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Montfort archive at PBA (2 Viewers)

Too rich for my blood, but what a stash for the true Buk collector with a big credit card limit. Thanks for the heads-up...
 
Some of the starting prices were not bad, so I threw a few out there for fun because I will be straight in the fucking middle of nowhere on auction day. Because these are all association copies, they should go for more than signed copies, but you need true Buk collectors to put up. They also need to appreciate the Montford non-Buk-signed items for what they're worth... which is a good amount from a true collector's perspective... I'm more interested in watching than buying on this one. Hopefully MJP will hold to his tradition and tally the results...

By the way, does anyone have any info on this variant?

As usual, PBA has done such an amazing job on its pics and descriptions... I put more work in for a lousy $10 item on eBay....

If we have to use the "bat phone" for Chronic, we can, but I hate to disturb his solitude. The cover is interesting. I have heard Buk did some of his own "limited editions" during this period, which could account for it.

Regardless, I love the fucking cow drawing, but I think the weak post is missing the other half.

And they charge a $10 "handling" fee on top of the 20% buyer's fee for descriptions like this...

If I was the seller, I would be pissed at this half-ass marketing job...
 
Hopefully MJP will hold to his tradition and tally the results...
I only did that once, because I was watching/bidding. I won't be watching/bidding this time. This batch of stuff is kind of a big yawn. But that's just me. I'm unimpressed by most Bukowski items these days.
 
Just the sheer volume of Buk "rarities" is a little tiresome for me. And where are the letters, his copy of Catch, etc.?
And fuck that 20% vig.
 
Roni,
I seem to recall you posting that you went through boxes of Monfort's stuff. Any light on this auction and the rest of his stuff?

Like most good hearted AMERICANS in the South I have serious problems as English as a second language. Are signed Buk books in German worth as much as "The King's English?"
 
Roni, [...] Any light on this auction [...]
Not much to say. When I made a list of the items back in 2010, I told Daisy that it was a bad time for selling Bukowski and she should not do it. It's still a bad time, but she decided now to sell some of the stuff. That's it.

Remember, she isn't a collector and for her, these things were just uselessly lying around on the shelfs catching dust. Some of these items would have made a much bigger deal in 10-or-so years and I'm pretty sure 'someone' who's having the patience to wait, will buy them cheap now and laugh his ass off.



In Germany there's no real market for Bukowski-collectibles and these signed German editions aren't crafted the way the BSP-numbered-signed-handbound-etc-editions are. Most of them have simply been trade copies and if they'd belonged to anyone else than a total fan, as MM had been, you wouldn't expect to find them signed.

Luckily, I've been careful enough to look into these inconspicuous books and discover all the autographs, when I've been there. Guess my surprise, when I found the first of them just in an ordinary German paperback! And then another...

Even though they aren't real 'collector's editons', I find these pretty interesting, be it for their uniqueness alone: there are Hundreds of limited signed firsts of 'Ham On Rye', but how many of the German edition would be signed by Bukowski at all? A Dozen maybe? Still it was a bad decision to sell them now and to sell them via PBS. They won't bring what they're worth. [And don't tell me, the true value would be whatever the "market" is willing to pay at any given moment, for that's a much too simple way to look at it.]
 
And don't tell me, the true value would be whatever the "market" is willing to pay at any given moment, for that's a much too simple way to look at it.
I think that's the only logical way to look at it. If I try to sell something for $100, and try and try for a year and no one buys it, what is the value of that thing? Certainly not $100 no matter what I or anyone else might believe.

I think I know what you're saying: that an auction isn't an accurate gauge of value since everyone in the world who could possibly be interested won't know about a particular auction. But everyone who may be interested in an item will never all be aware of that item being sold at the same time, so I don't think that's a reasonable way to look at it.

The only time I'd agree with your sentiment here is when two (or more) idiots engage in a bidding war and wildly overpay for an item. In those cases sellers will always latch on to that high price and say, "Well look, this is what it's worth!" when that isn't really true. That happens in the art world all the time, and it's why some paintings sell for more than a hundred million dollars.


As for a signed translation, I think you may be overestimating the importance of the Montfort connection. I'll bet those signed translations sell for about the price you'd pay for a Bukowski signature on its own, or in a random, "uncollectable" English language book. Which is to say, not very much. We've seen that forever in foreign versions of the books. Even the foreign versions in English. They just don't have the same value as the U.S. versions. Even if the majority of the signed U.S. versions were assembly line jobs.
 
Even though they aren't real 'collector's editons', I find these pretty interesting, be it for their uniqueness alone: there are Hundreds of limited signed firsts of 'Ham On Rye', but how many of the German edition would be signed by Bukowski at all? A Dozen maybe?

If there's only about a dozen German books signed by Buk, then such a book would be a cool item to have for a German Buk collector because Buk was born in Germany, plus the Montfort connection and the rarity of German books signed by Buk. They might even be of interest for non-German collectors. Of course, we don't know how many German books Buk signed while he visited Germany. Maybe he signed a bunch before or after the reading in Hamburg, but probably not all that many.
 
If there's only about a dozen German books signed by Buk,[...]
there are definitely many many more German books signed if you take them all! (MM alone had more than that.)

