Workman Book Auctions

MrEureka

Really strong offering this time, especially for Latin American numismatics.

https://www.icollector.com/Selections-from-A-Latin-American-Numismatic-Library-and-other-Consignments-Sale-6_a61457

pruebas

And free cockroaches with every shipment!

sma21

Thanks for posting this! I would never have known about it otherwise and was able to pick up a copy of Janson’s catalog of Argentine coins.

pruebas

Prices seemed weak overall to me.

Most of those books were not scarce nor rare and should probably have been sold fixed price.

Why pay a commission on a common book?

MrEureka

@pruebas said:
Prices seemed weak overall to me.

Most of those books were not scarce nor rare and should probably have been sold fixed price.

Why pay a commission on a common book?

If you're suggesting that the consignor should have sold the books himself at fixed prices, you're probably underestimating the value of the consignor's time. And if you're suggesting that the consignor should have had a dealer sell the books for him at fixed prices, wouldn't he still have to pay a commission?

pruebas

@MrEureka said:

@pruebas said:
Prices seemed weak overall to me.

Most of those books were not scarce nor rare and should probably have been sold fixed price.

Why pay a commission on a common book?

If you're suggesting that the consignor should have sold the books himself at fixed prices, you're probably underestimating the value of the consignor's time. And if you're suggesting that the consignor should have had a dealer sell the books for him at fixed prices, wouldn't he still have to pay a commission?

How about the owner sell them to the dealer wholesale and the dealer sells them at fixed prices via their usual outlet(s)? Just like what people used to do before EVERYTHING had to go to auction?

Rare books, yes, I get that. They will be fought over at auction.

As a collector, it’s quite tiring having to bid on every darn thing. Next, we will have to bid on supplies.

Just saying….

MrEureka

@pruebas said:

@MrEureka said:

@pruebas said:
Prices seemed weak overall to me.

Most of those books were not scarce nor rare and should probably have been sold fixed price.

Why pay a commission on a common book?

If you're suggesting that the consignor should have sold the books himself at fixed prices, you're probably underestimating the value of the consignor's time. And if you're suggesting that the consignor should have had a dealer sell the books for him at fixed prices, wouldn't he still have to pay a commission?

How about the owner sell them to the dealer wholesale and the dealer sells them at fixed prices via their usual outlet(s)? Just like what people used to do before EVERYTHING had to go to auction?

Rare books, yes, I get that. They will be fought over at auction.

As a collector, it’s quite tiring having to bid on every darn thing. Next, we will have to bid on supplies.

Just saying….

If you decided to liquidate all of your less-than-rare books, who would you call?

pruebas

@MrEureka said:

@pruebas said:

@MrEureka said:

@pruebas said:
Prices seemed weak overall to me.

Most of those books were not scarce nor rare and should probably have been sold fixed price.

Why pay a commission on a common book?

If you're suggesting that the consignor should have sold the books himself at fixed prices, you're probably underestimating the value of the consignor's time. And if you're suggesting that the consignor should have had a dealer sell the books for him at fixed prices, wouldn't he still have to pay a commission?

How about the owner sell them to the dealer wholesale and the dealer sells them at fixed prices via their usual outlet(s)? Just like what people used to do before EVERYTHING had to go to auction?

Rare books, yes, I get that. They will be fought over at auction.

As a collector, it’s quite tiring having to bid on every darn thing. Next, we will have to bid on supplies.

Just saying….

If you decided to liquidate all of your less-than-rare books, who would you call?

My executor?

Exbrit

If you decided to liquidate all of your less-than-rare books, who would you call?

Ghostbusters! Good question, does Abe’s buy in bulk or what about Charles Davis?

MrEureka

@Exbrit said:

If you decided to liquidate all of your less-than-rare books, who would you call?

Ghostbusters! Good question, does Abe’s buy in bulk or what about Charles Davis?

I’m sure Charles Davis and other numismatic booksellers would happily buy Pruebas’ library at some price. Heck, so would I! I’m just not convinced that that would yield any more money for the Pruebas estate.

pruebas

@MrEureka said:

@Exbrit said:

If you decided to liquidate all of your less-than-rare books, who would you call?

Ghostbusters! Good question, does Abe’s buy in bulk or what about Charles Davis?

I’m sure Charles Davis and other numismatic booksellers would happily buy the Pruebas’ library at some price. Heck, so would I! I’m just not convinced that that would yield any more money for the Pruebas estate.

IMHO books allow me to make smart buying decisions on coins. Even if my executor nets zero for my books, they were (presumably) still profitable for me.

And it goes unsaid that books have a carrying cost (bookcases, storage space, possibly moving, shipping, etc.) just like coins.

But this thread made me realize that there are no book dealers who deal in common books anymore. I remember someone like Orville Grady(?), who would bring a tractor trailer load of common world books to FUN and other shows. And Function Associates/Lake Books who ran the dreaded auction of common and uncommon books, just like Workman does today, though more frequently.

So in the end, I guess someone like Workman Auctions is useful after all, cockroaches notwithstanding.

And yes, he did really ship a dead cockroach in my book shipment.

cacheman

Or, specifically in this case, a 'cucaracha'.

SYRACUSIAN

@cacheman said:
Or, specifically in this case, a 'cucaracha'.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Sorry , I’m catching up before the end of the year.😜

jdmern

But this thread made me realize that there are no book dealers who deal in common books anymore. I remember someone like Orville Grady(?), who would bring a tractor trailer load of common world books to FUN and other shows>

I believe I heard Orville Grady passed away sometime last year, he was a big time collector of German Notgeld tokens and Beer tokens and would call our office regularly.

