Charles Bukowski: Comprehensive Price Guide

Truthfully I don't take ANY price guide seriously. A rare book is worth what you can get someone to pay for it at the time you need to sell it -- not what's written down somewhere. Having said that, Fogel's price guide is an invaluable bibliographic resource. I have referred to it hundreds of times. It is certainly worth the $8.99 opening bid! This book made me realize how meager my collection is in comparison to Bukowski's output.
 

bospress.net

www.bospress.net
Hi,
I agree. This and The biblio by Krumhansl should be required if you are thinking about starting a collection of Bukowski firsts.

Like nymark said, don't take the prices for what they say they are worth. The price guide had some errors in it when it was published 6 years ago. Plus, some values have fallen (Peace Amongst The Ants) and some are painfully low (Longshot Pomes). Still, a must have book...

All best,
Bill
 

mjp

Founding member
I liked Fogel's intro/story about how he became obsessed, collected and then sold everything, then tried to buy it all again.
 

chronic

old and in the way
Another nice one to have for reference is "Charles Bukowski: A Bibliographic Price Guide" by some guy named, ummm, err, Divad Rekrab or sumpin'... it's over twenty years old, so the prices might be just a little out of date.
 

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
Yes, I was disappointment at the price I got when I last sold a copy of my guide, but what the hell. Win some, lose some. Either Bill bought it or our friend, theeffects. Maybe I sold copies to both; I don't recall. But I'm glad somebody got a good deal.

IF (a big if) I ever updated it, I would drop the value estimates entirely and expand the bibliographic details. That -- to me -- is much more interesting information. And prices are all over the map these days with eBay. But I'm feeling lazy and probably won't ever update it.

I'd like to read Fogel's intro on how he sold off his collection then tried to rebuy stuff back. I sold off my Buk collection, but never had the dough to replace anything rare, and so now it's a "reading copy" collection of paperbacks and reprints. Same good words, and I enjoy the books as much as when I had the rare editions. I still have a few cool items that escaped the big purge, and those will have to be pried from my dead cold fingers, as they say when they talk about guns.
 
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