I was just referring to single titles, picking 'Ham' as an excample, which was stupid, as they don't sell the German version of it here. I'll illustrate my idea with a title they have in the auction as an excample now:

The signed collector's editons of 'Women' count 300 plus 75. They are beautifully done and the latter come with an original painting, fine. But Bukowski never actually handled these books, he only signed one sheet of paper after another, which he hated. There's no real relation.

Now they're selling the German trade edition of it "Signed by Bukowski on the title page with a sketch of the little man and bottle".
A book that he held in hand and signed by request of Michael Montfort, who cared enough to buy it, have it shipped from Germany to the US, asking Hank for an autograph, got that together with a doodle and then kept it for 3 more decades in perfect condition.

So we have 375 English signed firsts plus who-knows-how-many called-for signed copies of 'Women' compared to - just a wild guess - probably less then a Dozen of this title signed in the German.
 
Now they're selling the German trade edition of it "Signed by Bukowski on the title page with a sketch of the little man and bottle".
A book that he held in hand and signed by request of Michael Montfort, who cared enough to buy it, have it shipped from Germany to the US, asking Hank for an autograph, got that together with a doodle and then kept it for 3 more decades in perfect condition.

True, it's more interesting having a book Buk signed than a numbered one with a tipped in signature, although the latter are more expensive and popular among collectors, especially if Buk signed it for you personally.

It's a nice lot of German books you're linking to. They're all five signed by Buk and two of them also have the doodle of the little man and his bottle. If you could buy them for a few hundred dollars, it would be a good buy for the signatures alone and for those who can read German it would be even a better buy.
 
Roni's just sandbagging us, pretending they're worthless so he can snatch them up for nickles on the dollar... or whatever the German monetary system is these day...
 
there are (or have been) copies of it.
[even including the infamous photo that had to be taken out]

Not everything that's been there is in this auction.
Also, I know that some of it has already been donated to 'The Huntington'. And right so!
There ARE things, that do NOT belong into the hands of private collectors, but need to be accessible for scholars, researchers and the public in general.
 
during preparations for the ceremony, when Hank was clothing, there needed to be something fixed with his fly. Linda was taking care of it and MM took a photo. Later she demanded this pic to be taken out of the book, because she thought it was implying that she's practicing fellatio.
 
during preparations for the ceremony, when Hank was clothing, there needed to be something fixed with his fly. Linda was taking care of it and MM took a photo. Later she demanded this pic to be taken out of the book, because she thought it was implying that she's practicing fellatio.

I see! True, some people may have thought that or made jokes about fellatio.
 
BUK_Wedding.jpg
 
I decided to watch the streaming, and ended up with two lots, which is why I shouldn't watch the streaming.
Overall, the Buk prices were unsurprising, although $6,600 for the Ham w/painting surprised a little, as did the Iris
Prints for $3,300, double the high estimate. I took the lot of Wormies and the inscribed Day It Snowed.
There was no real interest in either, so didn't get fucked unduly.
 
There seemed to be a heavy or heavies on the floor yesterday buying at any price. A presentation copy of Ham on Rye was available a few months back from Skyline for $4500 and the condition was described as better than the copy that went yesterday for $6600.

For the lots I did win, I figured the heavy went out for a smoke or had to take a shit or something.
 
It's amazing lot 285 went for 6000 when it was estimated to 5-800 and it was´nt even Bukowski.
 
Here's what I got at the auction:

JACK SHIT.

I wanted X-Ray #1 but $1,680 is way over what I can afford. That's kind of a relief. If the hammer price was $50 above my high bid I'd be eating my heart out for weeks.

Never mind the books...did you see what the boxes of photos went for?! Especially lot 85? Yikes! A friend who collects vintage photos said the market for that stuff has skyrocketed the past few years.

And I'm surprised about Price's artwork. I always found his stuff to look kind of ugly and dated. What do I know? Do you know who look dated? Degas. And his stuff held its value.
 
The Price book was surprising.

Photography has been on an upward trend for a long time. It really started in the 90s. But that trend has expanded to include all vintage photography, even snapshots. You used to be able to buy vintage snapshots by the box. I paid $10 once for a box that was basically a family history that spanned 100 years. Now if I put that collection on eBay picture by picture I could probably get $10 per photo.

X-Ray prices are something I'll never understand.
 
The whole auction threw me for a loop. Not my first rodeo, but perhaps I don't know rodeo as well as I thought I did. But regarding photography, there were more than several Buk books of photography that didn't sell, so, it's not an across the board thing to be sure.

For what it's worth, I own a few of them and I thought that I got them at a decent price over the past 2-3 years. Maybe not. It wouldn't be the first time, unfortunately.
 
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there were more than several Buk books of photography that didn't sell...
Photography books aren't necessary that valuable (most of them), it's the actual photographs that are getting pricey. Look at The Iris Prints, that went for double the high estimate. Because there are actual prints in there. Mosque #2, Schweitzingen, Germany and Walking on Carlton Way, $840 for the pair.



Of course you can get smaller prints of both of those last two photos for a mere $150. Just saying. Again.
 
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A lot of his listings call poems "unpublished" when they were quite published.

He is the master of the "Whatever bullshit I pull out of my ass will just have to pass for the truth" listing.
 
wait, we think heat wave is worth 10K these days? i know price's popularity has shot up in the last 7-8 years as he's been accepted into the contemporary art canon. HW is one of my very favorite books i own, but if someone came up to me offering 10K for it, i don't know that i could keep it.
 

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