John Hodgman: Little Blue Books Collection
GUEST: I don't know that I have collections so much as little hoards of things, of shiny objects, that have caught my eye, like a magpie would hide in a nest. Anything that just feels, like, odd or oddball. I'm not looking for value. I'm looking for a story. And, you know, look, if one of these Little Blue Books is worth $2 million, I'll fall on the floor-- for sure. But I don't-- you know what? I was gonna say, "But I don't think I'd sell it," but I'll sell it. If it's worth $2 million, anyone can buy it.
HOST: ROADSHOW appraiser Ken Gloss met up with John at a recently restored historic building nearby to evaluate his collection of book-related material.
GUEST: These are some of-- I wouldn't call it my collection-- my stash or hoard of Little Blue Books. The first one I ever gotten, introduced me to the series, was this one: "How to Prepare Manuscripts." My mom gave this to me back when I was working in book publishing. Because she knew that what I really wanted to be doing was writing and not selling other people's books. I had never heard of the Little Blue Books. I amassed as many as I could. I just find them to be hilarious.
APPRAISER: You have four other little books here that are not part of the series.
GUEST: After I became fascinated with these little instructional pamphlets, I started a kind of literary humor reading series in New York City, in Brooklyn.
We called the series the Little Gray Book Lectures. I would invite friends of mine who were up-and-coming writers or humorists or musicians to present little presentations on whatever the topic might be.
APPRAISER: One of the purposes of the Little Blue Books were to inspire people to read. It started in 1919. At the time, the cost of a regular book in a bookstore was a dollar, dollar and a half. The Little Blue Books started out at a quarter, then a dime. The large, large majority, they got them down to a nickel. So almost...
GUEST: So, they went down in price.
APPRAISER: They went down in price.
GUEST: Over time.
APPRAISER: The publications and the amount went up and up and up. About 1,500 words, 64 pages, on cheap paper. The total is close to 2,000 titles of the Little Blue Book.
GUEST: Mm-hmm. Wow.
APPRAISER: Almost every ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, there are people who come in with a box of these. We've never really gotten to get one on TV, and I've always wanted to talk about them.
GUEST: Oh, great.
APPRAISER: So thank you very much. What did you pay for them?
GUEST: Very, very little money. A buck or two. Sometimes I would get a lot of ten or 15 for, you know, $10, $20. I mean, it was very clear that these were mass-produced. For me, as someone who has always had vast interests across many, many different subject matters, to, you know, veer from "How to Make Money in Wall Street" to "Side-Show Tricks Explained," I was just, I loved it.
APPRAISER: Well, how about "How I Went to the Devil"? Part of the thing with the show is saying, "Oh, I got this. I paid a little, it's worth a lot." Guess what? They really aren't valuable.
GUEST: No!
APPRAISER: There are millions and hundreds of millions of them out there.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: They don't have great value.
GUEST: No.
APPRAISER: The, dollar, two, or many times, a box for ten dollars. It's a great series, and it inspired an even greater series.
GUEST: I spent a lot of great evenings with my friends thanks to these books.
APPRAISER: These are much more valuable than those.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And what, what's become very popular is zines, and self-publishing, and modern literature. Individually, these could easily get $15, $20 apiece, and maybe a whole collection would even be more, because how many whole collections can you put together?
GUEST: Huh.
APPRAISER: And as you and the other writers in this become more and more and more famous, the price is just going to go up and up and up and up.
GUEST: Yeah, so it's 15, 30... So it's $60?
APPRAISER: Yeah, $60.
GUEST: What do we say, $50?
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: Great, I'll get my credit card reader.
APPRAISER: (laughs)
$60 Retail
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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