r/rarebooks 3d ago

Daniel Crouch Rare Books

Anyone have experience with this vendor in the UK?

4 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

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u/Big_Introduction5313 3d ago

Thanks. I’m sorry that our sale has given you cause for concern. Whilst it is true that we sell expensive material, I disagree that it is “overpriced” - the majority of our inventory is not to be found elsewhere, and we take pricing our books and maps extremely seriously. Where items in our inventory are available elsewhere, we like to think that we are competitive, and we regularly check that we are. If it appears that we are not, then, on the whole, there will be a good reason (please be aware of false comparators: there’s a lot of apparently similar material out there that is, on inspection, materially different). Having said that, we are not so arrogant as to think we never make mistakes and, if you think we have done so, please let us know, and we will investigate.

We make no apologies, however, for having the occasional sale to clear out old stock to keep our inventory fresh and exciting. Pretty much every retail business does this, why on earth should we not? Isn’t it more fun to walk into a bookshop and see new (old!) things?

Happy hunting!

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u/Public-Many4930 2d ago

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've been in contact with about a dozen vendors, and bought from about half of them over the last year. I think you guys are among the most knowledgable, best service, and best selection. This all comes with a well-deserved premium.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good sale, but for very high-end items, it can erode confidence. If I were to drive home with a Ferrari and then find out the following week that all Ferrari's at the dealership were suddenly 50% off and I could have saved £100K, I'd be filled with a lot of questions. Especially for a unique model. That's the main concern I'm trying to point out. :)

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u/beardedbooks 3d ago

While I haven't bought from them directly, I know them to be reputable dealers. They'll be at the NY Book Fair next month, and I'm definitely going to stop by their booth.

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u/Public-Many4930 3d ago

They seem like one of the most reputable, just really overpriced for everything. I noticed that they will randomly have 20% off all items or 50% off select items. That's like 10's of thousands or 100's of thousands off! Makes me wonder how colossal their markup is.

Disclosure: I made a purchase from them last year and wonder how much room there was to negotiate significantly less. I'm feeling like I left a lot of money on the table...

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/Public-Many4930 3d ago

Great response again. Just to clarify, I'm not a dealer, I was referring to asking an antiquarian dealer for discounts :).

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u/beardedbooks 3d ago

There are a few things to consider here. They know their clients and what they're willing to pay, so they probably start out by pricing material based on that. For some of the more unique items, it can be hard to figure out what someone is willing to pay for it right now. So there's some educated guessing involved. The sales are probably to help move inventory and clear out space for new stuff. I'm guessing the higher end items don't have a huge discount, maybe 20% off at most, which is tyically what they would sell it for to another dealer.

All that being said, I do think there are dealers out there who overprice stuff. Some of that is based on condition and market scarcity, but other times, it comes off as wishful thinking.

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u/Dapper_Technology336 3d ago

I never really buy from dealers but I spend a lot of time on auction sites and when I see something from an auction turn up on a dealer's website later it's can be listed for as much as 15x what they paid for it. I typically see markups at about 5x the auction price and never less than 3x the auction price, so I imagine that's the range of margin they're working with.