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23894444 No.23894444 [Reply] [Original]

What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a single book or set of books, and was it due to rarity, antiquity, or presentation? For me, it was $700 on the Easton Press facsimile edition of the Walter Crane illustrated Faerie Queene, because it was too beautiful to pass up.

Triggered poorfags need not darken this thread’s doors with their mendicant seething and ebook shilling.

>> No.23894452

like 150 bucks for uni a uni textbook

>> No.23894460

>>23894452
Was it a good one at least?

>> No.23894466

The most expensive for me was a Pléiade

>> No.23894469

>>23894460
Honestly I like it, whenever I see it on my bookshelf it reminds me of my uni days. One of the earlier editions of Computer Organization by Carl Hamacher

>> No.23894487

>>23894469
I hear you. I still have my uni textbook from a class on 17th and 18th Century satire, purchased at the World Trade Center Borders on Monday, September 10, 2001 (receipt still in the book).

>> No.23894534

>>23894444
>Easton Press
Jesus christ you're poor

>> No.23894538
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23894538

for necessity? uni textbooks
for my own collection? $50 on a revised edition set of lord of the rings, sleeves and all. it's beat up and sun bleached but a pleasure to read

>> No.23894555

>>23894444
$80 on Bottom's Dream by arno schmidt.

>> No.23894617
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23894617

>>23894444
$40 on this pretty book, 40 short stories from chejov. Good translation mainly got it because it looks so good

>> No.23894843
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23894843

22 usd

>> No.23894847
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23894847

>>23894843
wrong pic

>> No.23894859

>>23894534
Of course. Extremely.
What’s yours, anon?

>> No.23895476

0

>> No.23895559

>>23894534
Easton Press is the standard for well made books. Some make them better, others make them worse, but EP is pretty consistent with making well constructed times with good materials.

>>23894444
A complete English translation of the Infernal Dictionary. Smaller editions were made previously, but it was the first complete translation of the sixth (I think) edition that is considered the most throrough edition. I bought the first edition of it for $150 and every edition after used a different cover and thicker paper stock for a better constructed time. As a result my 'inferior' edition has become one of those instances where it became far more valuable and trends north of $500 for after market sales.

>> No.23895659

>>23895559
Easton press is pseudslop for dilettantes and faggots.

>> No.23895662

About three hundred euro for kelly on the irish constitution

>> No.23896763

>>23894444
College textbooks, ~$100. Been looking to get good leatherbound facsimiles, but I don't want them from Easton Press or Franklin Library. Closest I've come to a home-run is Gyan publishing, some publisher in India that has rather old editions of the classics, along with some more contemporary stuff. I want an exclusively leatherbound library, yet I'm not interested in going on a duck hunt to piece it all together. Big enough pain in my ass to go crawling through used bookstores.

>> No.23897060

About $50 on history of the world economy

>> No.23897064
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23897064

>>23894444
I paid $150 each for the B&N editions of Dune and Hemingway's collection - after shipping ;^)

Sucks to like good-looking books but live in the slop capital of the world.

>> No.23897065

>>23895659
They run the gamut. They do put out utter trash that does not deserve deluxe treatment, but then they also put decent facsimiles of editions you aren’t going to get hold of for less than several grand.

>> No.23897067
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23897067

>>23897064
About to pay $130 for this. $80 for the book, $50 for shipping ;^)

>> No.23897069

>>23897060
But ain’t nobody got time fo dat!

>> No.23897073

>>23897067
$130 for a book that looks like it was drawn by a child

>> No.23897077
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23897077

>>23897073
Show me a better looking hardcover edition of The Road and I'll buy that. I couldn't find any.

Also, why don't Bukowski's books get any hardcover treatment? I want to get them for my collection but the only hardcovers are decades old and look kind of shit if you can even find them.

>> No.23897092
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23897092

>>23897077

>> No.23897156

>>23897092
Not bad, I guess. Their paperback cover's miles better though.

