I will pay no more than two dollars on a book by Ralph Connor. This policy has stood me well. To date, my Connor collection consists of eighteen volumes – nearly all first editions – purchased at a total cost of thirty dollars and fifty cents.
This 1901 Westminster copy of The Man from Glengarry is the oldest. One bookseller believed it to be a first edition, and hoped that it would bring twenty dollars. Perhaps it did. I rescued it from a pile of books considered too damaged to be sold in a Friends of St Marys Public Library book sale.
The very first Connor I ever bought is this Triangle edition of The Runner, his 1929 novel of the War of 1812. The only one to have a dust jacket, I was won over by the publisher's description.
I found this 1917 McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart edition of The Major at an outdoor bookstall in London, Ontario. It's in pretty rough shape, but at one dollar I couldn't resist. Besides, it was about to rain.
Imagine my surprise in discovering this inscription after returning home:
I bought this copy of The Prospector for two dollars from a bookseller who knew it was signed. He'd given up on his dreams of making $9.95... or even $5.00.
You too can own a signed Connor! They can be purchased online for as little as US$12.00.
Too dear for me.
I began this piece forgetting that I'd mentioned my $2 Connor policy in a 2016 review of The Man from Glengarry. At the time, my collection consisted of sixteen titles. In the six years that have followed that number has grown by only two.
Has inflation taken its toll? Is two dollars now too low? Should be I raising my cut-off to three dollars? Four?
What think you?
Have you read all the ones you have?
ReplyDeleteIf not, wait until you've read them before deciding.
Not a bad idea, Roger. I will say that I've more than received my money's worth from those I've read thus far. Each one a bargain at twice the price!
DeleteWell as you stated that you have 18 books and spent $30.50 that means that you have $5.50 credit to your own rule, so could go up to $7.50 on a single volume and still stay in compliance.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad argument. I have the very same rule with Gilbert Parker, yet I once broke it by paying $8 for a signed volume. I feel better now.
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