Signed book worth anything?

[Agaly]

Hello,
Sorry to bother you all. I have a Red Dwarf book ‘Infinity welcomes careful drivers’ signed by Rob Grant + Doug Naylor, and was wondering if it was worth anything?
Thanks, bye.

Topic

[Pete Part Three]

Yes, it’s worth something.

[GlenTokyo]

I also have that book signed by Rob and Doug, so now it’s worth a bit less.

[Ben Kirkham]

Definitely worth investigating how much you could get for it. Try googling the online auctions; see how much similar items are selling for on eBay. Price would also depend on condition of the book.

[Dave]

I have a copy that was singed by Rob and Doug after holding it too close to a lit cigarette. I imagine that’s worth considerably less.

[GlenTokyo]

I think what we want them to be worth and what they’re actually worth are usually miles away. eBay is a terrible place to look, there are people trying to sell corgi Starbug toys for £50 for example, they never sell because they’re worth about a tenth of that, a fifth if you feel generous.

My copy of IWCD is in very good condition and is wrapped up, no foxing etc but I’d only say it was worth about £20. If you went on eBay or Etsy though you’d probably have listings for £100 that would never sell.

[Dave]

eBay is a terrible place to look

Not really, you can filter the listings to only view completed sales, which is obviously a good indicator of what things actually go for.

[(deleted)]

But those Corgi toys do genuinely sell for a fucking fortune – it’s not just overoptimistic sellers. They are actually moving at that price. Someone gave me £40 for my Starbug and Red Dwarf the other month on there, without the stands and without the box. Alongside Bodysnatcher they’re the most desirable Dwarf thing to sell on eBay, as they encompass two intersecting collector bases.

Signed books are bad sellers generally. It’s not really a currency like it used to be even 10-15 years ago – the only autographs that move are (a) by the long dead or (b) frameable display pieces like prints/photographs/small posters. Signed books are usually on by-now very tanned paper and undisplayable without destroying. GlenTokyo – you wouldn’t sell that on eBay for any more than a tenner, and even then it would sit there for a long time. You might get more at a con for it at a push but it’s not what moves these days.

[si]

I got my copy of Scenes From The Dwarf signed by Rob and Doug at DJ. That was nice.

[GlenTokyo]

Just had a look on the sold items, Starbugs, Skutters and Red Dwarves about £15 sold, the multipack £38. One outlier Starbug for thirty quid ish on its tod.

That’s reasonable, but there are still listings for £50 for single models.

The sold items is useful though I agree, but I don’t think people look at it. They just see the most expensive listing and get excited.

I paid basically just postage for my signed book, altogether it was less than £3. I assume it’s of very little worth for the reasons you listed, my £20 estimate very much an “on a very very good day to someone who really wanted it who had just found £20 on the floor” estimate.

[Dave]

The sold items is useful though I agree, but I don’t think people look at it. They just see the most expensive listing and get excited.

Yes, it’s a bit like Amazon Marketplace, where prices are often what I would call ambitious. Although that’s probably partly down to automated price-setting systems.

[(deleted)]

Only problem with closed listings is that it doesn’t include accepted offers, which is a huge part of the eBay process now, so that is doubtless confusing things. Actual auctions are quite rare, I only really use them for 99p starts as bait for valuable items these days – then you can wait for offers and pick one you’re happy with. My Corgi stuff for example display on the site as ending at 99p, when that was the only bid before someone came in with an offer of £40.

eBay has changed a lot over the years but the Offers system has finally made it viable and usable again, particularly as Marketplace is a horrendous write off (whole categories you can’t sell in, having to wait 6-8 weeks for payment, ridiculous fee percentages). It’s just a shame that so many things have lost their value these days. Unless you’re selling something genuinely rare/deleted/out-of-print that has an active fanbase, or are willing to underprice something desirable for a quick sale, or it’s a very stable microeconomy like Lego, most of the market has been stolen by automated outlets for ‘we buy your shit for pennies’ services. But it saved my life this year.

[bloodteller]

>Alongside Bodysnatcher they’re the most desirable Dwarf thing to sell on eBay, as they encompass two intersecting collector bases.

Surely the most desirable Red Dwarf thing to sell on eBay is the Starbug Playset? I saw one of those on eBay a while back that was so expensive you had the option to pay for it in installments (something like £20 a month for 12 months) which is just insane.

[bloodteller]

Imagine going into debt just because you really wanted a mediocre Starbug toy that comes with figures resembling gnarled plastic turds more than the characters they’re supposed to be

[(deleted)]

Although valuable (£60-80), that probably would be one of the cases where there is a stupidly high price set by a bot. Or a twat.

[si]

I had two Starbug playsets. The first one got broken by my housemate at uni when we were using it in my FanFilm (I had the Polymorph change into it for a fleeting moment), and I made him buy me a replacement. Which is still, I’m happy to say, in one piece.

[Flap Jack]

Signed books are bad sellers generally. It’s not really a currency like it used to be even 10-15 years ago – the only autographs that move are (a) by the long dead or (b) frameable display pieces like prints/photographs/small posters.

I get what you’re saying, but Agaly, please don’t murder Rob and Doug just to increase the value of your signed copy of IWCD.

[tombow]

I know signed Discworld books are usually only going for ten quid or so on ebay, there’s so many out there. I expect this is about the same.

[Author]

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