Another trip to the well: An Update

Evidently, I’m not as dumb as I look. The “more common” edition of the Codex sold for $280… $20 MORE than the much more difficult-to-find first American edition I bought on eBay two nights ago. I will have a huge post about the Codex coming soon (I need to really let it ruminate… I’m going for 2000 words!), comparing all the different editions, with tons of details that no one cares about. But, suffice it to say for now, I can’t believe it sold for that much, especially to a French guy who could probably find it for its published price of 89 Euros at an art bookstore somewhere. (Or maybe it’s rarer than I think, and I’m just incredibly resourceful.) Anyway, I need to figure out what to do with the first-American edition before I buy another copy of the 2006 Codex- the cheapest copy on Abebooks is $650, which makes it the most valuable book in my collection (if you use the “cheapest copy on Abebooks” as a reliable measure of the value). Do I sell it? Sell other stuff to keep it? I’ll be up all night at this rate.

Since I’m sure people only read this blog for the [book] porn pictures, here’s the title page of the American Codex (the only one in any edition that is illustrated)…

As for the Serafini book, it sold for $200 in about 5 hours… even better than the first copy I sold. I knew I was onto something with that. Although, of course I immediately bought another one to sell, and after all this gloating, I’m sure I’ll end up getting $40 for it.

And on to the Ryden stuff… I’m stuck waiting out the current state of the market before I try to sell my expensive items. I lost money on Quadratum, one of his microportfolios, and I haven’t tried to sell the Artist Proof yet (I took it to some bookstores, but they didn’t offer me enough for it). I still have a later-edition microportfolio and a signed first-edition of his book that I’m dealing with… so it might be a while. And once it’s gone, I’m going to have to find a new market niche to research. Do the 2 people that read this blog have any hot leads for me?

Them Porterhouse folks don’t mess around

I’ve taken delivery on all my Mark Ryden inventory, and now I’m trying to move it (I like talking like a real bookseller… it’s fun). Auctions are going okay on eBay… I probably should have waited a year to sell all this stuff, but the interest on my credit card I’d accrue from carrying it all for a year would really eat into my profit margins; plus, I’m really impatient. Right now, I’m set to lose about $30 on Quadratum if I don’t get some bids, and I’m competing with quite a few other copies up on eBay right now. With that in mind, I’m holding onto the Meat Show microportfolio to see if I can exploit some other avenues of sale for it, since it really is more valuable than it’s trading for right now (although I suppose that’s all subjective).

One thing I can say however, is that Porterhouse makes some really, really fine editions of Ryden’s work (which I suppose is important, given that Ryden owns and operates Porterhouse). Here is a picture of the Meat Show portfolio- the box cover, the prints wrapped in vellum and sealed with the Porterhouse seal, and the colophon, printed in gold foil and black on vellum and signed by Ryden:

It’s small, and I guess you could argue that the cards themselves really are just postcards, the same as you see from tons of galleries advertising this or that exhibition, but they are printed on heavier, glossier stock than you normally see, and the reproduction quality is excellent. I’m really impressed with the quality of work here; it’s a shame I just can’t really afford to keep it at this point.

Ryden off into the land of bad puns (Chueh on that!)

I’m now $375 deep into Mark Ryden merchandise I hope to unload soon. I’m nervous here, because I’ve committed a lot of money to it, and also because I didn’t really have time to study the Ryden market before I jumped in. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, and it’s a little different than most of my other endeavors… A lot of the other stuff I buy and resell is still available for the price I paid, and I’m essentially charging a premium for knowing where to find it so cheap. This stuff is different, since it isn’t readily available anymore.

A couple weeks ago, the lovely and talented Rubyred forwarded me an email from Ryden’s publishing arm, Porterhouse Fine Art Editions, saying they were clearing out some old stock from their archives- stuff that has been sold out for years. They sold through their backstock within a day, which means I wasn’t the only one with designs to resell items from it. I bought two of Ryden’s microportfolios that I’m going to try to sell at bookstores- one goes for $85-100 on Abebooks (I paid $35), and the other goes for $400 (I paid $100). The market for this stuff on eBay is pretty shitty, and it will probably get worse, with a bunch of sellers dumping recently acquired rarities on the market. However, I took the opportunity today to dig myself deeper into the hole by jumping on another item whose price is being rapidly deflated: the original microportfolio from Ryden’s “Meat” exhibition… limited to 300 copies. That’s an insanely low limitation for Ryden- Porterhouse often releases “limited editions” of 10,000 or even 20,000 numbered copies. That always strikes me as funny, given that I don’t think most Bukowski books ever had 20,000 copies printed in total, let alone in one edition. Still, they sell out, and the prices go up and up and up (at least at bookstores). I’m hoping I can sell some of this stuff at Moe’s, given that the buyer specifically asked me if I had any Ryden stuff I wanted to sell the last time I was in there. It’s a great example of Ryden being hot in the used book store market due to his huge exposure, while he’s cold in the eBay market, given that there are thousands upon thousands of his “sold out” items floating around.

What is confusing me is how I got the Meat microportfolio for $200… That’s a fair price for the standard edition (2000 copies), and it’s about what it will fetch on eBay. But this is one of the 300 “Artist Proofs,” and as such, it should be much more expensive… right? Here is where I’m worried; I decided to start buying and reselling books on the assumption that I spend so much time reading about this shit that I will know more about editions than the people I sell to. In this case, one of two things is true: the seller saw that this item goes for around $200 in general, and so he priced it to sell, not knowing how much more money the smaller edition should cost. Or, on the other hand, the smaller edition is shittier in some way that I don’t know about, and I’m going to be stuck with it… which wouldn’t be the end of the world, obviously (like I would complain about having to “keep” this in my collection… a signed Ryden microportfolio limited to 300 copies? Yes please). Also, with no copies up on Abebooks to guide me, I’m kind of lost. I’ll take it to Moe’s but again, I can only profit from them if I know more than they do, coupled with the fact that I paid a lot for this… so they’re going to have to price it at at least $500 retail for me to make any appreciable money at all (and that’s far from guaranteed). It’s a total wildcard, which is both exciting and a little unnerving. The other option, of course, if Moe’s fails, is to try to turn it around on eBay and at least get what I paid. Given that the seller told me he’s “swamped” with orders for this item, I’m not really that worried (he didn’t list it very well, either… Saying “Ryden AP MINT SEALED” is a lot less attractive than “Ryden – 1 of 300!” I don’t think most eBay buyers know what an AP is, or they do, and that’s why he’s swamped with orders). I just don’t like feeling like I’m at a competitive disadvantage knowledge-wise.

In another questionable decision, I bought two of Gallery 1988’s new Luke Chueh (that’s pronounced “Chew,” hence the amazing jenius contained in my title) mini print sets… one to send to the lovely and talented Rubyred, and one to try to make money on. We’ll see about that. I don’t think it will do too well on eBay right now… but that’s because there are a ton of them for sale. Most sellers split up the set of 4 and end up selling them for about $110 altogether. That would get me my money back after eBay fees, which basically convinced me to go for it. See, if I can be around 80% sure that I’ll get my money back when I try to sell it, I’ll take a gamble and try to make a profit on it. What I’m hoping is that these prints sell out (the edition is 500, which is large for Chueh- most are limited to 100 or less and go for $300 and up), and the two or three sellers who are dumping them on eBay eventually stop. Then I can put mine up and hopefully get inflated prices. I’ll have to be patient, though, since the price is really taking a hammering due to how common they are right now. I’ll keep you posted, which I’m sure makes you so excited you can barely sleep and have little beads of cold sweat forming around your brow.