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Friday, September 22, 2006

What's in an inscription?

We've got a nice Ann Beattie first edition up on Ebay at the moment with a great inscription-


In the past few years there is a certain school of bookselling on Ebay and elswhere which claims that books which are simply signed with the author's name are more valuable than books with good inscriptions.

Well... maybe.

And perhaps there really were WMD's in Iraq.

All I will say is that the entire history of bookselling, as well as common sense, both indicate that the reverse is true. Of course a nicely inscribed book is worth more than a simple signed copy. People want a story, something interesting, something to catch hold of their imagination -simple signatures are boring. The moral of the story is that there is always somebody around selling something, but just because they claim something to be true does not mean it is, especially if all common sense indicates it is not.

Remember- be careful out there.

You can see our auction by clicking the "Ebay Auctions" link in the right-hand column.

1 comment:

Phoebe Fay said...

I said basically what you're saying to a customer of mine recently, and she was actually relieved to hear the flatfucked way isn't a gospel truth. She liked her more interesting, personal inscriptions better, but she'd been told the other way is "right." When I gave her my opinion, it's like I was giving her permission to enjoy her inscriptions more.