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What's up with ubikbooks? (1 Viewer)

Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

:eek:I mean he has a right and all...check ebay antiquarian and all for Buk...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Charles-Bukowsk...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

$125 for a First of Sifting Through...? WTF???

And $1,500 for a copy of Screams... with print (not signed, just a print) that can be had for ~$150 on a bad day???

http://cgi.ebay.com/Charles-Bukowsk...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

Can we find some dumb people to buy these? I know I have screwed up on occasion and paid more than I should for Buk stuff, but seriously, WTF??

I need to add this disclaimer: I ain't sayin' he treated me unkind; he coulda done better but, I don't mind...Nothing he advertises is un-authentic. Just horribly overpriced...
 
This is outrageous! He should'nt be allowed to get away with cheating people like that! Horribly overpriced? They're insanely overpriced, bordering on fraud...
 
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actually, that listing of screams is wrong. only 300 had prints, and they have rust colored spines. that one has an illustration, but it's printed on the page. nothing too special about that.
 
He's not cheating anyone, because no one will buy them. He's cheating himself out of those eBay listing fees.
 
I just offered him $125 for the copy of screams...

And, I would not feel one bit bad for anyone that would spend $1500 for this book without doing any research. They would clearly be someone with far too much money and far too little sense.


Bill
 
He's fishing for fools. May sell a few books now and then to someone who doesn't do any research on prices.
 
dude doesn't even know what a first printing is....

Don Delillo

Libra


TRUE FIRST EDITION/ with the all important number string located on the copyright page which read: 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2, which denotes a true first printing of the first edition. Note* The copyright page must have this sequence in order for the book to be an authentic first. Anything else is not a first edition.

if the "1" isn't in the number line, it ain't a first printing.
twit.
overpricing twit.
 
Hooch,
I just saw that too. That was a funny one. It is a second printing of the first edition. Also, the copy of Naked Lunch is a Grove first US edition, which is worth about $100, as opposed to an Olympia first, which was printed years before this First "American" edition, which would be worth about $1500.00.

Fishing for fools...

Bill
 
bospress.net said:
That is a nice description. I've not heard it before. Did you coin the phrase or am I just out of it?
I just need to know if I should give you credit when I use that phrase!
Click to expand...
Jeez, I really don't know. Far too many folksy sayings, old saws, worn out cliches and obsolete slang terms running around in my brain. Daily I wake up with some God Awful corny song in my head, just really terrible stuff. The worst of pop music. Novelty tunes from the 50s or older. WWI camp ditties. That sort of thing. And a different one every day. I've got some sort of mental filter that catches verbal oddities and retains them. It's a curse.
 
Could someone explain to me how the number string concept works? I've always wondered about that.
 
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Bukfan said:
Could someone explain to me how the number string concept works? I've always wondered about that.
Click to expand...

When I first saw that, I thought "Well, if Stephen Hawkin were a member of this forum, he could probably explain string theory." Oh. You mean the run of numbers on a copyright page. That's a bit simpler.

123456789-199920002001

means first printing (the lowest number still there is 1), published in (here I'm trying to remember) 1999 (the earliest year). Something like that. So the second printing in 2000 would look something like:

23456789-20002001

Numbers are removed each time the book is reprinted, and you go by the lowest numbers left. One side is printing, the other is date.
 
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Hi,
I always thought that the standard with the big publishers was:

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

If you notice, the numbers can be removed one at a time first on the left, then the right as they are being reprinted. Here is my theory. Someone let me know if I am nuts:

In the old days, the copyright page would be typeset with lead type. Later it would be a plate and finally, digital. If you think about the plate though, you would want to keep from having to have another plate made, when all you were doing is making a new printing. The easiest way is to put all of your numbers on there and then just chisel the lowest one away as it is not needed. My centering them like this, they block will always be centered on the page. Otherwise, by the time you go to the 10th printing, it would be all the way to the right and would look odd. I suspect that they probably just kept doing it this way even when it was not necessary out of habit and history.

So, normally to tell a first printing, always look for the lowest number. This will only tell you that this is the first printing of that edition, though. If the book was published years earlier by another publisher, they would still use this number on the first printing of their edition.

Confusing! A little bit. Black Sparrow spoiled us by giving us colored title pages to know for sure that it is a 1st/1st. The problem is that so many people sell these BSP books without knowing the color vs. b&w rule.

I always check on abe to make sure that a book that I want is listed as first edition is actually a first edition by comparing it to others for sale.

Bill
 
sometimes letters are used instead of numbers. "a" would denote a first printing.
 
