Bill R & mjp,
Thanks to both of you for shining some light onto my dark place re effect of book inscriptions on book value. I'm happy to hear the good news. Now I will not have to visit a book restorer and pay to have those CB inscriptions removed. *S*
Several of the BSP books in my collection are inscribed "Presentation Copy" on the colophon page. Does that effect price and if so how?
Since I like the amount of tuition this education is costing me, how do I determine the value of the BARFLY bound galley from The Paget Press shown below? It is number 4 of 10 galleys then available and I cannot find it listed anywhere. When I sent an image to Mike/chronic for listing on his website, he informed me that he didn't know such an object even existed.
Bill R, I have no intention of immediately selling any CB books from my rather extensive collection of BSP special editions, but I will have to some year soon. If I leave it all for my three children, they will hold an estate sale and congratulate themselves on having sold the entire lot at $2.00 per book. My personal library has over 5,000 specially selected volumes and several hundred galleys from my 42 years in book publishing. What do you, or anyone else, think would be a good way to eventually dispose of it to my children's greatest benefit? Although it's a fairly diverse book collection, eclectic some might say, it's strongest in the areas of art, art history and architecture. Of course, it also contains a copy of nearly every signed, limited and numbered book ever published by The Black Sparrow press no matter the author. I treasure all of my John Fante special editions almost as much as the Bukowski books.
I'll have to hold a wake for my book collection the day after finally disposing of it all. It will be like losing one of my children. Well, almost!
Anyhow, I do welcome all suggestions as I'm stymied over how best to maximize it's value when selling it off.
...and to think I'm getting all this good counsel tuition free! *S*
Bill