substance issue ... for most of this
stuff a paperback reprint fits the bill quite nicely since all you want to
do is read the damn thing anyway. But I'll keep the Cornwell anyhow.
That's what I think ... but, hell, what do I know.
Dick Higgins
dick.higgins@mail.wdn.com
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