Well, dear readers, what is it about collecting first editions that is so much fun? I’ve been doing it since the early 1970s, sometimes sporadically, sometimes voraciously. I’ve sold two major collections and the fun for me is building them again. It was different when I began collecting. You could find incredible things in out of the way mom and pop used bookstores. It wasn’t predatory like it ultimately became, with dealers hiring book scouts to scour the country’s bookshops. But even if you were buying from a high-end dealer, there were still bargains to be had and even the priciest titles were nothing like they are today. It was the thrill of the hunt in those bygone days. As those who’ve read Adventures With My Father in my book of stories know, I used to take my daughter with me on my bookstore excursions. She’d invariably find the children’s section, and I’d converse with the owners, look at what they had, and peruse the shelves, invariably buying some treasure or other. I remember being in Reseda at a little hole in the wall bookstore on Reseda and Sherman Way, browsing their rarer titles kept behind the counter. And there I found a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird – I thought it was kind of high-priced at sixty bucks, but it was a very nice copy and I bought it. It’s the one book I should have kept when I sold my first collection, a necessity because of my impending deevorce. Why should I have kept it? Well, a) it’s my favorite book and it was just stupid to sell it, and b) a copy in that condition would today go for around $25,000. Dealers taught me how to identify the first editions of various publishers, made suggestions to me about things they thought I’d like and things they thought were good investments. It was fun to talk the talk with these wonderful people. And when you’d find a particular treasure, it was great to know it was yours, and that you could hold it, read it carefully, and place it on the shelf. In the old days, I was not maniacal about condition as I am today, although I will get a very rare book not in primo condition if there are no decent copies to be had. I remember the most expensive book I ever bought – a signed and inscribed copy of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window (my personal favorite Chandler book), signed by Chandler to Billy Wilder in the year they wrote Double Indemnity. The dealer let me make payments – it took two years to pay it off, but then it was mine and for the first and only time, I had a custom clamshell box made for it. I had two major collections of Cornell Woolrich books – I had the finest copy of Phantom Lady in the world, drooled over by all the major dealers. I had a primo set of Ross Macdonald firsts, which I ultimately sold as a group at a huge profit when I did my second purge. I’ve had very well known dealers tell me I had an unerring eye for trends and things that were about to hit, and I think that continues to this day. I was one of the earliest people to collect books that were made into films, especially noir – that is now a cottage industry and I was there at the beginning and helped establish it. Each time I’ve built a new collection, I’ve managed to get books that had always eluded me, and that was grand fun. Thankfully, most dealers know me and I always get very good deals. Plus, I do still find amazing things and I frequently get things to use in trade and I come out VERY well on those deals. Sometimes when I read Firsts magazine and they’ll be covering a certain author or book and they’ll say that as new copies of that certain title virtually never appear and that they’ve never seen a collector copy, I walk into my book room and there it is – a primo collector copy – it happened recently with Ross Lockridge’s Raintree County – a book that is near-impossible to find in as new condition. The best people do is near fine, and near fine in book parlance isn’t all that good and can mean chipped and torn dust jackets and soiled pages – I have a stunning copy of it, virtually perfect. Is it the rarest book in the world? Of course not. Would my copy bring a premium price? Of course. Collector copies of things always bring a premium price and sometimes a huge one. I remember buying several Ross Macdonald titles on the ABE (the largest Internet group of dealers) – they were all listed as fine/fine, but again, in book parlance, that can mean they have some small problems. But the seller told me I’d be happy, and each of them was $125. They weren’t his rarest titles, but they weren’t the later titles either. So, I bought them, they arrived, and these copies were so fine and fresh it looked like they’d just come out of a carton and had never been touched. One of them was my favorite Macdonald book, The Chill, a book you cannot find in that kind of condition ever. When the company that shall not be named engaged me in a pointless and frivolous lawsuit, I had to sell many things, and I put those five Macdonald books on eBay at $600 each – none of them were worth that kind of money, save for the fact that they were absolutely as new copies. They all sold instantly. Over the last few years, I’ve been slowly but surely building a collection – I move at my own pace and never overspend and frequently get books by doing trades. I still have hundreds of books in the garage on shelves there – first edition mysteries and other books, including duplicate rare titles, and as I need other things, off they go to market – I sell the mysteries really cheaply and I use the rare stuff as trade fodder or I sell them and get other things. Once again, my book room is starting to look interesting. I have some incredibly rare titles right now – including a book few people have called Badge of Evil. An amazingly hard book to find in first edition and in any kind of condition. In all my years of collecting I’d never even SEEN it until the last book fair in February, at which time there were two copies for sale. One was signed, but in really ratty shape, and the other had an incredible dust jacket, just about perfect, and the book was near fine – I did a little trade and got that copy. I have the original limited numbered edition of Planet of the Apes, the true first in French. I have the tremendously hard to find Two Hours to Doom by Peter Bryant – that book was the basis for Dr. Strangelove. The one book I’d love to have is, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird, but unless a miracle happens I doubt that will happen. There was recently a copy on eBay of the first in the proper first state dustjacket – it was $6,200, a very reasonable price until one actually looked at the thing. The back of the jacket was filled with ugly water stains, and that is not something you ever need to have. There were multiple chips and pieces missing and even if I had that kind of money to throw at a book I would never have bought it. Not that any of it is that rare, but I have a complete set of Ira Levin books, all in excellent condition and all inscribed to me. I have several Sondheim books inscribed to me (along with hundreds upon hundreds of notes from him), I have a really nice collection of both musical and play first editions, many of them signed (either to me, or just a signature).
