During the Republic of China period, there was a 20-volume "Strange Book" on the market: "Book Selling Dolls", which was written by Sun Dianqi, a famous bibliophile and owner of Tongbaozhai Bookstore, which contained more than 10,000 kinds of bibliographic information from the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. In the process of compilation, Sun Dianqi did not include any bibliographies included in the "Four Libraries complete book", so people in the bibliophile circles also called it "the continuation of the "Four Libraries Complete Book".
Sun Dianqi's writing of books was by no means a temporary intention, because he was not only a businessman, but also a man of erudition and a true love of books. At the age of 14, he apprenticed in the bookstore of Liulichang, cultivated an interest in books, and accumulated a wealth of knowledge about the collection of books. Later, he opened his own bookstore Tongbaozhai to collect ancient books and rare books from all over the country, and recorded the detailed information one by one, and finally assembled into this book that was widely praised by bibliophiles.
In neighboring Japan, a used bookstore owner, Tatsuro Ikugen, is doing the same thing, writing his experience in buying, reading, collecting, and selling books into a small book called "Putting a Price on Writers," which some critics have likened to "the Japanese version of "Book Sellers."
"A Price for a Writer" book cover
However, unlike Sun Dianqi, Izutake is also a professional writer, and his novels have won literary awards such as the Kodansha Prose Prize and the Naoki Prize, and he has also served as the chairman of the Japan Writers association, so his writing style is more interesting and readable, and the average reader can easily read them.
In "Putting a Price on a Writer," Tatsuro Ikugen uses 24 Japanese writers as an entry point to tell the richness of used bookstores by using the "three corners" of booksellers, readers, and writers.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 "Open book and earn": a bookseller's "old book valuation theory"</h1>
In essence, whether old or new, "books" have a certain economic value as a public publication, which involves valuation and pricing issues.
In terms of pricing mechanism, the pricing basis of the new book is mainly based on three kinds of cost bonuses, printing, and understanding value, respectively, starting from the production cost and the subjective feelings of readers, the first two are more widely used, and the latter is less used. In the actual circulation link, new books generally have discounts ranging from high to low.
The pricing of old books is more personalized, and it basically follows the principle of "one book, one price". In used bookstores, "old books," especially first-edition books, tend to sell for new books with the same content, and the difference can be several times, sometimes thousands of times higher.
In "Bidding for Writers", Takuro Ikugen listed the prices of many japanese masters' first editions: Sima Liaotaro's "RyomaYuki" was between 200,000 and 500,000 yen, Kenji Miyazawa's "Spring and Asura" was about 1 million yen, and Natsume Soseki's "Michikusa" was around 300,000 yen (equivalent to 20,000 yuan).
Kenji Miyazawa in the film and television drama
The reason for the high premium is fundamentally caused by the asymmetry of supply and demand. Due to the limited stock of used books in the market, their price depends entirely on the preferences and needs of book lovers. So, what factors affect their bid?
As the manager of the used bookstore "Fangyado", Taro Ikugen has summed up a unique "valuation theory of old books" in the process of buying and selling old books for a long time. In summary, there are three elements that play a key role: scarcity, appearance and binding, which we will explain separately below.
Scarcity: Classical economic theory holds that in the case of constant demand, the less supply, the higher the price, which is the power of "scarcity".
Most of the debut works, first editions, and banned books of famous artists have such characteristics, and the "non-mainstream" works of some well-known authors are often high-priced. Sima Liaotaro, who is known for writing historical novels, once wrote a mystery novel called "Koji Yanshang", which was once priced at 400,000 yen.
Appearance: For many buyers of old books, "the appearance is the life of the old book", and the appearance includes two dimensions: integrity and degree of defacement. The inner page, outer seal, waist seal, and envelope of the book are complete, there is no missing damage, and the book is in good condition, and the price is usually higher.
It is very interesting that the waist seal that we often discard in the process of reading books has a great impact on the price of old books.
