Taken together Mr. Gerits seems to be giving fair warning, one however that will not be slipped into the boxes of books shipped by ILAB members to collectors. Neither will it be posted as banners at ILAB related affairs. Nor will “collecting books may be dangerous to your financial well-being” warnings be pasted onto the descriptions of material offered. His message, if it is retained at all, will simply sink deeply into the ILAB institutional boilerplate to be quoted decades hence to rebut disappointed collectors seeking recompense who have learned that “the bloom is off the rose.”
How this plays out for dealers and collectors will be different.
For the collectors things may not be so bad. They can adjust. Already they are buying more at auction. When the differences between auction realizations and dealer prices get out-of-line collectors seek the lower cost alternative. Such shifts are slow to develop but tend to be permanent. New collectors, seeing the disparity, may be more likely to seek alternatives to dealers.
For the dealer who reduces prices they are not assured of more sales but are guaranteed to receive less money. They also rely on other dealers for access to material and must therefore balance those requirements with a market that becomes more transparent everyday. It’s a difficult task.
