The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 49, December 8, 2002, Article 15

BUYING BOOKS ONLINE

  The November 29, 2002 print edition of the Boston
  Business Journal has an article by by Matt Kelly about
  how the internet has changed the rules of the game for
  dealers in collectibles.

  "Collectors who once spent countless hours tracking down
  rare books and art are finding gems just a mouse click away

  The Internet is a mixed bag for dealers. They do have that
  same new access to a virtually endless supply of buyers and
  sellers across the globe, but because the web has raised a
  generation of well-informed buyers, prices for many items
  have fallen.

  "It has affected us both well and badly," said Forrest Proper,
  co-owner of Joslin Hall Books in Concord, who has about
  2,000 titles in current inventory.

  Proper said he now routinely does business with dealers in
  Europe and Australia, an impossible idea 10 years ago. At
  the same time, he says, has seen profit margins on his
  midrange books - those priced anywhere from $25 to $200
  - fall significantly.

  On the brighter side, Proper now stumbles across gems he
  otherwise might never have found.  He recently acquired a
   200-year-old French book about spontaneous human
  combustion - "there's not a whole lot on that subject," he
  notes - from a dealer in Switzerland. Proper now hopes to
  sell the book for $750. Were it not for the Internet, he never
  would have found the book unless the dealer had listed it in
  a catalog or he had paid a visit to Switzerland.

http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/high_tech/internet/2002/12/02/boston_focus1.html?f=et170

  [So if you think it's too hard to add numismatic books to
  your library, just be glad you aren't collecting literature on
  spontaneous human combustion. Hmmm, I wonder what
  the insurance premiums are like...  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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