A first edition of Yukio Mishima's Nudes and Clothes costs 15,000 yen for the version without a waist seal, and those with a waist seal can be sold for 135,000 yen, a price difference of nearly 10 times. In this way, when reading in the future, the waist seal cannot be thrown away at will.
Binding: Whether the cover and illustration designer of the book is a famous artist, the degree of exquisiteness, and the material of paper used will affect the evaluation of the price of the old book.
For example, the cover and lining pages of the first edition of Izumi Kyoka's novel Nihonbashi were designed by the famous printmaker Yukidai Komura, and the beautiful ukiyo-e composition and delicate woodcut lines are extremely artistic and collectible, and its highest price is nearly 800,000 yen.
A print of Yukidai Komura
One of Natsume's "trilogy", "Heart", was personally designed by himself, and for Shushi fans, this kind of book is naturally more valuable.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 "Old Books Taste Long": The "Literary Axiology" of Alternative Bibliographers</h1>
An old book that costs a lot is not only a precious collection and investment object, but also carries literary value.
Takuro Ikugen, who has been immersed in the used book industry for many years, naturally has the innate advantage of "near the water", and can come into contact with a large number of good books. In his view, "the people who open used bookstores are scholars without degrees, and they reflect their knowledge through the price of books."
In "Estimating the Price of a Writer", we can see the price data of books by many famous writers, and we can also read the profound insight of Kugen Tatsuro as a senior reader of literature. These literary arguments, rooted in used bookstores, may seem "offbeat" at first glance, but when read closely, they are both interesting and profound.
First of all, the charm of old books such as first editions of books lies in providing a unique reading experience.
Some books obviously have the latest version, but many people are willing to "look for" an old book to hold. Those slightly yellowed papers, the handwriting left by different collectors on the book, the deep and shallow creases, watching time stop in the pages, seem to be able to "wear" to the era in which the author lived.
A high school student was very fond of Sima Liaotaro's Sakamoto Ryoma, so he insisted on buying a set of the first edition of "Dragon Horse Line", because he was obsessed with the "dust smell of the past" and thought it was much more interesting than reading a new book.
The cover of the Japanese edition of Sima Liaotaro's "Dragon Horse Line"
Secondly, in addition to rare editions of books, used bookstores can also find writers' letters, waist seals that have written recommended words, etc., providing us with more comprehensive information on writers.
Shuji Terayama has written Japanese song collections such as "Dead in the Garden", "Mother's Firefly", and "Throw Away the Books and Go to the Street", but he is also a playwright and film director. Through his posters, scripts, records, brochures and other "scraps", readers can glimpse more aspects of him.
In addition, from the different editions of the old books, it is possible to clearly trace the process of the work with the changes of the times.
Novels such as "I Am a Cat" and "Ancient Capital", which are well-known in Japanese literature, were originally serialized in newspapers and later published in single editions. From newspapers to stand-alone books to several reprints, authors fine-tune the content from time to time.
One of the most famous works of the mystery novel taidou Edogawa Chaos is "The Young Detective Corps", and after the war he rewrote some details in the book. He changed the price of snow boat landscape paintings from 250,000 yen in the original version to 20 million yen, and changed "all tokyo city" to "all tokyo."
Changes in prices, place names and other subtleties can allow readers to better integrate into the situation without creating a sense of chaos, which also reflects the changes of the times.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 "Sorry to feel sorry": In the old books, life is sad</h1>
Takuro Ikugen's third identity is that of a "writer". As a category of artistic creation, writing is never an easy task, haruki Murakami once said:
When a writer writes a story, he is confronting a toxin in his body. If you don't have this toxin, your story will be boring and mediocre. It's like a pufferfish: the meat of the pufferfish is extremely delicious, yet its eggs, liver, and heart are all deadly.
Haruki Murakami is lucky because he became famous early, earns a lot as a full-time writer, and insists on long-distance running exercise, so he has the heart and physical strength to fight against the "toxins" in the body.
