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Most rare and valuable ASOIAF books/memorabilia


Daendrew

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18 hours ago, nyles33 said:

There are more than the 7 Youll found copies.  Not many - apparently GRRM has a few (in double digit quantity - no mention of condition),  The Youll ones are mint (signed by Stephen and Jamie Youll) and are unfolded except one of mine.  GoBadChicken (ebay seller) told me that they had one years ago but sold it, and Elio (Ran) told me he hadn't seen one for a long time when I was getting one of mine signed at Worldcon in Finland.  This one at Duke looks to be from the Archives of Charles Brown (founder of Locus Magazine and the Locus Awards) that was purchased by Duke.  The cover is pictured in this article about the collection. Cool that it's on display!  It looks to have a hard fold on the side. 
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2019/04/30/locus-collection-tracks-the-stars-and-universe-of-sci-fi/   

 

Interesting. It would be nice to find out how many there are. I was under the assumption that you, Pat and I had the only copies (according to Stephen) - except for the gifted copy to GRRM. And if those other copies are the ARC covers or the trade proof covers?

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On 7/23/2019 at 6:46 AM, Daendrew said:

What are the rarest and most valuable ASOIAF first edition first printing books around?

From my research the following books are rarest and most valuable:

1) The uncorrected proof reviewers copy of AGOT from the UK. Only 50 were printed.

2) Meisha Merlin/Subterranean (Sub took over after Meisha shut down) Game of Thrones, only a few hundred of them were printed and it is by far the most expensive ASOIAF book around, with AGOT going for around $4,000. On eBay the five book set is asking $8k.

2) Voyager's (UK) Game of Thrones

3) Voyager's (UK) Clash of Kings (AGOT did not sell as well as they expected and had a shorter print run I have read online)

4) Bantam (US) AGOT silver foil first edition. 

According to Adam Whitehead:
"HarperCollins are George's UK publishers. They planned 5,000 copies across two print runs [of UK AGOT], but they only ended up printing 3,000 in the first run, as the book didn't sell enough to justify the second. They instead released the book much earlier in paperback, which had a much bigger, more beneficial impact on sales.

In the US the famous "silver foil cover" edition had a lot more copies published in hardcover, I think maybe between 10,000 and 15,000? It's much more common than the UK first edition (although they still go for $500 or so, but the UK first edition goes for around twice that)."

"I don't have the figures, but the A Game of Thrones UK sample booklet from Voyager may also be of some value, as it was published 4-5 months ahead of AGoT and was pushed by Voyager to drum up interest for the novel.

I don't know the circulation, but the July 1996 issue of Asimov's featuring the Hugo Award-winning novella Blood of the Dragon (the entire Dany story arc from AGoT assembled into one story) is also of some value, with Amazon listing it at $350."

 

It is no longer $350 because I bought it haha. They are now asking 500 and 750 online for the Asimov's issue.

I am probably a bit bias, but I think some of the original cover paintings are worth quite a bit, as they are one of a kind and often done by leading artists.  :)      I would probably dispute there are only 50 UK ARCs....  In 20 years on eBay I have seen a lot more than that go by... Admittedly, there may be some repeats, but I know 10-15 people with one or two as well.   That listing you reference is the first time I have seen 50 associated with the print run...  Looks made up for auction purposes, to me.  

The Asimov Blood of the Dragon are cheap.  The secret is to look for someone selling an auction with a pile of Asimovs from the 1990s.   Its the people selling just the one that target the GoT fanatics that gouge...     The cover painting of that, by Paul Youll, is probably worth a lot!  ;)  

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The print of Graig Kreindler map of King's Landing is a fairly rare collectible, the map was originally produced for the Meisha Merlin edition of Clash of Kings. He produced 50 prints of it which he offered to members here.

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