Price guide

[redmansam]

Several years ago, I ran into Bob Lemke at the National and suggested the book be broken into two volumes-early through 1979 and a second from 1980 to present. The only additional cost would be to add a back cover(after 1979) and a front cover (starting with 1980). I asked if the cost would be prohibitive and I seem to recall he answered "No", but his concern seemed to be whether or not people would buy both volumes and total sales might go down.
I replied to just package them together, sell them at one price and let the buyer do whatever he wanted to do with either volume not used. I didn't have the impression this was to be Bob's call, so I dropped the issue.
I know nothing about the publishing business, but you'd think some common sense at Krause might enter in somewhere along the way.

[Fred]

About the only problem (for the publisher) if they provided two separate books is that people that wanted the vintage book would sell the other one and vice versa. My guess is that overall sales would drop because of people selling the book they don't want on the secondary market.

[Rich Klein]

But I'd wager if this book (and/or The Beckett Almanac) was split into 2 parts. The profitable book would be the modern book and the book that would take the loss is the "vintage" section.

It's been pointed out on the board that WE as a group are a very small but influential part of the card hobby.

Let's say that every single member (poster or not) of this board purchases a copy --- that would be about x number of members. The pool to buy a modern book is much larger and thus you need a much smaller percent of modern collectors to purchase a book.

This does not mean this is a bad idea, rather this is just one that is usually not financially feasible for a publisher and since neither F&W or Beckett are owned by "hobby people" any more we can say what we want but this is not going to occur

Rich

[toppcat]

I wonder why these books have not become "print-on-demand" titles? It also seems that a digital edition for Ipad/Kindle someday soon might work as well.

If you read Bob Lemke's comments here over the years, he does not seem to have any sway with the publisher beyond his editorial duties. Whatever financial decisions are being made are definitely not his responsibility.

I wonder how many copes each big book sells?

[buymycards]

I hope they don't go the CD route again. When I go to the book to look up a price for a newer card, which is often, I get frustrated because the price is on the CD rather than the book. Then I have to go to my computer and go through the CD. The CD isn't set up well and it is a real pain in the ass to use.

Two books would be great, but I would rather have 1 large book than 1 book and a CD.

Rick

[FrankWakefield]

I had trouble with the cd, and they kindly replaced it. It is neat to have it on cd, but I like books.

After reading through the posts, Rich K's has me thinking that if Krause busted it into two books, then sales of the vintage book would be so bad that they'd quit publishing it. Then we'd have no book, or only the old books. So it seems to me that we should be thankful that we get coverage at the front of the Standard Catalog. Thankful on Thanksgiving. But I'll leave that 'thanks' out of this afternoon's blessing.