However, in the Japanese literary circles, especially among writers from the Meiji to The Showa period, many committed suicide and died prematurely. Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Osamu Dazai, and others chose to end their lives with their own hands for the sake of political ideals or literary beauty, while Kazuba Higuchi, Michizo Tachihara, Kenji Miyazawa, and others died young due to illness and poverty, which is deeply regrettable.
As a "peer", Takuro Ikugen has received literary nourishment from their works and read different life conditions, which is probably a feeling of "pity and pity". In general, Takuro Ikugen believes that "contradiction" has appeared repeatedly in the creative careers of many Japanese writers, and this contradiction is reflected in the two major themes of "money" and "death".
From a monetary point of view, literature belongs to the spirit, but life is practical. For some writers from poor families or with troubled youth, money is a topic they can't avoid.
Natsume Soseki lived in his adoptive father's house as a child, and the other party only used him as a tool to make money for himself in the future, and the sensitive Natsume captured this delicate emotion. After emerging in the literary world, his adoptive father went to the house to ask for money. Therefore, in life, he has an almost pure sense of principle about "money". Reflected in literary works, the change in the relationship between the protagonist of "The Young Master" and his colleague "Porcupine" is reflected in the one-and-a-half cent coin.
Screenshot of Natsume's drama version of "Young Master"
One of Naogi's famous sayings is that "art is short and poor and long", and his life is very poor, and there is a faint melancholy atmosphere in his works.
Higuchi Kazuba, a female writer known as the "Meiji Purple Department", lived almost to the point of poverty and exhaustion. In her masterpiece "The Great Chinese New Year's Eve", she meticulously introduces the price of a large number of daily necessities, and borrows the protagonist's mouth to say the words "money is poison". In her correspondence with friends, there is also content about "borrowing money".
However, the most ironic thing is that a writer like Higuchi Ichiba struggled with the vortex of poverty all her life, but after her death, the words borrowed money were worth tens of millions of yen. At one point, her portrait appeared on a 5,000 yen note.
Higuchi leaf printed on a 5,000 yen note
If Higuchi Ichiba had known in the sky, he would probably smile bitterly and shake his head when he saw this scene.
From the point of view of death, Japanese literature seems to have a special preference for "death" and "decadence", and writers do not hesitate to write about similar themes with a lot of ink, and their deaths trigger a series of "chain reactions".
When the news of the "death of a famous writer" arrives, the used bookstore will usher in a wave of small sales.
After Yukio Mishima committed suicide by "performing" on the streets, the first housewives to learn about the news on television poured into a used bookstore and almost bought out Yukio Mishima's books, hoping to get a good premium income in the future. It's just that many of these crazy buyers have never read Yukio Mishima's article before.
With the passage of time, some writers have gradually been forgotten, and their works have been obliterated in the piles of old paper.
Naoki is known for his graphic scenes, but in recent years the readership of his works has become smaller and smaller, and old books are not expensive in the market, and the most expensive is only about 35,000 yen. However, the "Naoki Prize" established by his friend Kikuchi Hiroshi in honor of Naoki 35 has been held for more than 80 years, and its momentum and influence have grown, so Naoki 35's popularity in the folk is still very high.
People learn about a writer through awards named after him, not his work, and this phenomenon can hardly be said to be a blessing or a sadness.
Italian scholar Umberto Echo believes that paper books are actually a form of memory based on "plants", which condenses the fruits of human wisdom and creativity on plant fibers. From this point of view, the used bookstore is a transit station for the "memory of plants", so that books have longer-term value and vitality.
As the owner of a used bookstore, Takuro Ikugen perfectly integrates his triple identity as a book seller, reader and writer, allowing readers to appreciate the rich connotations contained in an old book. In this "Book of Books", people and books, literature and life are re-encountered, which is probably the charm of "used bookstores".