The Means of Book Trading That Dares Not Speak Its Name: eBay
HOW THEY STARTED USING EBAY
Barlow: “It was the Duncan Hines material that got me on to eBay. At first I had this idea to collect postcards of restaurants, but then I found that that was too general so I limited it to collecting postcards relating to Duncan Hines. This gives me a period and more interesting restaurants to boot. This sort of material is not in book stores – it’s too cheap and too ephemeral. With eBay, I have acquired all but the first edition of Duncan Hines. eBay allows me to bid on ephemera and material not sold by dealers and auction houses, such as restaurant menus. I use eBay primarily to buy particular types of things that I couldn’t get any other way.”
Barlow: “I am also a member of the Grolier Club and also I teach a course on Book Collecting with Terry Belanger at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, so in part I started on eBay as research when I was exploring all book searching engines on the net.”
Dealer Y: “I am a perennial collector, a frequenter of flea markets and estate sales. For people like me, eBay functions as a 24 hour estate sale. It is the fulfillment of my dreams, to be able to have access to this material within the confines of my home, in physical/temporal ways that had never previously existed.”
WHAT THEY BUY OR SELL ON EBAY
Librarian X: “For my independent book business, I have spurts of interest in different things. The Hogarth Press is a fairly regular interest. I have sold these at some reasonable profit, but not on eBay but on abe.com and other bookselling sites. You can’t buy cheap on abe.com. You can, however, buy cheap on eBay and sell high on abe. For the special collection I work for, I buy postcards, movie postcards, ephemera, trade catalogues, out of print material on eBay.”
Zubal: “With eBay I have been really focused on popular culture. Literary 1920s, 1930s do sell but at low prices. I only sell things that I would throw out anyway or wholesale at pennies. Instead I sell it on eBay and get dollars, not pennies, for it.”
Barlow: “I buy books, mostly. But I also buy stamps and ephemeral material especially material relating to waterskiing (which used to be a hobby of mine), and material relating to restaurants listed in Duncan Hines.”
Dealer Y: “I buy fine first edition books in modern art, photography, about objects d’art, and sometimes I buy the objects d’art themselves not just the books about them.”
APPROXIMATELY HOW MANY PIECES THEY’VE TRADED IN VIA EBAY/APPROXIMATE PERCENTAGE OF BUSINESS CONDUCTED OVER EBAY
Zubal: “I’d say eBay makes for less than 1% of my total sales. I sell several hundred books a day on my website [www.zubal.com]. I sell at most something like four items a day on eBay. Since it’s very time consuming and labor intensive to do rare book descriptions, I sell on eBay more as a lark to get rid of stuff that I would otherwise generally dump.”
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.
Heritage Auctions Rare Books Signature Auction December 15, 2025
Heritage, Dec. 15: John Donne. Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.
Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.
Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/9a74d9ff-42dd-46a1-8bb2-b636c4cec796.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.")
![<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/8caddaea-4c1f-47a7-9455-62f53af36e3f.jpg "<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.")
