Is it a Rip off?

North for Short · Jul 5, 2005

I have been looking for a book entitled The Photgraphers Master Printing Course by Tim Rudman. I had seen it on ebay and missed out on £12.99 (inc P & P) and another book fetched nearly £18 (approx $30). I thought "I know, why not try Amazon books and sure enough I found the book but whoa! the price difference. A couple of places based in this country (UK) priced them around £18 - 25 but a couple of places from the USA were charging exhorbarant prices one was at £102 and another £110 (this did not include P & P). Why such a difference in price?

In the end I have plumped for the cheapest copy I could find (MX2.com) nicely priced at £11.50 ($19 approx). Does anybody else buy their books on Amazon and have they been ripped off? I am intrigued because how can you charge over a £100 for a book that is listed as 20 new? :confused:

Bob F. · Jul 5, 2005

I noticed that too a few weeks ago when a copy came up with the seller starting the auction at 30 quid or something... Very odd. It's a good book, I have a copy, but not THAT good! UK Amazon have it for £13.29 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-1758139-2440455)
- although this looks like a reprint of the original.

Cheers, Bob.

Mongo · Jul 5, 2005

I believe the book is out of print, and the prices you're seeing are therefore the prices set by used book dealers. Amazon doesn't have much control over what price a used bookseller asks for a title; they do act as a clearinghouse for many used booksellers to advertise their wares in one place.

Since Amazon in the US currently lists "2 new & used" in paperback and "3 new & used" in hardback, I'm guessing that Amazon has 0 new copies available. (They always have a "List Price/Price" section above the "new & used" prices if a book's available from their inventory.)

Out-of-print books can be a rip-off, but that's really up to the used booksellers, not Amazon. Once a book's out of print, sellers will get whatever they can for a book. In the US, at least, that can lead to some very strange pricing anomolies. I've seen books with a price spread from $5 to $100, all in similar condition. Sellers don't always know what they have, good or bad.

Be well.
Dave

Nick Zentena · Jul 5, 2005

Are you saying you bought it used off Amazon? I don't think that's really amazon. That's just sellers using the Amazon website.

I thought the book had been republished lately? If not you're paying for rarity.

Abe's shows various copies. Cheapest for a UK buyer is likely this one:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=450951866

North for Short · Jul 7, 2005

Thanks very much but I will stick to MX2

FrankB · Jul 7, 2005

I was recently looking for Michael Kenna's "Retrospective Two" which proved to be about as easy as finding rocking-horse poo! Amazon showed one used at £148! (Gee, thanks but...!) After a lot of searching I found a French company who'd do it for £50 plus (rather a lot of) postage.

In the end I found the UK distributors for the publishers and got it for £50 plus £3 p&p.

My advice? Seek and ye shall find (but perhaps not straight away!).

All the best,

Frank

Oh, and by the way Bob, I'm blaming you for my recently acquired Kenna dependency!

colrehogan · Jul 7, 2005

I like Michael Kenna's stuff too. I liked his Japan book. I have the first Retrospective and also the book he did of the Nazi camps 50 years later.

As for used book prices, I know what you mean, I just bought a couple of books via abebooks, and yes they were expensive (compared to the cover price), but I'd been looking for these books since the early 90's and have found out that they were never published in the US. I got them from a couple of used bookstores in Canada and can finally read the whole trilogy.

Bob F. · Jul 7, 2005

FrankB said:
<snip>
Oh, and by the way Bob, I'm blaming you for my recently acquired Kenna dependency!

Whoops - sorry 'bout that! Actually, I got my Kenna books from a bookshop in NYC - couldn't find them over here at a sensible price and the shop had them at below list...

Bob.

Baxter Bradford · Jul 7, 2005

Bob

I just bought the Retrospective Two at the exhibition at Hackelbury in London for the same price, £50. they had a arange of other ones too, plus well over 50 of his original prints. These were a bit more expensive than the books........ but cheap to admire, so long as you don't dribble on them!

Details of Hackelbury on this very busy thread which I started (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Brac · Jul 19, 2005

Booksellers do often ask incredible prices for out of print specialist books. And as a result they often don't sell. But on ebay those titles generally speaking will not fetch anything near those prices but at least they do usually sell albeit at a more realistic figure.

ggriffi · Jul 19, 2005

I got Tim Rudman's book and Les Mclean's book as well as a few others from www.alibris.com I thought the prices were pretty reasonable as well.

g

Is it a Rip off?

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