WCC

Fortunately, I was able to buy the Sellschopp catalog (UBS sale #20) from another eBay seller for about one-third of the amount Workman Books was asking.

Boosibri

I put $5-10 bids on a ton of Ponterio catalogs and won most

robp2

This thread outlines the dilemma faced when disposing of or acquiring a library for resale. Whoever manages the sale be it the owner, auctioneer or dealer, has a major task ahead for relatively little return. To sell anything on line requires photos of the item, which also has to be checked for condition, annotation, missing pages etc. This takes a lot of time.

Some reference books are always going to fly such as the go to reference for any particular field, often being long out of print and often with fairly small print runs, but more modern references or anything that can usually be found on ebay isn't going anywhere fast. It's probably also available on Amazon, Abe, various dealer lists etc.

Catalogues of sales with serious collections in any field are also desirable and will sell well, but general sales tend to flounder. A big problem with catalogues relative to frequently arcane reference books is that modern man expects everything to be online. Consequently, relatively few people are willing to buy and collect auction catalogues, yet ploughing through many sales is how you build up a provenance. Not everything goes through the main named sales. It is also worth noting that archived sales have a habit of getting lost when a site is revamped, so a paper version is very useful for posterity.

Speaking as a person who has an extensive library, doing the spade work for selling spare catalogues is a fairly thankless task. They sell for a few pounds/dollars each and very few collectors want them despite not being available online. I have a room which is mostly full with duplicates and every so often I summon the enthusiasm to scan in 40 or 50 so I can list them on the website. A lot just sit there ad infinitum.

However, there is a guaranteed procession of people asking if I have this or that catalogue and if I know who the buyer was at the sale. If I got paid for that every time the question was asked I would be quite rich. Everyone wants the info, because a provenance is a one way ticket, but very few want to pay for the literature and do the spadework.

WCC

@Boosibri said:
I put $5-10 bids on a ton of Ponterio catalogs and won most

I had a lot of these from 2005 onward but got rid of it when I moved. Too much bulk to take with me. I don't recall any which had much of interest to me.

bosox

It is not true with most who post here, but I am always amazed by collectors who will shell out thousands for a scarce coin but will not spend fifty bucks for the book about the coin(s). I find this particularly true in my specialty of Canadian collecting. I guess my natural curiosity drives me to want to read books that explain the what, why, and who about how the scarce coins I own came to be, why they are scarce, and who owned them before me.

I agree with the comments about the difficulties in disposing of a numismatic library when the time comes. My wife knows my library has some value, but I have advised her to just call someone like Kolbe Fanning if something happens to me. Trying to sell it on a platform like E-Bay would be overwhelming.

Boosibri

@WCC said:

@Boosibri said:
I put $5-10 bids on a ton of Ponterio catalogs and won most

I had a lot of these from 2005 onward but got rid of it when I moved. Too much bulk to take with me. I don't recall any which had much of interest to me.

There are some critical catalogs for me in this series in the late 90’s and early to mid 2000’s.

robp2

@bosox said:
I agree with the comments about the difficulties in disposing of a numismatic library when the time comes. My wife knows my library has some value, but I have advised her to just call someone like Kolbe Fanning if something happens to me. Trying to sell it on a platform like E-Bay would be overwhelming.

Ebay is a non-starter for selling valuable books because there is little competitive bidding these days and the majority of punters are not the sort of people who want to buy books. I've paid many hundreds for auction catalogues on ebay, but they were always 19th century and multiple sales bound together. To attract the usual purchaser of said material, a proper auction is probably the best way for 18th, 19th or early 20th century books and catalogues, but for anything more modern is problematic to sell other than in bulk lots. Equally, an established numismatic book dealer is an option, but will only pay a nominal sum for the many difficult to sell volumes.

You can do worse than sell en-bloc to a private individual. Buying a complete library is a very efficient way of expanding the library and can be done once or twice before diminishing returns come into play. It may set you back a minimum four figure sum, but the cost will be significantly less than buying each book/cat individually - assuming you can locate them. It also saves the vendor a lot of work.

pruebas

@bosox said:
It is not true with most who post here, but I am always amazed by collectors who will shell out thousands for a scarce coin but will not spend fifty bucks for the book about the coin(s). I find this particularly true in my specialty of Canadian collecting. I guess my natural curiosity drives me to want to read books that explain the what, why, and who about how the scarce coins I own came to be, why they are scarce, and who owned them before me.

I agree with the comments about the difficulties in disposing of a numismatic library when the time comes. My wife knows my library has some value, but I have advised her to just call someone like Kolbe Fanning if something happens to me. Trying to sell it on a platform like E-Bay would be overwhelming.

Have you ever tried to consign to Kolbe? They are extremely finicky. Worse than my cats eating.

I had some duplicate Medinas which admittedly weren’t nicely bound, but they are pretty scarce. They rejected them. Granted this was some years back when George Kolbe was the owner.

And on the low end, I tried to consign some scarce auction catalogs to Fred Lake (remember him?) and he was too backed up with other material to take them. From memory, they were Christensen and Ponterio catalogs.

So yes, this stuff is tough and expensive to move, but extremely useful to the right buyer.

bosox

I have never consigned to them, or any book dealer. I do have some valuable 19th century works, so I would hope an "all or nothing" consignment offer might succeed. But who knows? I am not planning on dying soon.

I suppose, if worst came to worst, they could be donated to the RCNA library at the University of Calgary. Of course, shipping them there might be an issue.