Official book collectors thread

Schlegelmilch and Cahier are real professionals and have IMHO produced some very nice work.

 

Staud, Vann and Lewandwoski too!

 

Even Ferrari itself has long been among the worst when it come to this. Anyone remember the seemingly endless series of "limited edition" 50th anniversary books?

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Yes, I remember it, because I couldn't believe my luck then to get a copy of the yellow edition at a price, which for me, as a student, was very high. But I wanted to have this very precious and special book - only to learn later, that there was a red edition, a silver edition and a black edition as well ...

All this was done by Girogio Nada Editore as contractor of Ferrari Spa. And anyone remember the recent "limited" Ferrari 1000 GP book by Giorgio Nada Editore? Limted to more than 8,000 copies ...

 

I too got stung by the 1947- 1997 book.

I also bought the yellow edition book brand new back in the day (which I still have) thinking it was the only edition released, only to find out about the other editions later as well as the standard bookshop release.

And you are correct Sven, they pulled the same trick on the 1000 GP book except this time I wised up and bought the original lower volume version (not that it makes much difference).

These two incidences have left a very bad taste in my mouth with GNE publishers !!

 

Trying to fool all of the people all of the time!

 

I'm a cheapskate (maybe because I own a Ferrari?) so I always buy the least expensive edition. If the content is the same, "special" editions mean absolutely nothing to me.

 

And even worse: the book itself was nothing special, Ferrari could have done so much better.
When I had to downsize my collection, this one was one of the first to go.

 

Hi Jim, problem is: When at the start there is only a limited edition and no talk about a standard edition, you buy it if your are interested in the topic (at least I do ;-).

 

I guess the only real answer is: be patient and wait a while, unless you're absolutely certain that the "limited" edition will be the only one published.

 

A decent publisher will always inform upfront!
This Alfa book shows how bad some people behave!
Same with Berlin Motorbooks who advertised their Carrera RS book as limited to 500 copies. After the edition sold out, they published the identical book with a different colored cover.

 

100 per cent agreement!

 

That's the problem, basically. Essentially all publishers put out "limited editions", only to have no compunction whatsoever about using every trick available to get around that whenever they feel it's to their advantage. I struggle to find examples to the contrary. Even the likes of Palawan Press got in on this, with the widely respected Ferrari in Camera, when they came out with the red edition after the original blue edition sold out. At the end of the day, books are not really investments. Much like gambling, one way or another "the house" always wins.

 

Well, that red edition concerned a few copies, replacing books that were destroyed by the publisher. The edition never extended the original number.

 

Truthfully, the only book, or rather books, that I ever bought as an investment was a three-volume set about the Space Shuttle, in a slipcase.

 

To be honest Simon Kidston's The Miura Book was a pretty good example of honest publishing.

They announced the number to be made right from the start of 762 and also mentioned the Jota edition would be released at a later date but didn't say how many (in time revealed to be 75).

No second editions or standard bookshop versions to this day.

And with The Miura Book, you can definitely say it has investment potential.

 

Berlin motor books are the worst in my experience and now I never buy any of their books.

 

Sadly, that's pretty much the exception that proves the rule. Everywhere else, it an endless stream of different color editions, limited and not so limited editions, new editions, revised editions, replacing "destroyed" books editions, reprint editions, and so on and so forth. Having said this, it's early days for the Miura book. Time will tell if, at some point in the future, even Simon comes up with an excuse and an explanation for printing more Miura books.

 

Just received my copy, 893 of 1500, of the 288 GTO book. Given the current trend for books pricing, it does not seem to actually charge a premium for this limitation to 1500 copies - so in this case I will not care if they reprint a billion new copies.
In other cases, I really do not like the idea of limiting the number of copies to increase the value (no matter it's done "honestly" or not) - books should not be speculative assets in my opinion.

 

I've said many times before E-books are a great way for publishers to revisit their back catalogue of sold out books.

They can release however many editions they want to online, obtain addition revenue without the expense of raw material and printing costs, allows those who missed out on the information the first time around to have access to it and it doesn't annoy anyone who bought the physical book to read or as an investment.

I just don't see why more companies don't release more of them.

 

A print run of 1500 is usually the maximum for any kind of motoring title. This so-called limited edition is a complete nonsense. Btw, I’ve seen the book, and I’m not impressed at all.

 

+1500

Another argument for E-books: last year I had to downsize my (automotive) book collection drastically: we moved to a much smaller house and simply ran out of space to properly store all my books.
For most titles this is not that bad; honestly a lot of Ferrari related titles are just rubbish. But even then, I had to make some harsh decisions but in the end I I had a core collection of great titles. That is, until the 250 GTO 64 book arrived, and the latest Maserati title by Walter Baumer and ... and.....
I would LOVE to add these titles as E-book to my library. Yes, I do know than an E-Book is not the same as a physical book at all, I do know that I miss out on the wonderful graphics / photographs in these titles....
But since there are no E-book versions of these books, I will not be able to get the new info in these books as well, which for me is even worse.

 

Not strictly a Ferrari book, though there are plenty of Ferraris in it. Side view drawings of every car since 1950 to win a World Championship Grand Prix, with a listing of the results of every driver to have won a GP while driving the car. So if only one of the drivers won with the car, the other is not mentioned. And if a driver drove two different cars during a season but only won in one of them, the other is not shown, and the driver's results in that car are not shown either. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the drawings, but it looks pretty good. Coverage is thru the end of the 2020 season.

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Incidentally, the book also lists the designer or designers for each car. It claims that the recent Mercedes cars were designed by a team of five, and that the recent Ferraris by a team of four which includes Mattia Binotto. Does anyone have any evidence of that?

 

Admittedly hard to tell by the cover but it looks like a bit of a shelf filler to me.

 

Absolutely right.

I tried to convince Kidston to do an E version of the Miura book but it was hopeless. So hundreds of enthusiasts will never get to read the book....