MONEY IN BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3882, 7 August 1928, Page 72

MONEY IN BOOKS.

There was once an old lady who lived in a small house in a country village and possessed, among other things, some 50 odd books. These she herself valued at a pound or two for the lot. Forty-eight of them, as a matter of fact, were worth a few pennies each, but the remaining two formed the first edition of “ The Vicar of Wakefield,” .worth several hundreds of pounds!

A book once changed hands at fourpence and was afterwards sold at auction for nearly 13,000d01, and an acquaintance of the writer’s bought a small paper-bound volume some years ago for fid, and later sold it for £25.

These examples show that it is possible to make money out of books. Expert knowledge is, of course, a great advantage to the would-be profit-making collector, and there is such a thing as a “ flair ” in these matters. Here are a few hints on the subject.

In the first place do not labour under the delusion, so commonly found, that because a book is old it is necessarily valuable. It is true that very earlyprinted books of the Tudor period or earlier are, in all probability, of value, but later than that age has little to do with it. Thus you might paj’ a few shillings for a book dated sixteen hundred and something, and sell it at a loss, whereas you might equally pay a less sum for a book published to-day and sell it in a comparatively short time at a profit.

It must be borne in mind that the aim of the collector, who is, after all, the market, is to possess something which very few other people have got, and, with regard to books, this scarcity may be due to a very small edition of the particular book being issued, or to a misprint afterwards rectified, or to some accident of that kind which makes it rare.

For instance, the first issue of Conrad’s novel, “ Chance,” should haw* on the reverse side of the title page the words “ First published in 1913.” and it should also contain publisher's advertisements dated July, 1913. Only about 50 copies of this issue were printed owing to a dispute in the printing trade. Hence this accident makes the book rare.

A book of no intrinsic merit is, of course, not likely to be profitable, even though there are very few copies of it. It must be either good literature, or the early work of an afterwards famous author, or finely illustrated, or beautifully, printed. Suppressed books are usually worth keeping, as there is a good market for such things, and so are books which contain the autograph of some famous man or woman, or have “ marginalia ” written by some eminent person on their pages Bookplates and fine illustrations, especially coloured plates, are also worth noting. The early works of authors who «ater became famous are the game for the collector to aim at. The “ flair ” comes in knowing which authors are likely to become “famous”! Take the earlv books by Rudyard Kipling, published in India, as an example, and note the prices they now fetch in the saleroom. —John o’ London’s Weekly.