Re: Hey Jobst Brandt, Part Deux, about the crook graph on p39 of The Bicycle Wheel

On Sep 17, 9:50 pm, Kenneth <use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:32:03 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute<fiult...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:27:36 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute

<fiult...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Perhaps. Under similar circumstances, when someone expressed public
dissatisfaction with one of my books, I made an open offer to buy it
back, and indeed bought the book back from this feller, right out in
public. In the archives you can probably still see his post where he
whines that I should have told him this out of print book was worth
the thousands for which I resold it.

Hello again Andre,

I thought to make another attempt:

Might you tell me the title of that book?

Many thanks,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

Apologies, Kenneth. I missed your first letter, saw this one and have
been trying to track down the specifics rather than rely on memory.
The usual comedy of errors, including being unable to find my copy of
the book to check the precise title (my first editions in English take
up four shelf-feet, so I can hardly be expected to remember all the
titles, and publishers in different countries think nothing of
changing a title). The book we're talking about is Designing and
Building Special Cars/Andre Jute/B T Batsford, London, same as
Designing and Constructing Special Cars, published in the States by
Bentley, Boston. I think the special edition given away internally by
GM had "auto" in the name.

I'm afraid I misled you a little. The book that went for thousands was
Reverse Negative/Andre Jute and either the Secker, London, or the
Norton, New York, or the Hyland House, Melbourne edition, I can't
remember and I can't find my notes or the instance on the net. It
wasn't me who sold it, it was a Canadian dealer and the price was
3000USD -- that you can bet I remember perfectly well. It happened at
the peak of the popularity of the game Reverse Negative inspired. I
certainly sold a single mint copy of Inverso Negativo, the Portuguese
edition of the book, for several multiples of what the Canadian dealer
charged for the more common English edition; a dealer in Lisbon had
been commissioned to find it, and promptly came to the source; I don't
know precisely how much he added on for his cut but he said it would
be between twenty and forty per cent because he hoped to do more
business with this collector; he must have done okay because he sent
me a case of superbly vintaged port as gift to express his
satisfaction.

Okay, the actual facts about Designing and Building Special Cars is
that this clown, lashing out at me for a disagreement about
electronics (I put down his chum and made some disparaging remarks
about jumped-up techies which this feller, a draftsman if I remember
correctly, took umbrage at), claimed his friend who was building an
ultralightweight didn't like my book, as if I should care. However,
for a lark, I promptly bought the book from him, right out in public,
and as promptly sold it to a guy who built ultralightweights for a
living, turning a 180 Euro profit on the deal according to my tax
return. Not because I needed the money -- I took my family to lunch on
it a couple of times and had enough left over to buy a good-quality
set of taps and dies, to give you a perspective on the value of the
deal -- but to teach this idiot a lesson and to establish what I
suspected all along, that very likely didn't actually know anyone in
the ultralight community.

Books sell for fancy prices all the time; I wish I had a trunkful of
Reverse Negative to sell to people in the Far East who obsess about
having a mint copy of the W W Norton edition with the riffled edges to
the pages, and don't care what they pay. A signed copy of my Writing
Proposals and Synopses was sold to a screenwriter for over the five
grand USD reserve last year; the actual price was not disclosed; since
I admire the fellow's work, I would have given him a free signed copy
if he asked...

HTH.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: the rmmga soap opera
    ... t-shirt and waitin' for delivery of another guitar Sue doesn't know ... got the cheap-assed reso I bought recently. ... sold the Santa Cruz ... bought a Collings Baby ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic)
  • Re: the rmmga soap opera
    ... bought a Santa Cruz ... sold the Santa Cruz ... bought a Collings Baby ... bought a slide guitar ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic)
  • Re: Woodshop for less than $1,000??
    ... Tablesaw is the biggest expense and always a bit of a compromise. ... With the tablesaw, jointer, planer as the anchor, a $90.00 bench top ... Tossed the blade, bought a forest WWII. ... the factory original fence was sold on Ebay for $50.00 ...
    (rec.woodworking)
  • Re: Finding Min & Max using lookup & variable sized ranges?
    ... The problem is that with such a large dataset using array formula can slow ... Sold in C2:C20000 and that your list with unique product names start in G2, ... the product to the row field then bought and sold into the data field, ...
    (microsoft.public.excel)
  • Re: anyone in the hobby also ride motocycles?
    ... I sold my Ducati wanna-be, a Suzuki SV650, last fall and bought my ... A couple of other local collectors around my area ride as well. ... btw i currently have a chopper but plan to get something more rider ...
    (rec.games.pinball)