Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2002 Issue
Conversing with Mr. Americana: Talking Books With Bill Reese
William Reese Co.Catalogue No. 144
AT: Is there a way to predict which of the books that are inexpensive today will become valuable and collectible in the future, and vice versa? If so, how?
BR: [Laughs to self for a few moments.] If I knew the secret to that formula, I probably wouldn’t reveal it. No, I don’t think there is a way to predict which of the books that are inexpensive today will become valuable and collectible in the future, and vice versa. The history of book collecting is as complicated as stock picking. Fashions change. People’s tastes change. Also in my experience with more classic books, often prices have moved in plateaus and cliffs. The tendency is that there is an accepted notion of value that prevails for a long time, but this changes. I think it is easier to talk about the market in general. If you look at the Streeter versus the Siebert Sales, the observation you would have to draw is that books that brought most in the Streeter Sale were the ones which went up most in value [in the Siebert Sale]. These were the best things in both sales. If you have a broad based basket of material, using Streeter as a baseline, you would conclude that the book material has performed at least as well as the Standard & Poor’s 500 for that time period. It’s just that books are harder to liquidate.
I think it’s very difficult to recommend books as an investment to anybody. I think that books can be a good investment but that 20/20 hindsight is always accurate. For a private collector to think that they can beat me at the game of buying books as an investment would be like saying that you can beat Standard & Poor’s. I’m going to be able to do it [invest in books] better than someone who’s going to do it as a hobby in their spare time. Rare book dealers are professionals with skills and expertise. Books can be a very good investment, but to buy books solely as an investment is I think misguided. Although I must say that today rare books look like a lot better investment to me now than they did three years ago. This is largely because the stock market has been plummeting, and less people want to buy in the stock market.
AT: Tell our readers a bit about the upcoming sales at your firm. Can you tell us what factors make them important in your view? Also discuss some items you’d like to highlight, if possible.
BR: Our next catalogue in the works – due out in January – is on American State Papers, crucial documents from the Revolutionary, Federalist, and Jeffersonian eras. We are trying to do a series of focused subject-oriented catalogues. I also have always had a penchant for doing catalogues based on reference works, such as the Florida and Pacific Voyages catalogues – but I tend to use historical periods as a base. Our catalogues based on genre types
