Another Duplicate Copy by Andy Scheer

The trouble is, I love hardcovers … and I struggle to resist a bargain. So whenever I visit a good thrift store, I usually come home with a few new copies.

But by the time I get home, someone has placed another copy of that same hardcover onto my shelves.

Or so it seems.

Early in my days of accumulating titles by favorite authors, I kept lists. Being a low-tech person, I used index cards. They worked great, as long as I updated them and carried them along. Somehow that practice fell by the wayside. And I began looking for books by other authors.

I'm safe if I do my shopping online at home. When a fellow collector alerted me this past week to a listing on E-bay, I could say thanks and assure him I already had a nice copy, with dust jacket.

But garage sales and thrift stores are another story – especially when I visit on half-off discount day.

My son tells me there's a smart phone app that lets you scan a book's ISBN and check the title against your personal database. Great idea – if I carried a smart phone. Buying one would likely cost more than I'd save on duplicate copies.

Meanwhile, if you could use a nice hardcover first printing of Black Order by James Rollins or The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King, let me know. Somehow I got spare copies.

Readers & Collectors by Andy Scheer

I just returned from the library with a copy of a new hardcover … the same title I bought a month ago at a signing.

I'd driven an hour-and-a-half to the downtown event, paid to park, then paid full retail for title at the independent bookstore that hosted the event.

After hearing the author speak, I waited in line to get the new book signed. Plus hardcover copies of some of the author's first books. And especially an advanced reading copy (ARC) of the new title.

Why didn't I simply read the signed copy? If you were a book collector, you wouldn't have to ask. Signed copies get wrapped in mylar covers to protect their dust jackets, then placed on a special shelf with others by the same author.

Unsigned, less-than-perfect copies are relegated to the status of “reading copies.” Like the one I checked out from the library.

I'm far from a hard-core collector. I limit myself to just a few authors and refuse to pay hundreds of dollars for rare first printings, let alone try to accumulate all the large-print editions, book club editions, and foreign editions. But driving multiple hours to a signing? What's unreasonable about that?

A Piece of History by Andy Scheer

I was tempted to buy a piece of music history.

A listing appeared on Ebay for Just Gone/Canal Street Blues, Gennett # 5133, recorded in Richmond, Indiana, in April 1923 by King Oliver and His Creole Jazz band.

This was the first of several 78 rpm disks recorded by a hot jazz band with a second cornet player named Louis Armstrong. If you appreciate traditional jazz, a true collector's item.

Of course I own versions of that recording on LP and CD, but here was a chance to acquire the original—a fragile shellac disk pressed in a factory a few blocks from where the music was recorded.

I resisted the temptation. Bidding for the disk, even with badly worn labels, climbed to $112. Out of my budget.

Besides, I already have some pieces of publishing history.

A friend I met at a writers conference founded a group that collects the books of adventure writer Clive Cussler. I'd read all of Clive's books, so I joined the group.

Soon I found myself hunting not simply for first editions, but for book club editions, large print editions, UK editions, and especially advance reading copies.

Many remain out of my price range, as I was reminded this week by another Ebay posting. Someone listed for only $995 an autographed ex-library copy, with original dust jacket, of the 1975 novel Iceberg, Cussler's first hardcover. Some 5,000 copies were printed, but relatively few sold, mostly to libraries.

“Why pay $5,000 for a pristine signed copy?” the seller asked. A valid question.

Thanks to friends in the collectors group, I own a battered ex-library copy of Iceberg, rebound and without dust jacket, but still one of those 5,000. It cost me less than $10. And now it's signed.

As is my copy of Cussler's The Mediterranean Caper, a mass paperback from 1973 by the then-unknown author. I'm happy to have those pieces of writing history.

What's special on your shelf?