Venzen007
Shiny_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2008
- Messages
- 212
Years ago, Easton Press released a limited run called the "First Edition Library". It consisted of about 35 books, like Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Fountainhead, etc. The cool thing about these editions was they were supposedly identical to the original editions, down to the misprints, dust jackets, paper weight, typeset, binding, etc. I can't remember their exact price per copy, but it was around $60, I think. Today, you can find them on Ebay for less than they were initially to about twice what they were, AND they aren't in print anymore. Imagine if they were still printing them and planned to keep on printing them. Oh,and imagine that they developed some new, cheaper, methods of getting them made, so the price went down as the years went on... oh, and a competitor publisher has recently started churning them out, too, just as exact of copies, down to the thread color, and dropping their price under Easton Press (just a smidge), and so on.
You can get a good first edition Grapes of Wrath for $20,000+ or you can get a fine first edition copy for $40-$100. The copy is a real book with ALL the details of the first edition (except for the age and scarcity) and, of course, the same story, word for word.
To me, mined diamonds are first editions. Man-made diamonds are copies. The important difference is in how they're made, their age, and, yes, their rarity (obviously, I'm not talking about diamond, generally, but larger, fancy or colorless, high clarity, that also happen to end up being cut well).
There's obviously a market for both, like the books, and I can imagine some people saying, "I enjoy reading the Grapes of Wrath, but why would I pay $20,000 when I could spend $40 and get the same thing?" Well, what does the word "same" mean to them? To those people, it's the story, maybe the look, that's important. For those others who would gladly pay 20k, it's the scarcity of the original (heck, some owners may not even like the story). As for diamonds, it's the look and/or material characteristics for some people. For other folks, it's the scarcity of the original (especially, when compared to the copies).
You can get a good first edition Grapes of Wrath for $20,000+ or you can get a fine first edition copy for $40-$100. The copy is a real book with ALL the details of the first edition (except for the age and scarcity) and, of course, the same story, word for word.
To me, mined diamonds are first editions. Man-made diamonds are copies. The important difference is in how they're made, their age, and, yes, their rarity (obviously, I'm not talking about diamond, generally, but larger, fancy or colorless, high clarity, that also happen to end up being cut well).
There's obviously a market for both, like the books, and I can imagine some people saying, "I enjoy reading the Grapes of Wrath, but why would I pay $20,000 when I could spend $40 and get the same thing?" Well, what does the word "same" mean to them? To those people, it's the story, maybe the look, that's important. For those others who would gladly pay 20k, it's the scarcity of the original (heck, some owners may not even like the story). As for diamonds, it's the look and/or material characteristics for some people. For other folks, it's the scarcity of the original (especially, when compared to the copies).
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