>> No.23897368

Paid 100usd for Unfinished Victory by Bryant. Should have paid a lot more as its very hard to find.

History written after 1945 is very unreliable.

In addition Im quite confident that AI is rewriting digital versions, and will eventually corrupt facsimiles as well.

>> No.23897376

>>23897077
>why don't Bukowski's books get any hardcover treatment?

because Bukowski is shit-tier

>> No.23897622

I own about 2000€ worth of pléiades, each one averaging at 60 or 70€ a piece
Then again, it's hard to compare, my monkey money is not as ape-like as yours. Making 6 grands makes you one of the 0,5% top-earners where I live

>> No.23897652

>>23894617
>Chéjov
kek

>> No.23897741

>>23894487
you making this up?

>> No.23898180
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23898180

>>23894444
I got a 700 dollar set as well, but for 120 bucks on ebay. I also got the Shelby Foote Civil War set for 90 (normally about 600/700).
> Easton Press is the standard for well made books.
This isn’t true. They appeal to a niche of customer who thinks leather and gilding is the pinnacle of printing. Often they reuse the same text blocks as regular books and they pretty much always use offset printing. Their facsimiles can have reproductions so bad the images blur on the page.
It’s the dumb person’s idea of what fine press is. However, I’m not saying it’s all shit. Their Deluxe editions they spend more effort on. Their long reprinted Heritage Press books are decent and can be found for cheap.

For the same money as EP you can start getting into fine press, with letterpress printing, truly custom artwork, a variety of bindings (leather isn’t the pinnacle of the art).

If you like the look of EP books consider Franklin Library, a now defunct company that published mostly better versions of what EP is doing (but watch out for the bonded leather and QB editions of the same books they sold later). They can also be had for reasonable sums (equal or less than a new hardcover).

>> No.23898339

I paid like $150 for the edited volume with David Kaplan's Demonstratives and Afterthoughts. Got lost in the mail when I moved for grad school...

>> No.23898347

>>23894444
I spent $300 on a complete set of latin texts, Virgil, Cicero, etc.

>> No.23898638

>>23894444
I was looking at Easton Press last night. They want $90 per book. I have a couple I picked up 15 years ago at a used book store for $20 each. Had I known they were so expensive at the time I would've bought more.

>> No.23898816

>>23898638
They're only expensive new. I got a practically new Easton Press Moby Dick on ebay for $25.

>> No.23898857

>>23898816
Nice. I got that one and Great Expectations. A couple others I think too, but they're boxed away. I need to start checking bookstores for copies. The build-in ribbon bookmarks are really nice.

>> No.23898890

>>23897741
I’m an oldfag and went to a shit college in NY. What an odd thing that would be to make up.

>> No.23898957

Physicalfags are not beating the consumerist allegations

>> No.23898975

>>23898957
> Triggered poorfags need not darken this thread’s doors with their mendicant seething and ebook shilling.

>> No.23899021
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23899021

About 80 bucks for a First Folio facsimile. I like this one because, unlike the Norton, this edition tries to be a faithful copy of a particular folio rather than selecting the best pages from dozens of folios. As a result, it's an inferior reading copy: some pages were apparently pressed with less ink, so they appear faded. But it's a superior aesthetic copy; it feels closer to having an actual folio in front of you, rather than an academic tool.

The most expensive book I own is a first edition of The Crying of Lot 49, but I only paid a dollar for it.

>> No.23899584
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23899584

>>23894444
I spent a lot of time downloading these individually for free. Mostly to understand what Mortimer Adler was trying to envision for himself, not because I think I can get anything out of this sort of study or more or less random and arbitrary literature. I really liked his "How to Read a Book" book.

>> No.23899586

>>23898975
Physical books are superior to e-books but I do think we should be making our own companion e-books and audiobooks of our favorite books and our notes on them

>> No.23899912
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23899912

100€ for a liber usualis

>> No.23900208

>>23894444
28€

>> No.23900289

$250 for textbooks
$150 for The Camp Of The Saints and also Sun & Steel

>> No.23900455

I paid 30 bucks for Remembering the Kanji. Absolute scam, James Heisig is a hack boosted by nepotism.

