[pat5150]

Hey guys,

Like many of you (I suppose), over the years I've acquired a lot of books that gained value with time. Add to that all the advance reading copies and the special editions that are one of the perks of being a reviewer, and I've build quite the SFF collection.

A few years back, I saw this FB post about a guy finding some 1st print Stephen King novels at a goodwill store worth thousands of dollars and which he only paid about 30$ for. Even though all my goodies were insured back then, it made me realize that if I died in a car accident that day, my family would have no idea of the worth of my stuff. Moreover, living in a French-speaking province, chances were that used bookstores wouldn't, either.

It dawned upon me then that I was more of a reader than a collector, and I gradually began to sell my goodies to finance trips and other things that are more important to me than expensive books. Started in 2022 and every year I sold more books and ARCs. Unloaded about 3500$ worth of stuff last week, and I would say I've sold for more than 10,000$ worth of collectibles since 2022. Still have some listings on FB going on and hoping to maybe get myself another K if I can.

I'm wondering if you guys have ever given any thought about your SFF collection and what would happen to it should a tragedy befall you? Personally, I realize that I prefer to take advantage of what the money can get me now. I think that turning 50 last year really brought home the fact that I'm not getting any younger!

What about you?

This post has been edited by pat5150: 24 February 2025 - 02:57 PM

[Tsundoku]

Y'know, there's a reason I changed my username from Sombra to Tsundoku.

I have about 1500+ dead tree books that removalists tend to view with horror every time I move. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. My mate's older brother died recently and he had about 5 times that, and would have been more if he hadn't had to unload a lot after his divorce years ago.
Mine would be a LOT worse but over 10 years ago I basically stopped buying hard copies except for really special ones. That, plus lack of room and getting a family makes a difference.

I have absolutely zero idea about it's value, but I'd say not much since there's no rare stuff in there. SOME of us don't move in such rarefied literary air Mr Name-Drop Patto.

It'd cost a bucketload to replace though. Once upon a time I wanted a book collection so large you could see it from space but time and circumstances brought that to a screeching halt. When we win the $100+ million lottery though, Imma making sure there's a big room for a library in the new place and I'll go on an absolute dead-tree buying bender. Will have to hire someone to catalogue it too.

In my will it goes to my son as a single piece. What he does with it is up to him, but hopefully he'll dispose of it with some thought as to other people enjoying it, not just dumping it. The cynic in me thinks he'll probably have to burn it in winter if humanity is still here after who knows how many years of the Trump-Putler-Pooh Bear dynasties.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 22 February 2025 - 09:10 PM

[pat5150]

You'd be surprised how much some of your 1st print hardcovers might be worth.

[amphibian]

There's a wisdom in realizing a changing value system and then acting on the changes in ways that keep you really happy. Kudos to both Pat and Tsundoku for doing that. Kids, wanting to see the world, not enough space, falling out of love with books etc - it's all quite normal and absolutely worth changing things around for.

My younger brother is aware of the more special things I have in a general way. My partner will learn of them over time (we're still new-ish to each other). My general thought is that I don't usually have to make an either/or choice, partly because I don't usually want bigger bulky book editions, partly because work is challenging enough to make frequent travel tough, and partly because I'm lucky to have enough storage space. That's let me hang onto certain books far longer than many would and I'm fairly sure I'll give them away rather than sell.

My motivation for giving vs selling is that I don't really want to do the work of selling one by one, while I love seeing someone light up regarding a book they've gotten etc.

[QuickTidal]

I have a few completely rare out of print books that I’m sure are worth a decent amount (a few hundred each) just randomly in my collection. Hell, my CROWN OF STARS Kate Elliott collection (all MMPB, most near new or very good) that I grabbed over the last 5 years or so used are all worth over $35 each, with one or two of them pushing into the hundreds online resale…and even the kindle versions are like $26-30…I have to assume that happened when DAW stopped printing them? And it’s just so random right? Like I just read the first as a library book, loved it and sought them out to buy as I really wanted to own them all…and a few years later here they are super rare and out of print.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

I think the only valuable first-edition novels I have are all in French... and older than I am (inherited from my grandparents). Stuff like Sartre etc iirc.

