Tuesday 21 December 2010

www.rareandsigned.com wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday! We look forward to serving you all over the world in 2011

Monday 29 November 2010

CHRISTMAS 2010
An update on this year's deals and offers.

We are delighted to announce, this December will see the return of the famous
www.rareandsigned.com 12 Days Of Christmas Shopping Event.

Basically every day from Friday 10th December through to Tuesday 21 December we will be sending you an email advent offer each day featuring one unique item. The item we offer each day will vary greatly and may be anything from the world of sport or music through to a signed modern day first edition. The one thing you can be guaranteed is this offer will be unbeatable anywhere else and totally unique for Christmas 2010.

Last year we had national coverage of this event in The Sun newspaper who declared it a major shopping event for memorabilia enthusuasts !

The one disadvantage is there will only be one (of whatever is offered) each day. To make it fair for everyone I can confirm the 12 Days If Christmas email will be auto scheduled and sent every day at midday UK time. This allows for time differences across the world to view it at a semi-reasonable hour!

Enjoy the great deals as there will be no other offers or lists sent during this time.


To sign up to receive this email contact us today info@rareandsigned.com

all the best,


Tuesday 1 June 2010


Unknown to ourselves we were included in this weeks weekend supplement of the leading British newspaper THE GUARDIAN.

The feature detailed the rise in value of memorabilia and highlighted the best sites to find them. rare and signed.com were listed right at the top as one of the best sites for memorabilia anywhere in the world !!

Friday 26 March 2010

INVESTING IN MEMORABILIA

Very few financial advisers or even investors understand the potential of alternative investments and how you can insulate your investments by diversifying in this way. Yet the basic market forces of supply and demand mean prices of limited edition collectables will continue to rise into the future and the use of the internet makes buying and selling easier than ever.

Autographs have shown even greater investment potential. According to Stanley Gibbons and the Fraser's 100 Index, the 100 most popular autographs have shown impressive growth over the past 6 years, with a cumulative incrase in value of 174%. The problem of course with autographs is how many forgeries are out there. There are three ways of getting around this one: a. get the autograph yourself (an exciting hobby but also a big job with small success rate), 2. buy from reputable dealer with a reputation for honesty, such as www.rareandsigned.com and 3. focus your investment collection on a specific field or area.

The stock market is driven by greed, whereas the memorabilia market is driven by passion

Jason Cullen, CEO, www.rareandsigned.com

Most collect memorabilia, signed books, and art or other autographed items because they reflect a true pieces of history, they are beautiful to look at and thrilling to own.

Very few investments bring such a genuine glow of pride from owing a piece of history - and history that means something to YOU. Whether your passion is sport, the movies, fine art, first edition books, politics, music, history, or anything else, you can focus your collection and investment on pieces personally meaningful to you.

Friday 19 February 2010

Collecting Signed Memorabilia

Collecting memorabilia is a rather special job. It can be one of the most fulfilling things you ever do. In fact, you should be familiar with a couple of things before you end up wasting your time and money in collecting things that don't really have much value to begin with. When you do get the perfect signed memorabilia, there is no feeling quite like it. In fact, some of the best possessions are purchased after trial and error and not because the collector knows what they wanted. After learning these tips, you too might be ready to go out there and see for yourself how it feels like to be a revered collector in the community.

For us, like many this began as a hobby, which gradually takes over your life.

The first tip for a new collector, without any credible experience in the field is to go only with well trusted sources and recommendations. NEVER EVER bid on things that you do not feel 100% comfortable with. If possible, buy direct from reputable and well known and trusted dealers. If using auction sites tread carefully. eBay is a minefield of disasters with fakes and horror stories all over the place. In all cases of genuine and reputable dealers selling genuine signed memorabilia, they will usually offer it at a flat rate, which means that you don't have much to be worried about.

If you are in the market looking for particular signed memorabilia but have no idea as to how much they might cost, then it is safe to say that you should always play it safe and look at past history of that particular object. In many cases, you might have learnt that the item had fetched a lot of money at a particular point in time, but now, it might have a different value. Depending on the present situation, the memorabilia might have increased or decreased in its value. Hence, you might need to be careful and make sure that you pick something that is going to hold its value for time to come.

