Bookish Bits: Vance Integral

That’s Jack Vance over there. I’m a fan.

I’m enough of a fan that I wanted to sign up for the Vance Integral Edition when they were taking subscriptions. It played into my two compulsions: collecting all the good writing, and collecting fine or rare editions of the good writing. At that time I didn’t have the money sitting around. Now I could probably afford it (if I didn’t tell Trish how much it cost) but it’s too late to get one.

I have been kicking myself for years over this decision. Indeed, I’ve mentioned it at least twice in posts here.

I’ve kept an eye on the aftermarket, but obviously since these were printed to fill subscriptions, and anyone who subscribed had to be a relatively mad Vance fan (in order to lay down that much dosh all at once), these collections don’t show up there. I also have an eBay search that constantly checks for one of these to show up there–and last week one did.

I immediately threw down a bid for the original price of the collection ($1250 for this edition–although if I were sending money back in time I would send back enough for the Deluxe Edition) and was the high bidder. However, the reserve had not been met.

I decided to keep watch during the life of the election, and see if the reserved got passed–I was probably going to bid again for a slightly higher amount if I thought it would win in the end. I was actually contemplating going up around $2K if I had to.

Suffice it to say, I was never going to win that auction. Damn.

The worst part of this is that I am kicking myself more for not buying the thing originally, since it has clearly appreciated so much in value since the printing.