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Do you have $2.5 million? (1 Viewer)

Wow. The drugs must have done something very odd and powerful to this seller. This is not worth 1/10th of what he is asking. 206 pages of a excerpt of a novel without publication rights? 2.5 Million means a little over $12,000 a page for a collectible. For this price you could buy any books in the world, except for the Gutenberg Bible (I'm sure someone on the list will tell me that there are other books worth this much).

For 2.5M, you could probably buy an unpublished manuscript from Hemingway or Fitzgerald. Tim Leary was cool, but really. This whole thing is bizarre.

Bill

p.s. Even if they gave you publication rights, I cannot see anyone recouping this 2.5M on book sales from Dr. Leary. and it is only an excerpt. to the book (even if a long one at 206 pages).
 
Huh. Quite a price. Not a fan of Leary myself. In fact, if I had 2.5 million... I'd rather buy a house. Or a couple houses.
 
...last time a Gutenburg Bible was auctioned I think it went for over $6 million and this nut case thinks a Leary excerpt is worth over a third of that !!! ...i have a leather bound New World Dictionary I'll sell him for a quarter million !!! ...whatta deal !!!
 
The only motive I can see for doing this is to get press and sell it for a reasonable amount. A couple was arrested last week for trying to auction their baby on ebay. Some kid tried to auction off his virginity. These things make the papers. If a news agency picks it up, he may have people come at him with more reasonable offers. I would expect that the value of something like this is more in the range of $10,000 (although it is not worth even that amount to me) than $2.4M.

Given this, I cannot expect that he is that stupid to think that anyone would pay close to this amount. As Planahea mentioned You could buy half of a Gutenberg Bible for this price.

J.K. Rowling got $3.8M for a handwritten Harry Potter manuscript, but then she is just a hugely popular bestselling author and Leary is a minor author and this is a minor work of his (and is an excerpt). Plus, Rowling donated the money to charity. A crafty accountant can probably get away with taking a deduction on the purchase for some of the money as it was so high over the expected sale price. It can be assumed that part of the money was a direct donation, while they received a product (the m.s.), it was not worth $3.8M.

If there is a rich guy stupid enough to spend this kind of money, then there is really something wrong out there.

Bill

p.s. I am not a Rowling fan, I'm just sayin....
 
I hate too admit it too! One of the biggest reasons I quit LSD was that every great revalation from the trip was pure bullshit that made no sense at all when you came down- back to reality. It is quite possible the seller is high more than just his acid trip price.

We use to believe all kinds of bullshit in those days. ;)
 
Just to put this into perspective...

The original manuscript scroll of On The Road by Kerouac sold for $2.4M in 2001....

This seller is not high. He is out of his mind.

Bill
 
It makes me wonder what kind of hell ebay would bring down on him for his fees if someone messed with him and bid on it. The Final Value Fees would be HUGE. Of course, he'd get them all back, but still. Ebay would pretty quickly ask for their $37,500 in fees and would probably not want to wait too long...

Bill
 
Yeah, what will the listing fees be already for that?
I haven't sold on ebay for ages but isn't the start price a factor in their fee calculations?
 
Yes there are. But the insertion fee tops out at "$500.00 or more," which is only $4. He would only get hit with a big eBay bill in the extremely unlikely event that the thing sold.

I thought he might be trying to test the waters, people use eBay for that sometimes. But if he is, he's doing it wrong. The 2.5 million should be a reserve, with the bidding starting at $1 or something. Then he could get an idea of a ballpark value based on how high it was bid up.

There are fees for a reserve price too, but they max out at $50. So it would be a small price to pay to get a feel for the market. I have a book I was thinking of listing like that, just because there are no others for sale, so I have no idea of its value. That kind of thing tends to piss off bidders though. Understandably.
 
You already promised to sell it to me for the cover price, remember? Everyone did. It's hidden in the forum terms of service.
 
Bill: I agree, $10,000 tops. If it's not a publicity stunt, then the guy is out of touch with the realities of the rare book market.
 
Rekrab said:
Bill: I agree, $10,000 tops. If it's not a publicity stunt, then the guy is out of touch with the realities of the rare book market.
Click to expand...

The sellers current acid trip has lead him to believe that it is worth that. LSD= delusions of grandeur. Now all he needs is a wealthy buyer who is also tripping. :eek: bad trip.
 
saywhat said:
No, but I have $30 to have it shipped...
Click to expand...
I was going to say that the shipping fee was the funniest part of the auction, but I have now decided that the fact that anyone would even want to read a Timothy Leary manuscript, let alone buy one for any amount - even in trade for a sheet of genuine, vintage Grateful Dead skull logo blotter acid - is really the funny bit.

Since quality vs. rarity is the subject of another thread, let me be the first to say that the excerpt in that auction listing reads like the ramblings of a junior high school creative writing class student pretending to be a hippie.
 
I always thought Leary was a 15 minutes of fame/right comment at the right time sort of guy.
he may have a certain audience, and I'm not one to judge that, but 2.5 million for anything by Leary is grossly overpriced.
no shit, right?
 
I'm kicking myself now. I had 2.5 Million and had a choice between the Kerouac Scroll, arguably one of the most important typescripts of the second half of the 20th century, and a excerpt from an unfinished novel from Tim Leary.

Stupid me bought the scroll...

My accountant and my investors will all be pissed. Why, why did you waste your money on Kerouac when there is the leary manuscript?

shit.

Bill
 

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