It's a little bit confusing alright, but I think I get it: The lowest number tells you what printing it is, regardless of which order they chose to show the numbers in. Only exeption to that rule is when they use letters instead of numbers. In that case it's abc..etc. instead of 123...etc (or 135..etc.). And BSP used colored title pages, so that's easy to deal with. That's about it, right?
 
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Unless it's a Random House book in which case first printings will state "First Edition" with the number line starting at 2.
 
I think that I know this seller. The last I heard from him he was in New Jersey. If so, then it is a good chance that it is a first if he says it is a first. Is it possible that the Delillo book is a first? It was published by Viking. Do they use the same First Edition "2" scheme?. Still, $1500 for a $150 book is laughable.
 
I see! Random House books is another exception. At least they state when it's a first edition. Thanks, chronic!
 
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Random House states it's a first printing, though, with the number line starting at "2".

I believe they're the only ones?
 
speaking of number lines and bsp color title pages, i picked up a hardcover first of women in great condition for $25 on ebay once. how you may ask? the seller(not in the know about buk or bsp 1sts) had a scanned image of the copyright page posted for the auction, and i could just make out the color title page, which is printed on the other side. of course i didn't want to alarm the seller of it so i had to wait until it showed up in the mail to verify. needless to say i was pretty stoked on my score:)
 
Nice find! That is one of 354 and is one of the toughest HB Trade firsts to find (other than the HB Trade 1st of Burning in Water).

WOW!

Bill
 
Bill, I think you've got the right idea about the number line. Printers designed it so they could hack off the ends whenever they reprint the book. Easier than resetting the type. I may have the date stuff wrong. It may be more like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 99 97 96 95 (first, printed in 1995)
2 3 4 5 6 99 97 96 (second, printed in 1996)

Different publisher use different means of identifying firsts. I've got a little book published in the 80s that lays it out for dozens of major publishers. I don't know if it's still published.
 
james said:
speaking of number lines and bsp color title pages, i picked up a hardcover first of women in great condition for $25 on ebay once. how you may ask? the seller(not in the know about buk or bsp 1sts) had a scanned image of the copyright page posted for the auction, and i could just make out the color title page, which is printed on the other side. of course i didn't want to alarm the seller of it so i had to wait until it showed up in the mail to verify. needless to say i was pretty stoked on my score:)
Click to expand...
Nice score indeed. A lot of times firsts aren't listed that way and you can really make out.

My question about that first of Women is it the Martin-ized version or the revised second printing?

https://bukowskiforum.com/showthread.php?p=27730#post27730
 
I've recently seen a number line kind of like this:

8 9 0 5 4 3 2

very cryptic, but it seemed to mean 2nd printing in 1988, with just the "8" representing the year.
 
Or like this. . . Charles Bukowski Forum

Everything is easy once you know how.

Note to Purple Stickpin:

Hit the quote button my post and look at it for the particulars.
(you don't actually have to repost it. Just use it to look at how it's done.)

Here it is written out:

1.) I copy the link I want. Then I write some words about it.

For Instance I write: The Title I want To Link

2.) Then I use my cursor to highlight that text.

3.) next I click this button, up on top:

createlink.gif


4.) hank solo highlights the text of his links with a
color, and I liked that so I use it now. The way you
do that is to highlight the words in the link, not the
link itself, and then click this picture, up on top:

color.gif


And pick the c o l o r you'd like to highlight the words with.

Seems difficult to do until you've done it once. But
there you go.

Feel free to ask any questions until you feel
comfortable with it, okay? Because I'm sure there
will be some things I've not made clear, or that I've
left out.

jumping0048.gif
 
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Not sure if you're trying to blow smoke up my backside, FL, but thanks. I am a member of other websites, and their methods are somewhat different, so I used the <> to post a link here and it ended up being messy. Now I see that this site automatically truncates long web addresses, so all I have to do is copy the web link and paste it here. Automatically truncated.

I also appreciate the way to link my own text to a web address as you've posted. Thanks again. I still want a BOSPress copy of your book, fucker.
 
It means a website that you dive into the depths of, and come up with a link such as:

http://www.whothehellcares.com/jufy20%rtyuvthyrjghotyuyoibv7789thg utsh/lkojuemdyenrhtuyh%67ndewbapqlopruerftshjney/345645%kourlityhd75%89%rutyerhov aqps.askmewhyanyonecares

can be posted as: http://www.whothehellcares.com...aqps.askmewhyanyonecares

and it's still linkable. It just fits better in a forum like this. Truncation = rounding, essentially. A mathematical term exported to a web link paradigm, as it were. Technically, truncation refers to a reduction in digits at the end of a number (typically decimals). In this case, I used it to refer to reducing the size of a web link.

As a parallel, truncation could be viewed as a reduction in turkeyneck girth/length in Buk's world.
 

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