Most Americans would probably look at them and say, "WTF is that crap, the covers are so boring...".

As an adult in terms of fantasy novels I think I've only bought audiobooks and ebooks---mostly audiobooks---and Audible books can't be resold (and don't get counted as "first editions" even if you preorder...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 23 February 2025 - 01:23 AM

[Abyss]

Mine have all the necessary resurrection rituals tabbed and hilited.

[pat5150]

QuickTidal, on 23 February 2025 - 12:26 AM, said:

I have a few completely rare out of print books that I’m sure are worth a decent amount (a few hundred each) just randomly in my collection. Hell, my CROWN OF STARS Kate Elliott collection (all MMPB, most near new or very good) that I grabbed over the last 5 years or so used are all worth over $35 each, with one or two of them pushing into the hundreds online resale…and even the kindle versions are like $26-30…I have to assume that happened when DAW stopped printing them? And it’s just so random right? Like I just read the first as a library book, loved it and sought them out to buy as I really wanted to own them all…and a few years later here they are super rare and out of print.

There seems to be an ebb and flow kind of thing with lots of titles, or else early works by an author who wasn't popular back then but whose popularity grew with time (like Abercrombie and Sanderson), which can really have an influence on the worth of books. You can seldom tell at the time of publishing just what will turn out to become expensive. It's inevitable that people like us, who have been buying SFF novels for year and years, will acquire some that wil become highly sought after.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Granted, in my adolescence I did buy (or have my grandparents buy) a lot of "physical book" fantasy novels; mostly paperbacks (so I could carry them around with me more easily---I usually had at least one book curled up in one of my pockets), but a few hardbacks too (only when paperbacks weren't available---iirc in a few cases where the hardback was released first I did decide to wait for the paperback). OTOH many of them are overflowing with my scribblings in the margins (which I have yet to have robots transcribe), and some of the hardbacks got beaten up even more than the paperbacks (because I carried them around in a gigantic black bag with a bunch of other books, that I dragged along the ground for years before finally getting a bag with wheels).

Then I became preoccupied with lots of other things, and stopped reading novels for pleasure for a long time.

Until one day I randomly decided that I felt like reading a fantasy book. And listening to an audiobook. So I did a search for the best fantasy series, and iirc ASoIaF was listed first, and Malazan second. So I started listening to ASoIaF---coincidentally this was about one year before the TV series started.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Oh, and back when I still mostly read paper and plastic books (that plastic being of course for the fancy hardcovers), I almost never used bookmarks for books I owned, and bounteously dog-eared the living shit out of them. I greatly prefer books that show ample signs of having been read---and of how they've been read, and responded to.

It's far more interesting to peruse someone's book collection when it contains myriad dog-ears and scribbled annotations (perhaps including drawings---whether maps or perspectival character or scene sketches or quasi-stochastic rhythmic or dreaming doodles). (Of course a bookshelf full of pristine pages and utterly unscuffed covers might simply be evidence of fastidiousness and extreme care (at least when it comes to handling the books of that shelf).)

So while some may deem me an evil monstrous barbarian for dog-earing and scribbling with eager and (almost) unbridled abandon, logically it is the best and most ethical way to read paper books---and in theory that's even true for books you're only borrowing, but of course be certain to get enthusiastic consent before you add either physical form of value to them (which is to say, your annotations or your dog-earings---across multiple readers, each book becomes a palimpsest of folds and underlines and comments and doodles... you can see where people paused, what they wanted to remember most ("Do ye write it down / That ye for ever it remember may"), and respond to the responses to their responses---and if you ever become famous, and it's a library book with your name inside, you may just make it a collector's item that the library can sell for a fortune in fresh books).

Perhaps there should be libraries that specialize in books for borrowers to annotate and fold (like many-layered blades, or folding brains)....

