COMMENT: Your book is on eBay selling for $300 and a first edition is up for auction starting at $2,000. It will be interesting to see what it brings.
WJ
REPLY: The 1st edition autographed would be correct. I have heard that the 2nd edition which sold out on Amazon in less than 3 hours has been selling in an auction on average at $275+ so I suppose $300 is reasonable. Of course, even the 2nd editions of works tend to rise in value among collectors. I know the Greatest Bull Market in history goes for about $2500-$3000 on eBay. I have been asked to autograph those at conferences on occasion. I only have one of those myself. I never expected the first edition of this one to take off in value as it has. I was too busy to keep more than one copy myself (sorry not for sale!).
We will be doing a 3rd edition next month of Manipulating the World Economy. That will undoubtedly not impact the prices of the 2nd and 1st editions in the least and historically the 1st and 2nd editions always go for a premium. I am fully aware that there are a lot of people who collect books. I myself have bought first editions of many important books like that of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Marx, and many others.
The first edition of Smith will bring over $20,000. The first editions are always worth a lot more. In his case, even an early edition from Edinburgh in 1809 will bring between $3,000 and $4,000.
Even a 5th edition of Malthus will bring $3,000 these days.
So it looks like the autographed copies of the first edition we handed out at the Orlando Conference are worth about the price of the ticket to attend.
I am planning to do the same with the next book in the series for this year’s WEC.
