more ebay

He/she is a dealer judging by the stuff being sold, but with three negatives already on the slate probably one to avoid, especially with less than 200 feedback points since May 2002.

I 'always' read the negative feedbacks, it gives quite an interesting picture sometimes of the people.

The book value is one for the buyer to resolve, personally I can't see a UK buyer shelling out that kind of money but the Americans tend to throw $$'s at this sort of thing....

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

Would that be the £350.00 starting price for a book on Gas engines I saw this morning.

Martin P

I bought a similar dated book with similar drawings 2 years ago for what he is charging for the postage.

-- Dave Croft Warrington England

Nick,

I think that the starting price does seam a little high in this case, but I have seen similar books go for similar money. Book collecting is a big hobby, I collect things to do with engines of all types and the price I am willing to pay depends on the item being offered.

I think it tends to be a bit relative to what one collects, for someone who has a passion for oil engines, it would no doubt be worth the money. For the air cooled engine owners, this would seam a ridiculous price as they have no interest in it. What people have to realise with books, is that what may seam like an ordinary book to one person, could in fact be a very rare and desirable item to any number of other people. And no I am not the seller!! But have paid lots for rare books in the past.

Dave you must have been very lucky to get hold of a book for the price of postage, I wish I had your luck! It?s the old favourite, supply and demand - and 19th C books don?t full many shop shelves anymore!

Regards

Chris Bedo Kent UK.

Well since the auction ended without a single bid being placed, I guess the market has spoken. To my mind, the value of any book lies in the information which it contains and I would be just as happy with a reprint, decent photocopy, or even for it to be available on the internet - but then I'm not a book collector!

Nick,

Quite right of course, a reprint etc contains all the information and is of great use to us all. But of course to a collector, the value is the originality, condition, rarity etc. Its always nice to have a real Piece of history on the shelf as opposed to the same text in a modern copy. The history aspect is what you pay for, as with any collecting.

I dont think the market has spoken as much as the book is in the wrong market! Regards

Chris Bedo

Well, yes, but then if you carry on that logic, an engine is only worth as much as the work it can do, and a replica would be just as good. Yet we place a premium on original condition.

I think there is some romance in the ownership of a relic of another time, whether it be an engine or a book. I would love to own this book, but I don't think it would give me enough enjoyment to shell out that kind of cash.

Regards, Arthur G

Yes, I can appreciate the argument. Having a replica Leek small power engine, Robinson hot air engine or D type Jaguar (all these are or have been available) would never be quite the same as owning the real thing.

"That which man has made can be made again".

I can see both sides of this. I just bid for a Norman T300 manual on e-bay. I went to £7.50, but stuck there as that is all it was worth to me (to me, you'll understand ;o)) ) to have an original, knowing full well the estimable Paul Evans has one on his manual site.

I've got some really nice engineering and car books dating to the first quarter of the last century (God, doesn't that sound so OLD!) which I look at from time to time, partly for fun, partly for research. I didn't pay much for any of them - right place, right moment - and I'd not have paid much more than I did. I very much doubt, however, that I'd buy a modern copy unless it was really cheap as the web has so much information.

Engines are the same. A modern copy of - say - an early Otto-Langan would be interesting and I might cough up £100 to own one, but imagine the thrill of finding an original example half buried in some forgotten outhouse. I've only been lucky enough to find one motorcycle like that (MkI KSS Velo, years ago now) but I still remember the hackles rising on the back of my neck as I tore off the rotten old carpet and the cardboard that covered the wooden boards that he'd nailed around it when he went off to war in 1939, never to return.

- and would I feel the same about a *new* one. Nope, interesting, but no cigar.

I like e-bay, it plays to our avidity and cupidity whilst preserving a decent distance to conceal the naked glee in winning or the exasperated irritation at loosing!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

That hits it on the head nicely, Arthur. Given a large piggy bank surplu we would all be out there buying nice goodies, but in the real life the state of the overdraft or the roof or both tend to have a restraining effect.

I managed to get a nice original Venn-Severin Oil Engine book the other day, and will be putting some high-res pictures up, out of the book soon.

Peter

Good on you Peter, It's nice to know that not all collectors of rare literature jealously guard its content for fear that making it available to all might somehow devalue the original.

I have always thought that displaying such stuff is better than hiding it away, the only arguments I have are with people wanting either higher or lower resolution pictures!

I'm just about finished, there are 6 images and they will be in the marine engine section, I'll do some headers tomorrow:

Nick,

I don?t think hiding literature away has much to do with devaluing the original, simply because in my opinion I do not think that value would be affected by such a thing.

'Hiding' literature is not something that collectors who I know would do at all, being perfectly willing to share the info with friends etc. But, being realistic, you cant go broadcasting things you own that may or may not be of value for obvious reasons.

Speaking for myself, I have far too much else to do, than scan documents in or copy them. You are talking many pages that would take a lot of time. I don?t have anything that exciting anyway! So my stuff will stay 'hidden' away as you describe, but not for reasons of value.

As you may have guessed from my last few posts on this and other related posts, this is an issue which I think is very important. Not because I am worried about Joe Bloggs not having the correct manual for his year of Lister D or whatever, but because I think it is an important part of our engine heritage, that important records and documents are accessible to all.

We are also blessed with the fact that many original company records survive and provide a valuable resource. However, for a stationary engine there appears to be no one co-ordinating any sort of system of gaining accesses to the documents.

With the exception of Paul Evans, the custodians of these documents, use the documents to answer questions etc (and do a great job), but they are not available for viewing by the masses.

I would like to draw comparisons with the steam preservation movement. Here there is a charitable society which has the aim of purely preserving historical information. They have a vast library of original drawings, catalogues, works records etc for many of the makers. All of these are available for viewing, copying, loans etc. Thus as a member I can borrow a catalogue, get the build sheets for my engine or have copies of the works drawings. It has enabled better sharing of information and is of great importance. If only we had a parallel for stationary engines.

I think a society is sadly unlikely, so the next best resource would be something like the Anson or Internal Fire museum. The online manuals page is a great resource that many people use and is a good example of what I am talking about. Perhaps rather than having 50 websites amongst the group, with small snippets of information, we ought to encourage those who have the facility to do the information justice and get it displayed to the masses

It is for this reason (and I have spoken with Paul on this) that anything they want to copy onto there site they are welcome to borrow. For me, one decent resource would be worth the sacrifice of a few website hits and having ones name next to the source and I don?t have time anyway! As I say, I do not own anything of great use really, but there are people that do, and I wish that they would follow in a similar fashion. This is not intended as a dig at anyone, just what I would call an ideal situation where the hobbyist can benefit in addition to having an important one stop resource of our heritage.

My god that was a long post!

Regards

Chris Bedo Kent UK.

"Chris Bedo" wrote(snip):-

No, nor me.

Hear, hear!

etc for many of the makers. All of these are

stationary engines.

And another big hear, hear!

sacrifice of a few website hits and having

You won't hear any arguments from me on that one.

My comments weren't aimed at anyone in particular either, just at an attitude which values books as objects, almost forgetting their original purpose was and what they can still teach us. An extreme example of this is interior decorators who buy nice bindings by the yard to fill up their clients book shelves.

I really don't BELIEEVE it. Where are these people when I am trying to sell things! Regards,

Kim Siddorn, Regia

Sounds like a bargain to me (if it works that is). But why the shipping charge? Surely it should be able to deliver itself anywhere for free

Sorry, I misread it - Only time travel not space. Far too pricy then;-)