But ebooks (including e-audiobooks) are potentially even better for this. If the platforms allowed it, boundless numbers could share their annotations (and identify themselves if or however they wish)---even data about where they stopped reading temporarily (or permanently), or how long they (or people, statistically, of different backgrounds and reading histories) lingered on each page. And not just text annotations but full-color images, audio (performing the passages aloud, and/or setting them to music), video... and eventually even more (as technology advances the feasible possibilities).

Really the most ethical thing to do with a collection of paper books is to upload all their accumulated annotations and their dog-earings and then recycle them. As was the historical tradition (whether for toilet paper or for mummy wrappings... come to think of it I'm surprised more book collectors these days don't choose to get mummified in their collections---and maybe gilded too, with otherwise pristine pages and gold leaf spread all across the coffin and the crypt, locked away from the awful prying eyes of readers (shudder)...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 24 February 2025 - 10:14 AM

[QuickTidal]

pat5150, on 23 February 2025 - 03:37 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 23 February 2025 - 12:26 AM, said:

I have a few completely rare out of print books that I’m sure are worth a decent amount (a few hundred each) just randomly in my collection. Hell, my CROWN OF STARS Kate Elliott collection (all MMPB, most near new or very good) that I grabbed over the last 5 years or so used are all worth over $35 each, with one or two of them pushing into the hundreds online resale…and even the kindle versions are like $26-30…I have to assume that happened when DAW stopped printing them? And it’s just so random right? Like I just read the first as a library book, loved it and sought them out to buy as I really wanted to own them all…and a few years later here they are super rare and out of print.

There seems to be an ebb and flow kind of thing with lots of titles, or else early works by an author who wasn't popular back then but whose popularity grew with time (like Abercrombie and Sanderson), which can really have an influence on the worth of books. You can seldom tell at the time of publishing just what will turn out to become expensive. It's inevitable that people like us, who have been buying SFF novels for year and years, will acquire some that wil become highly sought after.

Yeah that makes sense. I still recall when the local Indigo (to me, at the time, the flagship store in Toronto; Bay & Bloor) remodelled and when they did so they found a slew of brand new books in the storage that had never been put out or remaindered to used outlets...so someone decided to put them out on the shelf (dust and all) and I found Erin M. Evans three hardcover Forgotten Realms Farideh & Havilar (Tielfing sisters) books Fire in the Blood (2014), Ashes of the Tyrant (2015), and The Devil You Know (2016) in 2023 for cover price....while online they'd been out of print long enough for each to be selling consistently one bay for $150-200 a piece...but it's so weird for some hardcover FR's books by a mid-list author to go for such rare prices...and then I realized that the D&D movie had come out so FR's books started becoming a hotter commodity than normal.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 February 2025 - 12:46 PM

[Abyss]

pat5150, on 23 February 2025 - 03:37 AM, said:

... It's inevitable that people like us, who have been buying SFF novels for year and years, will acquire some that wil become highly sought after.

This prompted me to do a fast glance-thru at my dead tree bookshelf... this has been pared down a LOT over the last few years to a small collection of favorites and specials... I have a bunch of Malazan first eds, laters eds signed by SE, that Dresden FIles ltd ed with the Mignola art, some Stephen King TDT 1st eds that I see are actually worth some dollars. The rest are comics... I do have some holy grails from 80s Xmen. The Ladybyss is aware that there valuable pieces in there, tho she doesn't know which are worth what, and I should probably record that somewhere.

It's all very nostalgic and I'm not tempted to sell any of it (tho i was tempted when my very very limited run Venom #1 went thru the roof when the first movie was released, and my Uncanny XMen first appearance of Gambit that skyrocketed after events in the 97 revival cartoon).

[QuickTidal]

Speaking of comics...I owned the Michel Turner Supergirl #1 (the variant which was just a portrait, with fire around her), it's one of his most famous covers and the man has been dead a long time....and it goes for about $75 mint....that's the most expensive physical floppy I ever owned (It's gone now, I sold every floppy I owned (two longboxes) a few years ago, EXCEPT (strangely) Gail Simone's entire run on RED SONJA.

[amphibian]

Gail Simone is fantabulous, so I am in full support of that decision.