New Wizard of Oz Movies and its Impact on the Oz Books These are extremely difficult economic times for all of us, and we are being more cautious than ever about protecting our hard-earned savings. By placing your money in tangible collectible investments
tangible collectible investments like Oz books series you can go back and sleep at night. Stock investors can giggle about collectibles all they want. But investors in rare collectibles like rare Wizard of Oz books will have the last laugh.
These days it is very hard to locate first edition copies of Oz books in very good condition. I have numerous long time clients calling me and asking why my inventory is fairly low in the category of the “Near Fine condition”. This isn’t by choice. I buy every nice copy I can find that is priced within reason. The easiest thing to do in the book market is to spend money. But spending it wisely is not that easy. It remains obvious that fantastic copies are in very strong demand. If you want to succeed in collectibles books, you must stick with the highest-quality books.
The legendary American collector David Hall once shared a big secret about collectibles: "The big moves come when price guides first appear for a collectible." The reason for that, he explained, is that before the price guide appears, you have to be an expert in the chosen field and devote a ridiculous amount of time to learn about the subject matter, track the auctions, talk to dealers, and figure out what is important. But once the price guide comes out, the playing field is leveled significantly.
As most of you know I put together The Wizard of Oz Books Price Guide a few years ago in which I provide guidance on the values of various editions of Oz books that depend on a myriad of factors including the book’s condition. I am in the process of developing a system of the uniform condition standards that would be applicable to Oz books. Similar grading systems already exist for coins, baseball cards and even comic books (seal with grade). Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted definition of quality standards for collectible books. Unless one has a great deal of experience and has examined (or better, handled) a large number of books, it is very hard to understand and describe the quality of a book. More worrying is the fact that even among experienced bibliophiles, there can be wide differences of opinion as to what is the standard for each condition of the book (“good”, “near fine”, “fine”, etc.) Since many books are bought unseen with collector relying on descriptions, the lack of objective standards potentially leads to disappointment. Although I provide multiple photos of each book in my store, for the first edition copies of Wonderful Wizard of Oz I put together additional 10 points to enable the purchaser to compare one copy against another.
Sample of standard for Oz books
I think that we are in the midst of exciting developments regarding the new Wizard of Oz movie that will have a significant impact on the Wizard of Oz books market. If you do not want to miss the next wave, please spend some time
