23 replies to this topic

[Dick Willis]

I'm trying to buy the following books off a friend but am unsure how much I should be paying, can anyone give me a guide, preferably in Aussie dollars.

Automobile Year No5 1958
Annual Automobile Review No 1 1953/1954
Annual Automobile Review No 2 1954/1955
Annual Automobile Review No 3 1955/1956

[Milan Fistonic]

Go this site

http://www.usedbooks...k/cgi/books.cgi

enter Annual Automobile Review in the search and you will get any number of prices.

As an indication, Eoin Young lists a Number 1 at 425 pounds.

I recently purchased at auction a Number 5 for NZ$100.

The Number 2 is the hard one to find and expensive when you do.

[Barry Lake]

Also note that with numbers 1 and 2 there were soft cover and (more rare) hard cover versions.

(Number 2, anyway, my brain is having trouble telling me if this definitely was the case with Number 1. My numbers 1 and 2 are both soft cover.)

But I confirm that Number 2 is the rarest of all. They actually overprinted number 1 and had trouble selling them all. They cut the print run for Number 2, just as the motoring world was "discovering" the book, and they sold out very quickly. I learned this in 1957, when I was trying to track one down world-wide (instead of doing my school homework).

[dretceterini]

Just my opinion, but I think 425 pounds is more than double what #1 should cost. I have seen #2 for as low as $250 in fair condition in the last year. I think #2 should command around $400 in mint condition...

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by dretceterini
Just my opinion, but I think 425 pounds is more than double what #1 should cost. I have seen #2 for as low as $250 in fair condition in the last year. I think #2 should command around $400 in mint condition...

Stu: Eoin Young didn't get rich by under-pricing his stock Here's a little snippet from the 1939 thread ....

Originally posted by Milan Fistonic
This may be of interest to those of you who are trying to unravel this mystery.

Eoin Young currently has listed in his catalogue the following item.

Grosser Preis Von Deutschland 1939. Original programme with full entry list, photos of cars and drivers. Lap chart completed in pencil.

Originally posted by Hans Etzrodt
Milan,
Thanks for reminding of Eoin Young's enjoyable site. It brings back memories of the 80's when I bought from him, helping him make his first Million. £250.00 for the programme?

Originally posted by Vitesse2
That makes the £200 he's asking for a copy of Georgano and £45 for a photocopy of Nuvolari's expenses claim look cheap...

[Ray Bell]

At these prices Dick will be in a quandary...

Will the books or the Cooper (or Dolphin or whatever...) he has to sell to buy them retain their value best?;)

[dretceterini]

Vitesse: Oh, I though Eoin Young got rich from writing books. Silly me!

[2F-001]

At Goodwood I was chatting with some old aquaintances who are book dealers - I was shocked to see the prices that some unlikely volumes (that I have at home) commanded... They commented that one of their regular customers is a pensions specialist who is no longer investing money in pensions and the like - but in motorsports books...!

[ensign14]

Originally posted by 2F-001
At Goodwood I was chatting with some old aquaintances who are book dealers - I was shocked to see the prices that some unlikely volumes (that I have at home) commanded...

Biggest surprise was Brittan's Formula Ford book at £165 - bought it 2 weeks ago in Hay On Wye for £3.

[Magee]

Just picked up a copy of Veteran and Vintage Cars by Peter Roberts published in 1963. However, I don't have the dust jacket. Is it possible to get a photocopy of the dust jacket which I will have laminated? Thanks.

[PRD]

Originally posted by 2F-001
At Goodwood I was chatting with some old aquaintances who are book dealers - I was shocked to see the prices that some unlikely volumes (that I have at home) commanded... They commented that one of their regular customers is a pensions specialist who is no longer investing money in pensions and the like - but in motorsports books...!

They ask £95 for Georgano- got it on e-bay for £10 last December
Paul

[onelung]

Stumbled across this thread (is it still alive?) and checked out "Annual Automobile Review" issue #1 of which I have a well-worn & torn soft cover example. B HELL! I had no idea of what it's fetching now. High US$900 to low US$350 for the soft cover. I've previously used ABE books by itself as an out-of-print search means, but the website given in this thread (http://www.usedbooks...k/cgi/books.cgi ) is even better: thanks for that!

[lil'chris]

Motorbooks is currently advertising a copy of Chris Nixons Auto Union Album 1934-39 signed by the author for £ 650.00 !! Surely that can't be right - If it is I need to get my signed copy on the household insurance

[David Birchall]

I have a copy of "The Immortal 2.9, The Alfa Romeo 2900 A&B" on epay right now
Your chance to make my Christmas!!