If you are buying the signed memorabilia for personal reasons only, then resale value should not really be a concern. In this case, don't let the seller get the better of you. Don't offer a price that is extremely exaggerated or much more than what it should be. Be careful and pay only the amount that the item might truly be worth for. If you are truly desperate for a piece then you may want to pay over the average to secure it, but even then do not go crazy. We would suggest paying no more than 10% above what you think is fair. In this situation most decent companies, especially those you build a relationship with, will allow you some slack and may even offer a lay away service or interest free payments. If you fear someone may get the item before you, try to become a little aggressive and then offer a little money to secure it immediately.

In order to get started on what sort of genuine signed memorabilia you might want, you should check out http://www.rareandsigned.com This is a great website with all the right links in order to ensure that you get a good deal on a vast array of memorabilia. Their reputation is fantastic and they even supply famous figures you may collect around the world ! With an inventory covering everything from fine art and original paintings through to rock and roll and sporting memorabilia, they have the largest online stock of genuine signed books by Stephen King & J K Rowling. They also have in stock over 1000 genuine signed items by The Beatles.

Monday 18 January 2010

Collecting Modern First Editions

As a bookseller, we receive emails every week asking about the value of "old" or "rare rare books". The presumption is that "old" equals "valuable" and books that date back into the 19th century are "old." This presumption is almost always incorrect but what many people don't realize is that there is a category of books that are not very old but can be worth a lot of money because, despite being relatively recent, they are quite rare and considered to be important cultural milestones.

"Modern first editions" is a term that is generally applied to books published in the 20th century that are rare enough and/or important enough (preferably both) to be collectible. Modern firsts is one of the most active areas of book collecting today for a number of reasons. Because the books are modern, they are often available in sufficient quantities, even as first editions, to be able to satisfy a large body of collectors. Also, the collectible modern firsts are often the books that are considered "classics" and this means that many people will have read them and loved them: that's how they got to be "classics." Sometimes, half-jokingly, modern firsts is described as the field in which "you collect what you read in high school," and there's some truth to that: getting onto high school reading lists, is one step on the path toward a book becoming a part of the literary canon, and thus an integral part of our culture.

Modern firsts can be broken out into a handful of different sub-categories. There are the classic authors - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck - who mostly made their marks in the first half of the 20th century and whose continued popularity makes them the "blue chips" of the modern first edition world. There are those writers from the latter half of the century who established themselves as major literary figures, but whose works have not yet stood the test of time as much as their literary forebears' works have. And there are the "ultra-modern" authors—who are not only still writing books but, in some cases, just beginning their careers. There is a speculative edge to the modern first editions market in which these writers' works are actively sought and traded.

One reason that so many collectors start by collecting modern firsts is that, not only are the authors and books familiar, there is also a fairly low threshold for getting started as a collector: it's possible to buy first editions by some of the most famous and collectible modern authors for a relatively small amount of money. There are still Faulkners and Steinbecks that one can find, in dust jacket, for £100 or less.

The most important thing to remember about collecting modern first editions is "condition, condition, condition." Because many modern books are not inherently rare, what makes a copy collectible are qualities that make it at least somewhat rare, and in most cases, this is condition. There were 50,000 copies of The Grapes of Wrath printed and many of them still exist. But there are a relatively small number that retain their original dust jacket, and an even smaller number in which the jacket has been preserved in fine condition—this can make the difference between a £35 first edition (unjacketed, so-so condition) and a £5000 first edition (jacketed, book and jacket both in fine condition). With modern books, from 1920 on, collectible copies will have their dust jackets, preferably in very good condition or better.

Also, a rule of thumb in book collecting in general, and it holds true in modern first editions, is "earlier is better." The first edition is (almost) always "better"—i.e., more valuable—than a second edition. With modern books, there are early copies—review copies, advance reading copies, proofs—that were actually printed and sent out to reviewers before the first edition, and these help make a book that might not be especially rare as a regular first edition more collectible.

If there's any other "rule" that I advise collectors about, it is to follow your heart: if collecting books is primarily about buying low, selling high, and making money, there are probably other commodities in which the risks are smaller, the wholesale/retail differential is smaller, and there's more money to be made. But there are other kinds of "profit" than just money, and one kind is the satisfaction of surrounding oneself with beautiful copies of books that have particular value to you—be they cultural milestones or just books that you loved when you were young, and which helped shape the path you took in life. This is a very real kind of profit, and is one that every book collector has the opportunity to make, by choosing books that are inherently meaningful and valuable to him- or herself.