How much does it cost to get your coveted auction catalogs bound with hard covers?

Longacre

I have been purging the "no name" auction catalogs at home by donating them to my local library for sale in their annual book sale. I am not sure how well they sell, but whatever money they raise for the library is worth it.

My core collection of catalogs, however, are very much coveted, and will not be donated. I was thinking of getting the catalog hard bound so they look nicer on the mahagony shelves in my library.

Does anyone know how much it costs to get a soft cover catalog hard bound? Does anyone have referrals to firms that do this? In all seriousness, does it make economic sense to send them to China, Malaysia or India to have the work done, which will probably only cost cents on the dollar? Any comments?

291fifth

Look in the yellow pages, probably under bookbinding. It is expensive.

RYK

This does not help you for past auctions so much, but going forward, consider buying the special edition bound catalogs when they are offered from Heritage, etc. This has to be more economical than binding on your own.

rgCoinGuy

Sounds like a good time to be stimulating the local economy with this one Longacre.

shorecoll

It is expensive, depending on the binding you use, you can pretty much pick whatever you want. I'd ask Charlie Davis for a referral or ask what he would charge to add yours in the next batch he sends to the binder. A top quality job will be maybe $200, there are some options in the $50-80 range I think. FYI, when you see bound numismatists, etc. on eBay, they usually sell for less than the binding cost.

dorkkarl

duck tape does a xlnt job of rebinding worn catalogs

K S

firstmint

Alan Grace in Florida does beautiful leather bindings, but the prices he gets may shock you.

As mentioned, it is usually less expensive to buy the hardbound catalogues from the auction firm when they come out.

RTS

How much does it cost to get your coveted auction catalogs bound with hard covers?

Can be a little or can be not a little...the first three books pictured were done by Harcourt Bindery and if I remember correctly each book may have been $500 maybe a little more.
The Herman Halpern catalog was done by Gabrielle Fox, again if I remember correctly it may have been maybe $700. These books are taken totally apart and reconstructed with
marbled endpapers, pages sewn, all edges gilt, gilt titling (cover and spine) etc. You can see that on the Superior catalogs the auction house has been blind-stamped into the lower-right corner.
I recently had the Kosoff Pearl fixed-price-list bound in brown-mottled leather but don't yet have pictures of the result; the Pearl book was also done by Harcourt Bindery. Patience
is a virtue when getting books done as it can be many months to get the book back...I think the Halpern book was out of my hands for a year...depends on the schedule of the binder.

As someone already mentioned Charles Davis can probably recommend a good binder (I'll guess he'll say Harcourt) - Karl Moulton/George Kolbe can probably give good recommendations.

Caveat...you can certainly get books bound for much, much less and experience tells me the quality of the result will be commensurate with the lower cost.

Amigo

I mostly only keep Auction Catalogues with Currency. Those Auctions with majority of coins, with a little currency I take down to OfficeMax and have bound with the currency pages only. It's very cheap.
The last book I took down last week was the 2010 Blue Book that can't be purchased spiral bound (I know, it's a mostly useless book, but can come in handy for buying from the public sometimes). They have a huge fricken sharp paper cutter that whacks off a micrometer, then spiral bound with the covers being laminated. Cost about $5. Auction catalogues a bit more. It's mucho cheap. Agree, the spiral is perhaps an ugly child to put on Longacres' mahoghony shelves, but it's very economical and pratical. You could probably devise an economical way to cover the spine if you really want.

Coinosaurus

Your basic cloth binding is probably about $100. From there the sky is the limit. Expect to pay $250 and up for leather bindings.

Don't forget the Davis Rule (tm) - "Two costs in numismatics are never recoverable - slabbing and binding."

Harcourt in Boston does fabulous work at commensurate prices. I have also used Kater-Crafts in CA per Kolbe's suggestion & they do nice work as well.

Finally, for some odd reason, deluxe editions ordered directly from the auction houses will always be more desirable than deluxe editions produced after the fact by third parties - there is something about the imprimatur of the auction house going on here that makes it more valuable.

ambro51

Ask a few Doctors. Many of them have journals hardbound. There are a LOT of little home bookbinders who do GREAT work but you'd never know about them unless by word of mouth. I knew a lady years ago who done excellent, affordable work..but she contracted MS and cannot do this any longer.

shorecoll

As a note, Harcourt replaced the cloth on my half-leather Crosby, printed in 1875. They actually had a bolt of original matching color bindery cloth from 1870. Pay through the nose, yes, worth it, yes!

Longacre

Great info, gentlemen!

RYK

<< <i>Ask a few Doctors. Many of them have journals hardbound. There are a LOT of little home bookbinders who do GREAT work but you'd never know about them unless by word of mouth. I knew a lady years ago who done excellent, affordable work..but she contracted MS and cannot do this any longer. >>



Don't ask me. I read them and then recycle them.

KentuckyJ

> I read them and then recycle them


RYK,
I've been surprised more than once to see how many docs don't read them but simply pitch them in the p.o. trash, their names still on the journal address label. If I was up at this level I wouldn't want the hoi polloi noting I don't bother keeping up with the latest news, although I'm told by reliable sources much journal content is now available online.

KJ ---> only looks at bound volumes on the Antiques Roadshow

RTS

Since Harcourt Bindery was mentioned I wanted to mention that not only do they do old-world work they offer quite nice service - whenever wondering what materials
to use for a book project a quick email to Harcourt results in the receipt within a day or 2 of suggested samples...e.g. these samples for my Holmes catalog project...

Bear

Auction houses sometimes have hard bound prestige catalogs

for their really special auctions. If you ask them and offer to buy one,

while they would not be cheap, they could still be cheaper then

binding them on your own.

RTS

Auction houses sometimes have hard bound prestige catalogs for their really special auctions. If you ask them and offer to buy one,
while they would not be cheap, they could still be cheaper then binding them on your own.

Most of the catalogs I have seen that are referred to as so-called prestige or deluxe seem pretty run-of-the-mill, if not drab (at least to me). The real deluxe
catalogs are usually few in number 2, 5, 10 copies and are done quite nicely and I imagine difficult to acquire. I think the current Goldberg-Holmes catalog has a
five copy edition deluxe catalog with only one copy available for sale (beginning bid $3K I think).

The Medelson Library deluxe edition (7 copies-I think none originally for sale) I have seen in auction only once a few years ago in a Kolbe Sale - there is a lesser-deluxe
Mendelson catalog done in black morocco (I think 100 copies) but nothing to throw a parade for. Following are some of the deluxe catalogs from the Mendelson sale
and as we can see not easy to get and not inexpensive though if I remember correctly the Superior deluxe editions did not sell, but I could be wrong.

In any event...to make a boring story short I cannot think of any real prestige or deluxe sale catalogs that even if able to be purchased cannot be nicely bound
for much less than the acquiring cost.

Longacre

Great info, again, RTS!

Photoguy

Correct!

The last lot of the Holmes auction is the special catalog. Only 5 copies with one available to the public. Full grain morraccan leather bound, gilt edges and foil stamped. This one was not done by Kater Craft but most of our catalogs are. They are all made in the US. There are however 100 hard bound editions available to purchase. Call the office.