Modern Book Collecting discussion

Easton Press books seem quite expensive, depending on the author from $50 bucks and up. I only own one Folio Society book .. A Runpole book by John Mortimer for which I paid about $5 bucks, which I wanted to read. I own perhaps a dozen Eastons, They appear to be mostly made for subscription, they arn't really first editions (though some are first hardcover editions.. (but not many as far as I can tell) and without dust jackets look kind of ugly and out of place on book shelves, unless you're more for showoff than for reading.

I was in a used bookstore a bit ago, they had a complete section for Easton Press - Perhaps six shelves - most of them were biographies of folks or presidents no one seems to care about. They were really cheep. I think the guy there said they finally sold them all to a real estate person to livlen up some for sale homes.

Randolph wrote: "I don't know where this should go, but I put it here. I need some opinions on books like Folio Society offerings and Easton Press. I've bought a few of these because I wanted what was between the..."

Demand dictates the collectability of books. Many collectors only want the true 1st/1st, so specialty publication such as Folio are not on their scope. Folio offers many reprints which many collectors simply do not care for.

On the other hand, some collectors will collect certain publishing houses, but I would imagine that there are a smaller number of collectors who dabble in that area.

It's mostly about supply and demand. Scarce books in demand will be worth more money than specialty publications, although there is a caveat: if the publisher is the only publishing house to release a given book in HB, then that HB could generate much interest.

Here's an example:
Isaac Asimov - I Robot (true 1st/1st)
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookD...

Then you have the Voyager Classic release:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookD...

Both books are nice books and are collectable, but the true 1st is Scarce and highly collectable.

Randolph wrote: "In other words it's a suckers market or for people that want to pay too much to have nice looking bookshelves.

The few I've bought are because I wanted the contents and didn't want/couldn't afford..."

The best way to collect is collecting what you like and not worrying about monetary value. There is no right or wrong way to collect books, it should remain a personal adventure and be something that makes you happy.