1st Edition WMG

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yvon said:
That's a lot of money.
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Depends. You work for 50 years in the old, obsolete America. You raise self-sufficient children, prepared to prosper despite the current insanity and who don't need your leftover cash.

Then something like this turns up and you say, what the hell.
 
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OK, I have the extra money but WHY do I do it? I bought some of the older guides on eBay. I browse through them now and then...look at the maps...compare a trail description of today versus back then on a trail I'm taking. So now I have the 1st edition. Is it worth $1,400 for that experience? Or is really to preserve history because it means so much to an individual person? I guess everyone has there reasons.
 
I agree with you on that one RR, I originally started buying older guides as they were handy in researching old trails and occasional references to unusual features but given that Google has a couple of older guides in Google books, I usually just look at electronic version that can be searched electronically.

I still like the concept that the only "true" white mountain redline that counts would be the first edition, but considering its only half the whites and many trails are long since abandoned I guess that concept goes down in flames.

I guess it really come down to the collectors mentality. I got one poor soul on this site hooked on finding the pencils that were included in the back covers of the WMG's.

Of course the more I look for the elusive 1st edition Appalachian Trail Guide to Maine, I guess my collector mentality is still in the background! AT guides have a far less active market then WMG's.
 
I stumbled on a 4th edition ME AT Guide for $15 at the Chicken Barn near Ellsworth ME this past November. It's 1942 and pretty beat up and with supplements dated up to 1952 inserted.

I started to question why I bought it until I first carefully cracked it open and starting looking at the maps. True old style cartography with maps done like artwork with stylized lettering and artistic features- worth the $15 just to look at once.
 
peakbagger said:
I got one poor soul on this site hooked on finding the pencils that were included in the back covers of the WMG's.
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Poor devil! Having all WMGs is great but then there are all supplements (31) and all variants. There are at least a few collectors who possess all the variants and all supplements (ie. 45 books as opposed to 29). That's collecting :D
 
Haha I actively monitored this one for fun. Went from a bid of 600$ to 1153$ in the last 5 seconds (no kidding). Total = 2 bids. Max bid for the win. Thanks for playing! :D
 
Well it does reinforce prior pricing in the $1,100 dollar range. Considering the questionable maps I was thinking it would go for less.
 
Classic sniping attempt with a few seconds left, but the original bidder had placed a large enough bid to cover it.
 
Looks like someone is filling in holes in their collection, 3rd edition WMG just sold for around $1,100 on Ebay.

It was a fairly short auction so I it didnt attract what I refer to as a mirror type second auction where another seller seeing the price above a set value creates a second auction of a similar guide hoping that whomever loses the primary auction will snap up the second one.
 
I used to collect old White mountain books and I had many of the classics. In all the years of dealing in old books, I only held one, first edition WMG. It was in ok shape and the buyer wanted 800 bucks, I declined. I once owned 20 or so WMG's of varying years. About 6 years ago, I sold the bulk of my old books to a collector for two reasons. One, I got tired of moving them around as I moved around the country and two, I never re-read any of them. I kept 50 or so of my favorites. Truth is, the internet ruined book collecting ( for those buying). Now I have a small fetish for old maps.
 
It doesn't take much if two folks want the same book for their collection. Book Moose in Lincoln is always advertising for old books in north country papers and buys them cheap and sells then high.

Luckily with regards to old maps, the UNH historic Topo collection saves me from chasing after old USGS maps. But if I ever got a hold of a good large format flatbed scanner, I know I would use it frequently.
 
peakbagger said:
It doesn't take much if two folks want the same book for their collection. Book Moose in Lincoln is always advertising for old books in north country papers and buys them cheap and sells then high.

Luckily with regards to old maps, the UNH historic Topo collection saves me from chasing after old USGS maps. But if I ever got a hold of a good large format flatbed scanner, I know I would use it frequently.
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Exactly right. In the olden day's, if know one picked up the book off the shelf for awhile, you could wheel and deal. Now, everybody in the world see's it, that is not a buyer's market.
 
Looks like the dealer in Lincoln is trying to take advantage of the recent high prices on Ebay. For those who want early guides he has quite few listed, although the pricing is quite high.
 
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