I mention all this because yesterday I went to the Santa Monica Book Fair. This particular fair has never been that successful, but in their heyday they’d always have at least 150 dealers. But it’s been dwindling in recent years because the show is never well attended – yesterday there were only about fifty-five dealers there. The attendance yesterday was sort of pathetic, but it enabled me to take my time and look at lots of pretty books, and I hung out with several dealer pals and had some nice chats with other collectors. There are two dealers who are always at these shows who always have the most beautiful books – the condition on them is breathtaking and oh do I love looking at them. There was a copy of the British first of Elmer Gantry (published only months after the US true first). The US version has a really plain, unattractive cover – just type. The Brit first has an incredible cover and this copy looked like it had never been touched – and this book was published in 1927! I’m bringing a few things back there today to see what I can do. I only got one book yesterday, and only because the dealer decided to take fifty percent off, which made it so inexpensive I couldn’t say no – this poor dealer hadn’t made a sale yet. So, I got a very nice copy of Josef von Sternberg’s memoir, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, a wonderful book – this copy was inscribed by him to an actor I adore – Gilbert Roland, and was additionally signed by Roland. Then there was the phenomenon of the incredibly high priced recent books – this just boggles my mind, and it would shock you. For example, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight – it goes for huge money and is only five years old. Stieg Larsson’s books, too, in their original UK firsts (those are the first editions in English). One overpriced and overbearing dealer had the set of Twilight books for $2,000. Only the first two are really worth anything, though, because the subsequent books had huge first edition printings. But things like that are not necessarily safe investments. An example of this is Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. When that book became a publishing phenomenon, first editions were going through the roof, selling for as high as $1500 for signed copies (and he signed a LOT of them) and $750 for unsigned. Well, all these years later and anyone who was foolish enough to pay those prices are now stuck with a book that’s lucky to bring $100 for a primo copy. Obviously, any book that catches on and has a tiny first printing will always hold its value and continue to go up in value. An example of that is the first Harry Potter book. The publisher simply had no idea what to expect, and the first printing of the UK true first was estimated at less than 2,000 copies, and most of those ended up as library copies, so it is now estimated that only about 500 got out to actual people. And of those, they were read by children or teens who did not know they should be careful handling them. So, primo copies of the first UK Potter book go from $20K up to 40K. I don’t know if anybody actually pays those prices, but that’s what they go for.
In any case, I had a wonderful time, after which I tried to come home on the San Diego Freeway, but finally had to get off because it was jammed beyond belief – at two on a Saturday – that’s just total insanity. I finally got home, picked up a package, then went and ate a sandwich and onion rings at Jerry’s Deli, where I happened to sit next to a table where David Wechter’s mother was lunching. That was funny. Then I came home and did a mile and a half jog. Then I wrote a blurb and began prepping everything for our new release announcement on Monday. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
I think we’d better all click on the Unseemly Button below because this first section is longer than War and Peace.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Breakheart Pass, a film that I somehow never managed to see, despite liking the film’s star, Charles Bronson. I’d heard it wasn’t very good, but I have to say I really enjoyed it a whole lot. First off, I love Bronson, and the supporting cast is very good, with Ben Johnson, Ed Lauter, Charles Durning, Jill Ireland, and Richard Crenna. It’s based on a book by Alistair MacLean, a terrific writer (The Guns of Navarone, Fear is the Key, Puppet on a Chain, The Satan Bug) – he did the screenplay and it’s quite good. In fact, I think if this film had had a different director it could have been a little classic, but unfortunately, Tom Gries was a good journeyman director of mostly television, and his work on this film is standard and very TV-like. The score is great – Jerry Goldsmith. Most of the film takes place on a train, and I always like that setting. The transfer was okay.
Today, I am probably going back to the book fair to see if there’s any trading to be done, and then I’m going to see the reading of a new musical at the Falcon Theater – our very own Barry Pearl is in it, and afterwards I’m sure we’ll grab a bite to eat. Before that, I do have to Xerox a bunch of music and make CDRs for our Gardenia cast members.
Tomorrow I’ll be auditioning, shipping, and doing errands and whatnot and the rest of the week is really busy.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, maybe go back to the book fair, Xerox music, and see a reading of a new musical. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I go fondle some of my first editions.