First and Foremost

QUESTION: My grandfather left me a first edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth. I’m just an average reader and not a book collector. What makes a first edition special and is it worth anything?

ANSWER: First editions of books are special because they’re the first printing. If they’re signed by the author, they’re worth even more. But not all old books are first editions and not all first editions are old books.

Books have had a tremendous influence on shaping our civilization and culture for over a thousand years. People love to hold and own an original or older copy of a classic and feel a part of its influence by preserving it. And apart from the content, many books are antique objects as beautiful as furniture or pottery or any other collectible. Such is the case with your grandfather’s book.

The quest for exploration and adventure Is what attracts collectors to old books— reading first-hand accounts of those that were there, plus the craft and art of older books is dramatically lacking from those of today. Antiquarian books, as rare books are called, remind people of how well the past has been preserved. They kept books for generations because they contained the kind of information or story that inspired their view of life. As they got older and settle into a life of reflection, the books that influenced them or their ancestors became objects they’d like to own.

Today, fewer people are collecting rare books. Instead, they’re focusing on modern ones, mainly first editions of literature—those printed after 1929. Modern book collectors believe their collections will gain in value, like any good investment, plus they enjoy having the first editions.

The exposure of collectors to the Internet and television shows like Antiques Roadshow has had an impact on the market, and that impact hasn’t always been positive. After watching the rising prices of the first edition market, people believe that antiquarian books are all about money. They’re not—antiquarian books are important objects of the past, like arrowheads, and should be collected in at effort to understand what and how people read in another time.

Important American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allen Poe have a strong collector base. Unfortunately, most of these authors have been heavily reprinted, and the beginning collector often assumes that old editions are first editions, when in almost every case they aren’t. Being old doesn’t necessarily make a book valuable.

Today’s book collectors lean heavily towards modern American first editions, such as The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye—books they read in high school or college, which helped shaped how they think and who they are. Fine copies of these books in their original dust jackets fetch astronomical prices in today’s market. For instance, a first edition of The Great Gatsby went for $130,000 at auction, due largely to the personal connection that people feel for these classics. Books by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Zane Grey, and Jack London are popular, also. A first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, which sold for around $1,000 in the 1990s, today commands between $10,000 and $15,000, especially after the announcement by the author of an upcoming second novel, the first in 40 years..

The same goes for beautifully illustrated books by Maxfield Parrish, Edmund Dulac, and N.C. Wyeth. 

A first edition of Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species has doubled to about $50,000 in recent years. John Steinbeck's novels have been going up steeply, at least for The Grapes of Wrath, which has tripled to $6,000 in the past few years.

So why do first editions sell so briskly?. That’s easy to understand, since they’re well-identified and have only a few factors that affect their value, such as dust jacket condition and signatures of the author.

A book in a nicely-preserved jacket is worth many times that of one without a jacket. For example, a first edition of Gone With the Wind with a dust jacket is worth approximately five times more than a first edition without the jacket.

But how about the availability of old and antiquarian books? Are they still accessible? The availability of old and antique books has never been greater. The Internet overflows with old books, and for modern books there are multiple copies of collectible books. Unusual old books in fine condition suddenly become collectible, despite being overlooked by past generations. And while people continue to find old books in attics and at estate sales, the best discoveries usually can be found in antiquarian bookstores.

But while accessibility to rare books is increasing, their availability is decreasing. A book’s exposure to the elements and casualty—fire, smoke and water damage, rodent and pest damage, cannibalism and discard—adversely affect its availability. For instance, the Internet has improved access to rare books, but also to cannibals—those who extract the prints, maps and signatures from books to sell separately as ephemera.
Today, it’s virtually impossible to find an existing copy of Elliott's 1884 History of the Arizona Territory because the value of the individual illustrations far exceeds the value of the complete book. As a result, very few complete copies remain.

Keeping Track of Days

QUESTION: I recently came across an old Coca Cola wall calendar from 1913. It’s in reasonably good shape. Can you tell me anything about how wall calendars got their start?

ANSWER: You may have a prize collectible. Coca Cola memorabilia always sells for good prices if the items are in good condition. In 1913, the Coca Cola Company printed a million of these calendars. Unfortunately, most people threw them away since they had only one picture on them.

During the latter part of the 19th-century, trade cards, the forerunners of business cards, often included a small printed calendar. In 1869, the detachable calendar pad appeared. The pad made it possible to use a calendar picture for more than one year. To most residents of farmhouses, country cottages, and log cabins, these beautifully printed calendars were the only art they knew.

Insurance companies were the biggest producers of early calendars, giving them away to every premium holder. Some of the big insurance firms made use of their company logo for their calendar's artwork, but most chose pictures of dogs, children, or elegant ladies.

Other businesses soon capitalized on the booming demand for wall-art calendars. The Coca-Cola Company, which began distributing calendars in 1891, had printed one million by 1913 and more than two million by 1924. In the 1890s, the Grand Union Tea Company, the Singer Company, and Armour Meat Company had their calendars hanging in shops and markets from coast to coast.

Soon, small business owners began to have their names and addresses printed on stock calendars. Printers of stock calendars offered voluminous catalogs of artwork from which the customer could choose, and the demand for calendar artwork kept many an illustrator from finding another line of business. So many feed mills, lumberyards, grocery stores, and other small businesses distributed calendars in the early 20th century that it is possible to assemble a fairly complete inventory of retailers from that era by listing the sponsors of old calendars.

New techniques in the printing industry called for intricate embossing and die-cutting, and the calendar became a lavish palette of complex colors and textures.

Printers employed many famous illustrators, including Palmer Cox, Edward Penfield, and Louis Rhead, to produce artwork for their calendars. Cox, a noted magazine illustrator of the time, created a community of impish cartoon elves he called the Brownies in 1883. His mischievous little Brownies were a favorite subject for calendars prior to the turn of the century.

The Minnesota-based firm of Brown and Bigelow, the world's biggest manufacturer of calendars, commissioned Maxfield Parrish and later Norman Rockwell. From 1925 through 1975the Boys Scouts of America authorized Brown and Bigelow to reproduce Rockwell illustrations for the official Boy Scout calendar.

By the 1930s, calendar advertising had become less effective than radio and mass circulation magazine ads. But the tradition lived on with calendars from automobile service stations and garages—important new features of family life. However, the calendars they commissioned were often less elaborate. In the 1940s and 1950s, neighborhood drug stores and heating oil companies continued to print wall-art calendars that featured detachable monthly date pads and simple illustrations.

Although calendars from well-known firms cost up to $100, you can purchase ones from the less famous names for $35-$65. You can often find calendars printed after 1920 for less than $30.

Today, calendars appear everywhere. You may still get a calendar annually from your insurance agent, but many people now use their cell phones to keep track of what day it is. If you still want to hang a calendar on the wall, you can get some nifty ones at dollar stores across the country.