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Want to buy Looking for Heat Wave!! (1 Viewer)

How quaint, a hit counter!

Actually, that's a very old page if the edit info is correct (CREATED: 1/25/96). I put up my first web site in October of 1995, and at that time there were only 20,000 web sites. That Heat Wave page went up only three months later, so respect due, as they say, to a pioneer.
 
would you believe i even had two copies at one point? that's before I sold one of them (which was missing the acrylic slipcase), and you better believe i'm keeping the other one!

it's my favorite bukowski book, which i know is sacrilege, since it isn't signed by bukowski, and many feel its grandiosity overshadows the poetry. i happen to love ken price's art, though, so this is an amazing pairing for me. plus, the poetry that is included is top notch, and it's all on the subject of LA, which is my favorite thing bukowski writes about. AND, i'm a sucker for elaborately overdesigned books. i was fairly surprised that you can't find any copies on abe anymore - even a year or so ago, there were a few in the $750 to $1250 range. and james (forum member) sold a really nice copy 3-4 years ago for $450 or something.

create an alert on abe and on eBay, and maybe email a few booksellers (jeff maser, james musser, old erie street, etc) that specialize in bukowski to let them know you're in the market for a copy. they might know collectors who are inclined to sell to you. despite the low limitation, you're always better off looking for a book that was designed for collectors in the first place than you are, say, looking for a mint condition paperback first edition of post office. it will come up again, and part of the fun is hunting down the copy, right? it hearkens back to the old days of bookselling, before every book was available to anyone with a high enough limit on their credit card.
 
One sold at auction for $1200 a few months ago but the description made it sound like the previous owner was a madman/woman. This thing was beat to shit for a book < 20 years old.

I keep expecting it to show up on assclownville (nee abebooks) with a five figure price tag.
 
so here's some interesting backstory - it turns out that this book has moved from being considered a bukowski item to being considered a ken price item. in 2009, ken price had a career retrospective at a prominent gallery in LA (matthew marks gallery), which marked his entrance into the upper tier gallery artists. he had been around for a long time, but this show massively increased his profile. and, when he died shortly after the show, his upward trajectory only continued. he even had a retrospective at LACMA for his sculpture.

so, while to bukowski fans, this is an overdesigned bukowski book that isn't signed, it is very much an A item to ken price collectors. to them, the bukowski poetry is incidental - just like the price artwork is to most bukowski fans. and, through the lens of the bizarre price distortion in the art gallery world (in which a poster limited to 20,000 copies and signed by Damien Hirst can still sell for $1000), any book containing 15 fine art serigraphs by a major gallery artist is a steal at $1250.
 
I own Lettered Copy Y of Heatwave. Obviously, this is not cheap at $12500, but there are only 26 Lettered copies and 175 lesser numbered copies.
 
this is also useful if you're trying ot divine the current value of heat wave. certainly more useful than an abe seller fishing with a single serigraph as bait.
$720 (plus premium) for a copy that's missing 14 of the 15 serigraphs (including the four signed ones) and most likely is also not signed by price on the colophon and is missing the slipcase. being a proof copy makes it extra rare, but that's still a pretty high price for it given what it's lacking.
 

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