KEY POINTS:
At a time when traditional investment havens are looking a little shaky, here's a tip: sink some money into Cormac McCarthy first editions - but only if signed by the author.
Investing in books, says Warwick Jordan, is not unlike buying shares.
"Not all books go up in value. Valuable books can go down over time - tastes change, collecting habits change. It's very similar to playing the stock market."
Jordan is the founding manager of Hard to Find (But Worth the Effort) Books, which opened its first shop in Onehunga in 1984.
Today he has a second Auckland shop on Ponsonby Rd, another, under the name Browsers Secondhand Books, in Hamilton, and he trades online.
"For anyone who knows a bit about book investing or gets advice from someone who does, it can have a reasonably good return."
Mostly people collect books because they're interested in a particular topic, but Jordan says some are purely in it for the investment return. Those buyers tend to want illustrated - or plate - books such as Buller's Birds, formally known as A History of New Zealand Birds, by Walter Buller, published in the early 1870s.
Jordan sold two high-end plate books - including a copy of Buller's Birds - to a collector several years ago who would more than treble his money if he sold them today.
"He paid, I think, a total of $10-$12,000 for the two and now he would get back close to $40,000. They were both very good examples."
Rarity and intrinsic value are part of what determines a book's price. But its condition is also important.
First editions, which might be identified by the colour of their binding, by the publisher's numbering or by known typographical mistakes, can be worth 15 times more with a dust wrapper than without.
Books such as Buller's Birds are rare enough, but when the illustrations are pulled out and sold separately - a practice Jordan considers barbaric - they become even more scarce.
"If someone has that attitude I certainly wouldn't be selling one to them."
Top-end plate books are in worldwide demand but enthusiasm for books about New Zealand flora and fauna is greatest here. "If I was advising someone on books to invest in I'd probably point them towards a moderate-risk investment that has a potential great return, that wouldn't be New Zealand books."
The works of American novelist Cormac McCarthy, the best known of which is All the Pretty Horses, part of his Border Trilogy and made into a movie starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, come into that category. A film based on another of his books, No Country for Old Men, is due for local release early in the new year.
Autographed copies of McCarthy's books are collectible because he's a "cantankerous old bugger" who can't stand signing sessions, Jordan says. "Earlier stuff of his will set you back US$4000 ($5224) or US$5000 or more, for a signed one, but that's cheap compared with what they could be in a few years' time." Once McCarthy's dead, that is.
Jordan used to collect the author but his "heart was broken" when the collection was sold after his marriage disintegrated.
"I'm not a collector for money, I'm a collector because I love the books. Once you sell them you kind of get past wanting to pay attention any more because it's too depressing."
Jordan tips a book by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox as one with a potential upside for investors. The Vintner's Luck, only 100 or so hard-cover copies of which were printed by Jordan for Victoria University Press, is being made into a movie, directed by Whale Rider's Niki Caro. "If that film is successful and got nominated for an Oscar, say, the overseas collectibility of that book would skyrocket. And it might not - you just don't know."
For anyone wanting to take a punt, Jordan is happy to take their orders.
