Early Automobile Trade Journals

[Terry Bond]

I see a lot of these, and have quite a few of them myself. Love the advertising and info in them.  Just spotted this one on evil-bay and it's the most expensive one I've ever seen.  Thought you'd enjoy seeing what a $300 copy of one looks like.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1911-Motor-Cycle-Motor-Boat-Automobile-Trade-Directory-Rare-publication/174573761349?hash=item28a5683345:g:yuQAAOSwdkpf6Ki0

[A. Ballard 35R]

If that is worth anything near $300, I have a small fortune tied up in copies going back to 1899. According to my friends in the automotive literature business, the market for paper material has dropped dramatically.

[trimacar]

I agree that I think printed material has gone down in value.  It used to be that club publications had a market, particularly the early issues such as AACA or HCCA.  Now, a lot of that content is online, and it seems most people would rather peruse a nice clean screen rather than musty old paper.  Search engines help the online material too, of course.

 

It's interesting to watch Ebay, someone finds an old object and thinks that it's worth hundreds, when realistically it's in the low two figures.  And then if you try to educate them, it's the old "you're just trying to steal it" line.

 

Ebay has really gotten greedy, too, if one figures out the true cost of selling something there it gets very depressing.

[Terry Bond]

Right - I have periodically posted items like that where someone has found an interesting item and thinks it's made of gold.  They don't seem to realize that by putting prices like that on junk items it just makes them look stupid.  This little tire booklet is another example.  Of course it's from a consignment seller so it would be too easy to just blame the person who consigned it.  As I mentioned a while back though, I've long ago stopped trying to contact these people as they can get really defensive.  I think too many of them are so narrow-minded their only research is on evil-bay.   Just because they don't see another one listed or recently completed, it must be rare!  Seller is looking for a bid of $189 to get it started!