[RA Historian]

My wife, bless her loving heart, gave me a copy of Annual Automobile Review #2 for my birthday two months ago. She found it on e bay and paid around $200 for it, or so she says. It is without a dust jacket and is a bit brown around the edges from oxidation, but it is a worthy addition to my collection of annuals, both AY and Autocourse. (Which reminds me, Autocourse should be here almost any day now to keep my streak going from 1961)
Tom

[Doug Nye]

The objective answer to the question which forms the heading for this thread is "About half what they were worth 10-15 years ago"...



DCN

[bradbury west]

Originally posted by David Birchall
I have a copy of "The Immortal 2.9, The Alfa Romeo 2900 A&B" on epay right now
Your chance to make my Christmas!!

David, sorry to be uncharitable, but I look forward to the updated and expanded version which Simon Moore is apparently preparing. It seems quite amazing that the original sold so poorly that several boxes were just left in a warehouse, worse than remaindered, and were only discovered by chance. Of course, you could make my Christmas by offering it to me at a resasonable price when the e bay bids fail to meet your expectations.
with Yuletide good wishes
Roger Lund.

[onelung]

The objective answer to the question which forms the heading for this thread is "About half what they were worth 10-15 years ago"...

A bit like Jaguar E-type "values" perhaps?
So 10 to 15 years ago Automobile Year No. 1 was fetching between US$1800 and $700?
Unlikely, I suspect....

[dretceterini]

#2 has always been more expensive than #1 (in English). I paid something like $40 for #1 and $150 for #2 about 25 years ago...


Still looking for a copy of Orsini's Mille Miglia book "Una Corsa Italiana" at a realistic price...

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by bradbury west

David, sorry to be uncharitable, but I look forward to the updated and expanded version which Simon Moore is apparently preparing. It seems quite amazing that the original sold so poorly that several boxes were just left in a warehouse, worse than remaindered, and were only discovered by chance. Of course, you could make my Christmas by offering it to me at a resasonable price when the e bay bids fail to meet your expectations.
with Yuletide good wishes
Roger Lund.

SHHHHH, why do you think I am trying to sell it?

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by onelung

A bit like Jaguar E-type "values" perhaps?
So 10 to 15 years ago Automobile Year No. 1 was fetching between US$1800 and $700?
Unlikely, I suspect....

I don't quite understand your figures. Regardless, you are ignoring the gulf between what would-be sellers are asking, and what real live buyers are genuinaly prepared to pay in real live cash! Today $1800 devalued US dollars equate to less than £900 Sterling. I saw an AY Vol 1 sell for £750 around 1990 - though that equated to rather fewer USD in those days... I also recall a Vol 2 selling for £1,300 or so.

A run of 'Automobile Year' 10-15 years ago commanded a much higher sale price than a matching run - or even the self-same run - offered today.

While the limitations of 'AY' as essentially a coffee table book have been identified by the market, the attractions of 'Autocourse' actually overtook the Edita publication in sale value. Today the wider market still seeks back issues of 'Autocourse' while regarding back issues of 'Automobile Year' as a typical once up-market product of their period - more show than go. Even then, I find values of all old motoring books diminished these days, compared to what they were at the height of the market in the late 1980s-early 1990s. The exceptions to this - it seems to me from my auction experience and contacts - seem to really good books published (and sold out) from the mid-90s forward. I'd be interested to hear what Simon Lewis's experience has been????

DCN

[Jan Holmskov]

I agree, that prices of second hand motoring books are lower now than they were 10 years ago.

Last year around this time I was talking to one of the best known german book dealers and asked him whether it was difficult to find good books. He answered, that he thought that it was relatively easy and explained it by saying, that less young people are interested in collecting books. Older collectors already have most of the books they need/want and they don't buy many used books anymore.

There was indeed a nice selection of books at reasonable prices in the store, but most of them published before 1990.


Jan Holmskov

[ensign14]

It's cos of tinternet. If you saw a copy of Georgano for £50 you might have snapped it up as you thought might not be able to find it again. Thanks to abebooks you can now check on your phone to see whether you've got a bargain in front of you or a white elephant.

I assume the Nixon thing is the limited edition in slipcase published by Transport Bookman? They did a few of those books, I think I have 3 (50s sportscars and Lancia as well).

[f1steveuk]

I remember a conversation between a well known motorsport journo', and Eoin Young. Said journo' picked up an out of print book and audibly gasped at the price. Turning to Eoin, he said, "Jeez, it ain't worth that much" to which Eoin relied, "you know that, and I know that, but that's how much it costs!"