Yes, eBay has definitely changed the way the rare book world operates and has indeed made it more accessible to the masses. Yes, there are very compelling reasons to use eBay, among them:
- you can find incredible diamonds in the rough if you look hard enough
- you can make a lot of money selling your materials on eBay
- you can make even more money buying your materials on eBay and selling them on a professional rare books site like abe.com, especially if you check their rarity and value first
- you are afforded exposure across populations and distances that would be physically impossible to bridge manually
- you are afforded access to an unprecedented range of types of collectible material
- you can be virtually guaranteed to be the winning bidder on an item if you are amenable to using bid sniping software or technology
- you can use eBay as a tool with which you can conduct research on a book offered you [Note: you can and should also use other internet tools, especially AE’s auction and bibliographic databases, as an indispensable tool for this purpose]
There are also equally strong and numerous cautions to exercise while using eBay, among them:
- you need to be certain that the item you’re considering buying fits into your overall collection plan
- you need to learn to do research on the scarcity and value of items you are considering bidding on by visiting online tools like AE’s own auctions and bibliographic databases (and also perhaps sites like abe.com and bookfinder.com)
- you need to learn to read and/or write descriptions of items
- you need to get assurances that all items are returnable if you are not absolutely satisfied
- you need to look carefully at pictures of items
- you need to leave a paper trail at all times
- you need to do research on your buyer or seller
Beyond these strictures and cautions, some things that strike this author as very interesting are not only the changes that eBay has forced on the book trading world, but also the unspoken subtexts of the rare books business that eBay has brought more clearly into focus. These subtexts come into sharpest focus the deeper one looks into the cause of the resounding feeling of stigma, almost shame, that book people seem to share about admitting that they buy or sell on eBay. Due to the cumulative effect of the many off-the-record conversations I have had with eBay buyers and sellers alike and also to the cumulative effect of my years of experience in the rare books field, I have come to the opinion that a large part of the stigma surrounding eBay has to do with what I facetiously call the “dirty money” or “filthy lucre” aspect of book trading. Collecting and selling rare books is about a reverence for history, aesthetics, and taste, not about something as base as money – or so the prevailing mythology goes. eBay busts this mythology right open and exposes the rare book business for what it is – a business, an act of buying or selling, a form of investment and divestment of capital.