>> No.23900622

>>23896763
Do not order from India. Jeetscams aside they make terrible products. OCR scans from jeetcode software, slapdash binding, cheapest paper and ink known to man. Half the time they can't even center the text. You will regret it.

>> No.23900626

>>23898347
>complete set
wat
Publisher? pics?

>> No.23900630
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23900630

>>23899584
This meme was made for that list.

>> No.23900818

>>23894444
$180 plus shipping for the first 8 books of the 1001 arbian nights. it was either that or a well worn 16 book complete set for over a thousand or a bunch of cheep paperback selections that focus solely on the shit disney made movies about.

>> No.23901114

>>23898638
Prices shot up very recently for their base set of books but adjust for inflation and the current price is what it was 15 years ago.
However, the base books are widely available for less, unread, often in lots on ebay. The only books that tend to increase substantially in the secondary market are their deluxe editions, if you pick em right.

>> No.23901955
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23901955

>>23899584
Lmao

>> No.23901958

>>23894444
University Physics with Modern Physics (loose leaf)

>> No.23902004

350$ Shuyler Bible with camelskin cover.
Looks great, reads great, and gets a lot of use.
Had another fake leather Bible that looked great, but after a few read throughs about 50% of the fake leather broke off, so I'm hoping the real leather will last many years.

>> No.23902006

>>23900289
>$250 for textbooks
ouch
Acadamia is a scam.

>>23898957
ebooks are great for reference works,
but if I paid for physical copies of all the books I read, I would be out thousands of dollars

>> No.23902009

I printed out Sperm Wars during finals week with $40 in stolen printer credits off the help desk

>> No.23902016

>>23902009
?? why
not a book I would want lying around the house

>> No.23902021

>>23902006
Yeah thats why I just started stealing them from the Uni bookstore.

>> No.23902024

>>23902016
Needed to find a low body count waifu, it worked

>> No.23902163

>>23899584
Back in uni I got an almost complete set for free. Knew some guys with a house that had them up as decoration, they never read at all, said they found them at a flea market or something.
Missing Tolstoy, Dosto, Dante and some of the ancients but free so I can't complain

>> No.23902282

>>23895659
Easton Press makes solid times from a construction standpoint. If you are someone who just reads a book once and never touched it again? Mass market paperback treats you fine.

I am curious though, what company do you recommend for well constructed books over EP? The Folio Society is retarded as fuck half the time.

>> No.23902407
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23902407

Six bucks. Its was a copy of milk and honey from a thrift store. I've accumulated a marvelous collection of around 100 books over the last year and payed on average maybe 2 or 3 dollars per book.
>Shakespeare's complete works
>Leviathan
>the Holy Bible
>a good few first edition Sir Walter Scott books
>dianetics
>Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar
>some good ol 50s and 60s Sci fi
>tonnes of old English classics
>V.C. Andrews
>fifty shades of grey
>Anna Karenina
>James Gleik
>Lady Chatterley
The list just goes on ans on.
All for less than five bucks a pop

>> No.23902414

>>23894444
Around $2000 (I don't remember exactly how much) for a complete 20 volume set of the OED 2nd Edition. This was 20 years ago or so.

>> No.23903236

$35 for the big ass edition of Blake's complete illuminated works
Kinda feel like it wasn't worth buying because the print size on the original plates is tiny and hard to read. Keeping it for the art though.

>> No.23903304
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23903304

I spent $400 on this copy of Errors Chains: How Forged and Broken. It is slightly damaged/discolored on the cover but everything else is very good condition (there is very slight discoloration on some pages from past moisture damage but no smell of mold what so ever)

however, the most expensive book I own is the only publicly known copy of "Popular Dogmatics" signed by the author and first bishop of Prague.

>> No.23903730

$200. A gorgeous copy of Tristam Shandy's Life and Opinions in real elephant skin.