Official book collectors thread

FWIW I am still looking for a copy of Inside Track: The Racing Autobiography.

 

I look over that collection and see so many Ferrari books listed that I currently own.

In a way I'm dreading to see the sold prices of many in this currently recessed economy.

Oh well, I guess you don't buy books to make money but to enjoy.

 

Mark, I know what you mean about potential sold prices, I feel the same way, I also currently have a number of the books in that auction. But... there's a little light at the end of that tunnel so to speak. Our books, when offered properly in the right venue, and with either decent marketing, or good large existing audience of real buyers (not tire kickers & looky-lou's) often get good to great results.

Horton's Hammerdown auctions have yet to produce good results and Live Auctioneers is also not always the best platform/way to auction items. I'm speaking as a buyer and seller of various types of automobilia for many years. There are still a lot, and I do mean a lot of buyers/collectors who just don't ever look at anything on Live Auctioneers let alone bother to bid. Being on that auction platform is no guarantee that items will be seen by the right buyers, or sell for decent prices. Far too many small auction houses seem to think that just placing their auction on that platform, or any other online auction platform is enough to properly sell. It is NOT. The people running all of those various auction houses generally just don't have a clue about, or have any real understanding of marketing and sales; hence the consignor(s) often get screwed. I only found out about this auction by accident, which proves very poor marketing. There is so much more (too much!) I could write on the subject.

With all of that said.... let's hold our breath, cross our fingers, and hope to see good results from this sale. But honestly, I'm not very confident.

 

You're welcome!

 

Strangely, these two auctions seem to be identical, at least as far as the Palawan book lots are concerned.

 

David Williams produced a sensational 214-page hardbound book for participants of the FCA Nationals in Elkhart Lake this week (sorry, I am old school, it should be "Annual Meet" or even better "Annual Experience"). Really outstanding book which even lists all the entrants including type and chassis numbers. Plus plenty of stories by Nathan Beehl, reprinted from "Prancing Horse" magazines.

Marcel Massini

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Is there any possibility of buying one?

 

Just ordered this one (I know, it's not Ferrari) :
https://www.palawan.co.uk/product/the-aston-martin-project-gt-racing-cars/
(standard edition, everybody knows I'm cheap)

 

Some recent finds…
Both by Keith Bluemel, both individual chassis history books.
The 275 book is large format, A3, landscape and is approx 110 unnumbered pages.
The 250 TR book produced by Tom Hartley Jnr is A4, landscape and runs to 118 pages and comes in a hard backed slipcase.

Paul
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I’m interested in those cars, especially Phil Hill’s drive at Le Mans, but not to the tune of £750.

 

LVP488 said: ↑
Just ordered this one (I know, it's not Ferrari) :
https://www.palawan.co.uk/product/the-aston-martin-project-gt-racing-cars/
(standard edition, everybody knows I'm cheap)
With only 315 numbered copies printed and I’m sure being at the usual Palawan high quality level I’ve ordered the standard edition too.

 

The standard edition certainly not the enticing 400 pound price I paid for the Racing Through Europe book a few years ago.

Must be confident they will flog a lot of them. Will be interesting been a fairly specialised subject whether they will fly off the shelves.

 

Apparently, many very expensive books take some time to get sold out, even if they are printed in very limited numbers.
Palawan's Aston Martin V8 1969-2000 book has not yet sold out (the 250 first copies have sold, but some of the last 50 are still there); out of curiosity, I checked the EB 110 book to see that the GT and Le Mans editions are sold out, but the IMSA edition is still available - meaning that between 220 and 329 copies have been sold.
There are certainly millions of people who can afford to spend about or more than $ / € 1,000 on one book, but only a few hundreds are really willing to do so for each offering.

 

Taking a long time to sell like 60s Motor Racing, Aston Martin DBR S and others which were published 21 plus years ago! Why Palawan do not discount very old stock is puzzling.

Inside Track Phil Hill book was heavily discounted and has almost sold out.Porter Press have done the same for their more expensive books.

Maybe they are changing tack with this new book by limiting numbers and hoping to get more sold quicker.

 

The owner of Palawan doesn’t need to make a living from publishing books, and has stated that he will never discount stock. He may have been a bit optimistic about interest in some titles, but is now limiting print runs.

 

On the contrary, Palawan even increased the price for the badly selling 918 Spyder book by 150 GBP once the first 150 copies had been sold vey slowly. No discount whatsoever can be expected.

 

LOT 178 • Simon Moore: two signed Alfa Romeo books by Parkside Publications,
(Magnificent Monopostos and The Immortal 2.9)
Sold for £3,584inc. premium [$4781 US].

Absolutely ridiculous. Money laundering.

 

That price increase was as per the price table Palawan posted when the book was published. Same as Project Cars and other books they sell. Potential buyers were aware. Not the same at Porter where the price gets increased with no pre notice at all.

 

Yes, indeed, everything has been transparent right from the beginning. I didn't question that. My point was that certainly there wouldn't be any price reductions.

 

It's usually only the very high end brands that refuse to do discounts. You'll never see any from Rolex, LVMH, or Hermès. Of course it's difficult to compare apples and oranges, but it's not hard to appreciate Palawan as a very high end publisher.

 

This is at least not true for LVMH. They have a lot of outlet stores (TAG Heuer etc.)

 

I purchased this book (in chinese) with beautiful pictures and a fully illustrated time-line... with google translate i can read some of the chinese so...no worries. now Out of stock with Temu but who knows available at other companies such as ali...

 

Publisher?
ISBN Number?
Author?
Number of pages?
Format/Size?

Thank you.
Marcel Massini

 

ISBN: 978-7111618829
Uitgever: Mechanical Industry Press
Land/regio van herkomst: China
Author: BIAN YA MENG WANG RUO BING
Binding: Hardcover
Language: Simplified Chinese
Amount of pages: 334
Format/Size: app. 300 x 220 x 30 mm

 

Understood. I get the impression they hardly give the retail outlets any margin either.