The Value Of Reference Books And Price Guides To Collectors VS. Resellers

Are You Wasting Your Money Buying These ?


Watched the above YouTube video a couple of days ago and wanted to discuss this topic here.

Personally I like having lots of reference books on hand and feel that I've learned a considerable amount from then due to the ability to get a lot of information in one easy to digest book rather then having to scour the web for decent websites on the topic. A lot of info on the website is dubious at best and at least many authors of reference books are seasoned collectors if not the experts in their field.

Sure there are lots of fairly worthless antiques and collectables reference guides out there but some really do provide good value for the dollar especially if you are able to purchase them cheaply secondhand. Sure the prices give are likely to be rather optimistic and likely wholly out of date but you still can get a idea of what is rare and desirable.

Reference books may provide a lot more value to collectors that want to exhaustively learn about the subject matter rather than resellers who may only want to do a quick search to see if they items they acquired are identified. Resellers who have a niche may also find it more worthwhile then more casual resellers to load up on books since you never know when online based information is going to disappear. In all I think I disagree with the Auction Professor.

Your thoughts?

 

I think the next generation of resellers, do not want to use reference books for the most part. This is the vibe I get from those I know from estate sales that are much younger than me. They want to google things and see what it sold for mostly.
But I could be wrong. I like my reference books, the new ones are just getting too pricey tho.

 

I only watched the very beginning of the video, enough to learn he's specifically talking about price guides. They always had the drawbacks mentioned, over optimistic estimates & out of date info, but served a purpose before the Internet offered so many years worth of past sales data. A price guide, even an out of date one, would still be useful if it is a good reference on a collecting area, e.g., Minton Parian Ware figurines, providing accurate descriptive & identifying info that enables the collector or reseller to make effective use of the Internet for value info. Hanging out around here it seems to me that some of the most useful reference books are ones on porcelain makers' marks. Books can be easier to search than web sites.

Guides are most useful for things that were mass produced, when your chances of having an example of something that is an exact match for one in a book are good. Value is only ever what someone is willing to pay for it today. When it comes to rare & one of a kind items, value can swing wildly, depending who happens to see the item & just how badly they want it. I have occasionally bid much more in an auction than I otherwise would have, just because the item fit in with a collecting interest particular to me. No price guide can predict that.

I've been asked & answered before: there is no guide to cameos I can recommend as the only book you'll ever need, & most of the common ones are too full of misinformation to be trustworthy. Michele Rowan's book is by far the best.

 

Perhaps I misinterpreted the video's topic a bit but I always conflate the two a bit since almost every reference these days is partially price guide.

 

Oh, I understood that. I just realized right off that I didn't need to hear more to add my 2 bits. I don't have experience with price guides for any type of collectable other than cameos & he started off with stamps. It hit me how different the collecting of stamps, or of any other standardized thing, is from collecting antique cameos, which have to be evaluated more as little unique art works. There's no natural structure for collecting cameos, nothing like collecting an example of each & every coin issued in the US in 1972, no recognized grading system for condition. The great majority of cameos are not signed in any way.

Cameos & anything else that is so unruly are very poor candidates for price guides & certainly don't lend themselves to the kind of orderly & exhaustive publications that are available for coins. I think I'm convincing myself of the hopelessness of the task I've undertaken with my web site.

 

Perhaps you should just publish a book with some examples of your favorite cameos and what knowledge you've accumulated in your search. No need to pigeonhole them into any categories or to say which ones are the best. You could include some stories about your hunt and the personas you have come across.

 

The whole project got started because I would identify the subjects on cameos for other people, who urged that I should write a book. Not about to do that; web site better in every way. Site is trying to be organized by subjects & to make it possible to find a subject when you only know what it looks like, not what it's called. Google image search wasn't very developed when started. https://cameotimes.com/

I deliberately do not bring myself in to the articles, although photos I use are from my own collection as much as possible. There are a couple of other sites, older than mine, that are a combination of showing off a collection & selling off a collection where the owner is more personal. I'm not writing a blog (I do that here), & not using the site to sell.

 

they all have pictures....pictures are good !!

 

I have lots of reference books and use them all the time - for helping ID items, never for pricing. As said above the pricing is usually inflated and quickly outdated, but the IDing info is good!