Hot Water Music w/painting (1 Viewer)

[Magick Stallion]

Abandoned Planet is selling a copy of Hot Water Music w/painting on the bay.
If it was $2,000 cheaper...
Really nice, solid copy though. Apparently, that's a pretty decent price, according to how much they have usually sold for, back when the economy wasn't collapsing.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Charles-Bukowsk...ryZ29223QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[mjp]

Easily worth what he's asking, in my opinion, due to the painting. I wouldn't go $2k for a pastel colored triangle (or some other half-assed abstract design - and he did a lot of them), but there is terror and/or pain in almost all of the faces that Bukowski painted, and this one is a fine example of that.

The state of the economy is meaningless. In fact, the worse it gets, the more vultures you will see.

I hope stnickl enjoys filing this copy away somewhere.

 

[Magick Stallion]

I fail to see how the current state of the economy is meaningless.
Maybe it's just me, but everywhere I look, it's clearly reflected in our society.
'Mom and pop' shops, including bookstores, record stores, and bars that have been around for decades and have widely flourished up until several years ago, have now closed their doors because, well, quite simply, customers are not frequenting those places as they once did, when money wasn't an issue, therefore, stores suffer from this. Nobody drives nearly as much as they once did due to the obnoxious gas prices, which in the end, hurts businesses because of no foot traffic, and no money being filtered through. So what you have is a bunch of book collectors drastically slashing the prices of their highly valuable assets down, quite a bit.
My point was, Scott from Abandoned could have EASILY have sold his HWM, 5-6 years ago, for double the amount of what he's asking for it now.
NOW is the time to buy, NOT to sell. I have a signed 1st Printing of Fight Club that I could have sold for an easy $600 5 years ago, but now, I can't even get rid of it for $199. "Will you take $50? I have no money right now"
"Do you wanna trade?"
I can't tell you how many times I've had to re-list that book on eBay, to no avail.
Anyway, yes, there ARE a lot of vultures that are swooping in and out, picking at the carcass, but they ain't really chowing down like they used to.
Unless you're stn, who can somehow drop $7,000 for a Buk painting. Ahh, the fathomless depths of debt...

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I bought a copy of Hot Water Music from Scott a couple of weeks ago (an uncalled-for signed trade edition from the Don Klein collection), and he indicated that he had several boxes of Buk books that he would be pulling down and selling over the next year or so. So, I think that much of what you are seeing from him was not in his possession a few years ago when the economy was much better.

It may not be the time to sell, but he's selling, and SN is buying, so there you have it.

Edited to add: look at the economy issue this way: a bookseller may need money in this tight economy, but the wealthy collectors who can only afford the high-end stuff anyway are likely not hurt by the current economic conditions.

 

[mjp]

I fail to see how the current state of the economy is meaningless.

I mean that it's meaningless as it applies to this kind of item. The people who buy $2000 books are generally not as affected by any kind of economic fluctuation as those of us lower on the food chain.

If you need proof of that, come on out here to Pasadena, Santa Monica or Malibu and watch the Hummers, Escalades and Porsches lined up to buy the $4.89 premium gas. They don't blink at the price. They wouldn't give a shit if it was $15 a gallon.

That's what I mean.

 

[Magick Stallion]

Anyhoo, I'm still tempted to flirt with the idea of snagging up this copy he has.

 

[jordan]

purple stickpin is absolutely right- scott paid a mint for that collection and will sell it for what he thinks he can get. he could have sold some of those for more a few years ago, but it was his business decision to spend six figures on a collection like that while staring a down economy in the face.

 

[nymark]

I belive that MANY of the books Scott purchased from Kline were sold to deep-pocketed private collectors. The best of that batch never saw the light of day. He didn't need to go to eBay or PBA or publish a catalog.