Anyone Collect Old or First Editions Books?

I’ve got a few, I’ve not paid more than $100 for anything. It’s such a strange market and you can really get burned. The dust cover is many times 60 to 80% of a first edition value. First editions can also be very hard to ID with differences coming down to a letter and a photo credit or misspelling.

For instance I’ve got 2 true first editions of For Whom the Bell Tolls/Hemingway. An “A” on the copyright page under all the info is generally a first edition. W/o the A, not considered 1st. Dust cover for the same book is 1st if it has no photo credit on the back pic. W/o it is not a 1st. I’ve got another of the same in 1st edition but no dust jacket.

I’ve got an Atlas Shrugged w/o a dust jacket. Worth 20% of what the same book with a real dust jacket would be. I do go to the major sellers sites for ID information sometimes. Bauman rare books has some beautiful things.

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Your best bet is garage sales, estate sales and things like the LSU book sale. I find the fun is in the chase and picking up one for little cost. Some modern classics bring big bucks too. Harry Potter originals are pretty pricey. As with anything, don’t bet the bank and buy what you like.

Best of luck!

Random tips:

Old does not mean bad condition is acceptable. It just means the book has had a rough life. If you truly want a collectible book, don’t settle for bad condition unless it’s like 200 plus years old.

If you’re going for fiction books, make sure you know what book club editions look like and don’t buy one thinking it’s a first edition.

Be careful on eBay, you can get suckered and/or lulled into a bidding war and over pay.

If there’s a book you just have to have, consider biting the bullet and buying from a book store selling old and antique books. More money, but you know you’re getting a good copy.

Otherwise estate sales are your friend. Most of them just have a set price for hardcovers, but more and more are getting smart about it and culling out first editions or valuable books and pricing them crazy.

At estate sales, you can see which sales have books by the online websites. Look for sales with books in smaller towns. If it’s a big city, the people trying to make a living buying and selling books will usually beat you to the good stuff on Thursday and Friday before you have a chance to get there on the weekend.

If you’re going to start collecting good books, keep them in the right place. Don’t use a room with a lot of windows subject to a bunch of sunlight and temp/humidity changes. If your air system doesn’t do it already, consider a dehumidifier and google the appropriate settings.

I've been collecting antique books for about 3 years now. I've collected sports cards/memorabilia for 25 years and I just recently got a little burned out with it so started switching up my collecting a little bit. Book collecting has been pretty fun.

Vintage/antique book collecting can be pretty overwhelming to start. My approach has been pretty much buy the books I like. I read a good bit so there's a wide range of stuff for me to collect. My favorite classic authors are Tolkien, Twain, Kipling, Steinbeck, Conan Doyle, Asimov, Dick, Christie, Austen, and a few others. Plus quite a few modern authors like Abercrombie, Martin, and McCarthy.

So I have a few select authors I focus on but will buy other stuff if I see a good deal pop up. But as noted before, with antiquarian books, there can be soooooo many editions and printings of each book you can easily buy a book that you think is a much earlier/different edition than what you are buying and end up overpaying. It's especially easy to do on eBay because 50% of the time people have their add titled or listed wrong.

I would suggest picking a few books you like, and going after those at first. Learn or study up on what the early printings/editions of them are. So you know exactly what you are buying. Condition is a big deal when it comes to the value. Especially the dust jacket. You can have the exact same book go for a huge difference in price simply based on whether it has a dust jacket or not and the condition of it. Paperbacks are typically valued a good bit less than their hardback counterparts. I normally don't buy paperbacks but it is an easy way to get an early edition of a classic for a much more reasonable price.

I'm not a big estate sale guy but they are definitely the place where you find the best deals. My best deals have all come from estate sales. But there are deals to be found at local books stores too. i can go in pretty much any book store and find a $25 book for $5 or so. Just the other day I found a mint first edition hardback of Silence of the Lambs for like $6. It's a $40-50 book. It's not some big profit and I don't buy them to sell, but it is fun finding good deals like that. There are plenty of Facebook antique book groups as well that you can find some good stuff on. eBay obviously, but you just need to research what you are buying.

It's a fun hobby. We bought our house 4 years ago and completely remodeled it. I'm about to remodel my office and turn it more into a library. I have a good bit of books

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It's a fun hobby. We bought our house 4 years ago and completely remodeled it. I'm about to remodel my office and turn it more into a library. I have a good bit of books

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I have a room I guess you would call a library. My rule is I can keep adding books as long as I have a place to put them. No hoarder stacks. So naturally I recently took the doors off a closet running the length of that room and built it out with shelves.

Thank you everyone for your input.

I’m now trying to figure out what book I want to hunt down.