Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2002 Issue
The Means of Book Trading That Dares Not Speak Its Name: eBay
AS AN EBAY BUYER, ARE YOU EVER ABLE TO IDENTIFY YOUR SELLER?
Barlow: “Yes, definitely. There are things that tip you off. If there are lots of references to bibliographies or if the description is written with a certain precision, it’s almost always written by a dealer. Dealers usually use eBay to sell stuff that’s out of their field, or to get rid of accompanying items in a multibook consignment where maybe all they wanted was the one or two central books, but they were forced to take the whole pile.”
Dealer Y: “Yes, definitely, if you’re in a small and specialized enough field.”
EBAY PROS
Librarian X: “There are wonderful things available on eBay, but you can spend a lot of time looking, which is both a blessing and a curse.”
Librarian X: “My best buy on eBay was that I once bought a pamphlet signed by Tolstoy for a nominal price and sold it for 4 figures to a dealer in Switzerland.”
Zubal: “The most expensive piece I sold on eBay yielded a couple of hundred dollars.”
Barlow: “eBay has been really helpful in the areas of ephemera that are not really well organized. Some areas in ephemera are fairly well organized, such as postcards, for which there are shows and dealers. Other fairly well organized markets are trade cards, stocks & bonds, matchbook covers. But menus are not. China from restaurants are not. When you get into ephemera markets that aren’t organized, that’s where eBay is essential.”
Dealer Y: “eBay is a great supermarket for books, and a not as great supermarket for truly rare books. eBay raises your level of awareness on what’s common versus what’s rare, and in this way it makes it harder for dealers to justify their prices for material that’s not really rare. I think that one way in which eBay inadvertently functions or should function is as a sounding board for the pricing of uncommon books. I’d encourage everyone to look at eBay as a price/rarity check before completing a deal with any dealer or auction house. [Editor’s Note: the same can be said for other internet sites, such as AE and also abe.com. Both are worth checking before you complete any deal, on eBay or off.] In this way, ironically, eBay has introduced a great tool for testing what is rare and/or what is priced fairly.”
EBAY CONS/CAUTIONS
Librarian X: “As a dealer I need to buy in bulk, which is hard enough [on abe] but almost impossible on eBay, which is organized mostly around individual products and materials.”
