Pricing books signed by the author
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No clue, but I’d love to know what he has to sell. I LOVE chess books!!!!!
Sep 18, 2021
0
#3
Your friend can maybe try this site:
to compare with the existing prices...
... or maybe eBay
https://www.ebay.com/b/Chess-Signed-Antiquarian-Collectible-Books/29223/bn_106162988
... and AbeBooks
https://www.abebooks.com/collections/sc/chess/6Kz4kEj4hmN1Rq0zzQl6oH
I hope the chess books find new homes with players who appreciate or even learn from chess books rather than with collectors who just want to to claim that they own that one-of-a-kind article somewhere in their vast yet hidden and unused library.
chessroboto wrote:
I hope the chess books find new homes with players who appreciate or even learn from chess books rather than with collectors who just want to to claim that they own that one-of-a-kind article somewhere in their vast yet hidden and unused library.
Most of the books are like that. There are a few that are particularly collectible (signed decades ago when collectability was not even being considered).
Only if the player signing the book was an official world champion, or perhaps played in the title match, or was a consensus legendary player of the past, for example Tarrasch, Tartakower, Nimzowitsch etc. Otherwise $zero.
My opinion: If it's a book you use a lot and you meet the author & get it signed then it does add personal pleasure to using it but little value unless the author turns out to be a serial killer, world champion, Nobel winner, ...... Personal pleasure is enough of a reason to get books signed, but signed books wont fund your retirement.
Your friend should make a little research on collector focusing on a certain player. How to find them? For example, he can begin by giving all the titles here. Better even if he presents one by one in different threads with titles like “book signed by Tal”, as people have a bigger chance to find the book when they search those keywords in Google. I found here already different collectors who contacted me privately and I even sold three items. One was a first edition book signed by Alekhine; it was difficult for me to say goodbye to this book, but the original was too good and the guy has a private collection based on Alekhine.
“The price was too good “ , I wanted to say above. (Autocorrect!)
SwimmerBill wrote:
My opinion: If it's a book you use a lot and you meet the author & get it signed then it does add personal pleasure to using it but little value unless the author turns out to be a serial killer, world champion, Nobel winner, ...... Personal pleasure is enough of a reason to get books signed, but signed books wont fund your retirement.
Robert M. Snyder comes to mind.
A friend of mine is planning to sell a lot of his chess books and is wondering how to price books signed by the authors (such as by Tal) since he can't find many examples where he is searching. Do you know of a place where he can look?