Would you spend $500 or more for a book?

good books cost from $500 to $15,000. Well, price doesn’t make it a good book. It just makes it expensive.

There are certain new books that may well be worth that price, usually almost handcrafted books with woodcut illustrations and artisanal type setting handbound in very fine leather. Those, though, are collector’s items. And you won’t find them on Amazon. I appreciate them, but I can’t afford that.

I never paid more than $60 for a book when I was in college; but prices were not quite as exorbitant back then. My son paid $175 for a Poli Sci text book; fortunately he was able to sell it after a semester and recoup $150.

The most I’ve ever spent on a book was $130. It was a leatherbound Thompson’s Chain Reference Bible, and I had my then-boyfriend’s name engraved on it in gold.

There are books in my Amazon wish list that are in the $80–100 range. They’re scholarly texts on early Medieval Ireland. Not exactly mass market stuff.

I would never spend $500 on a book. The words are important, not the object. For example, I can download all of Twain and Newton’s works for free.

But then again, I do have some books that I cherish and I could sell for $100 to $1000, children’s books from the 1890s to 1910s that belonged to my grandparents.

Sad story – my brother recently said there was an early Wizard of Oz book worth $1000 in the family stash, that my grandfather had directed towards me.

I could use the money. I asked my mother about it, and she pulled it down and showed me how lovely it looks now that she paid a neighbor to re-bind it with a spiffy new cover.

It’s worth about $30 now. Maybe. Still super-cool inside, though. The illustrations are beautiful.

I laugh, I have already bought a $500 book for school and it is a law book. It’s not that I wanted to but needed to. Though if it wasn’t for school, there is possibility I would spend $500+ on a book. But that book would have to be an old rare book preferably about Tir na nog and the mystical creatures within. Though the most expensive book by far that I have other than the one for school is Learning Kanji grades 1–6. I spent $60 on it.

Probably the most I have spent is about $300, on a title that I knew was out of print, and which I knew would be increasingly difficult to find, and that I knew was being offered for over $500 by other sellers. It was highly relevant to my work, and I still consider it a deal.

The dollar value of a book is whatever the customer decides that it is. That value often has very little to do with the content, and everything to do with desire and availability. The book I paid $300 for would probably not sell for 50 cents in a rummage sale. To the right customer, who has the right amount of need, you can charge simply anything you want.

I should know; I have my own Amazon Marketplace account. People pay unbelievable amounts for books that I would otherwise pay to have removed from my shelves.

frankly, at those prices, i would pirate it.

Yup. Spent a small fortune on college books….

Wouldn’t spend more than $35 on a hard back now…

Impossible for I have only £££££££‘s in my account.

About $300 is the most I have had to pay for a textbook, $500+ is not happening

I wouldn’t. I think my top number is around $100.

My dad sells a lot of books on Amazon, I wonder what the highest price is that he has received? I know he sells books as high as $120, but he doesn’t tell me what he sells normally. He is Mrbook on amazon. I guess I could do a search and see his highest asking prices.

Excuse me for yelling, but….. 15 000 DOLLARS FOR A BOOK?! THE HELL ARE THEY SELLING, THE ORIGINAL BIBLE?

Don’t get me wrong, I love books. I often buy books when I have the money, but for that money I could buy the village library! I think the most expensive book I’ve bought was around 1000 dinars (8.58 dollars). I buy from the streets, it’s dirt cheap, and equally qualitative and valuable. The book I mentioned above was the only book I got from the store. It’s ridiculous to give that much money on a book, especially when you have the street sellers and the Internet.
Even if it wasn’t expensive, I wouldn’t buy it if it isn’t interesting. As for textbooks and such, the copy or second hand version is as good as new.

Maybe, if there was no other choice (the book was too rare, no other cheaper seller found, no way to pirate it). But the book had to be very valuable for me to spend that much money on. And $500 is my limit. Otherwise I’d just tell myself “I’m out of luck” and move on. Luckily I have never had an eye for expensive books.

The most money I’ve spent on a book was $150. It wasn’t really a book – I really don’t know what to call it, but it was something I’d been craving for years. I finally managed to grab it, and that will be the last time I have spent so much for anything.

Typically around $30 is my max. Probably the single most expensive edition I own is a single-volume, hardcover, slipcased, leatherbound (though I’m not positive that it isn’t imitation leather) collectors edition of The Lord of the Rings. It retailed, if I recall, for around $100 or so, but was given to me as a Christmas gift by my parents.

It’s nice, but not something that I would have bought for myself. I’m generally not big on collector’s stuff, and I refuse to spend that much on a book. These days most of the reading material I buy is for my Kindle anyway. I buy very few physical books anymore.

No. A painting yes, a sculpture yes, other interesting art yes. A book, most likely not.

I just bought a two book set for $740.00. They are law books.

For a new book? No.