I wanted to do a brief follow-up on Wednesday’s Heritage Books Auction. Results were all over the map.
First, books I have trending data for:
The Asbestos-bound copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 went for a hefty $13,750.00, up considerably from a lesser copy in the Jerry Weist auction last year.
By contrast, the signed copy of Philip K. Dick’s Confessions of a Crap Artist went for $1,000, down over 80% from a slightly better copy in the Weist auction.
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others went for $2,250.00, down from the $3,883.75 paid for a slightly worse copy.
Books I don’t have trending data for:
The signed, limited first edition of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World went for $3,750.
The first Stephen King book he ever signed, an incribed ARC of Carrie, went for $11,250. (The Stephen King collector’s market, after some declines among “regular” signed/limited editions over the past few years, seems to be alive and well.)
A first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with a signed letter from Stoker laid in went for $5,625.
But the most schizophrenic result from the auction was two early signed Thomas Pynchons going for hefty sums, but two later signed copies failed to sell at all:
The Crying of Lot 49 went for $8,750.
Gravity’s Rainbow went for $16,250.
Slow Learner failed to sell. It can be yours as an after-auction buy for a mere $3,125.
An ARC of a later edition of V failed to sell and can be yours as an after-auction buy for $2,500.
You would think there would be enough hardcore Pynchon collectors for those two to sell, especially the Slow Learner.
And a beat-up Shakespeare and Company true first edition (in wrappers) of James Joyce’s Ulysses went for $35,000.
As for the non-fiction first editions:
Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations went for $80,500.
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection went for $83,500.
A beautifully bound subscriber’s edition of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom went for $62,500.
Tags: book auction, Books, H. P. Lovecraft, Heritage Auctions, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Thomas Pynchon
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Jack Chalker referred to the King collecting market as “Stephen King futures”.
I’m not sure if the Stephen King collectors are any more fanatical than the Jack Vance or Philip K. Dick collectors, but they do seem to have more money.
And Stephen King futures have held up better over the lst 12 years than Microsoft or Dell stock, not to mention Greek bonds…