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I just got confirmation from Waterstones UK that both the Will Sergeant and Bobby Gillespie signed autobiographies will be bookplates. I first started encountering these on Premiere Collectibles and was really disappointed: the artist never actually handled the book. Does anyone else feel this way?

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Autographed bookplates are very similar to autographed stickers on trading cards.  Neither one bothers me.

Not as desirable as a flat signed book, but in many cases there is no other option.

It depends on the rarity of the signature, but, in general, a custom author’s or publisher’s bookplate doesn’t bother me, especially when that is how the signed edition has been released.  If a collector has attached a bookplate, obtained separately, to a volume it was not specifically intended for, then that is less desirable, to me.  In other words, it’s all about context.

This idea that an author has to have handled the book in order to imbue it with their mojo, or whatever, is an odd one, to me.  Handling a book for less than ten seconds means jack, especially when they’re just signing it for some anonymous buyer, without a dedication or inscription of any kind.

When Bob Dylan recently signed 12 copies of his art book Face Value for the National Portrait Gallery, London, a friend of mine got all sniffy when he found out they were signed on bookplates.  I think he now regrets not buying one.

But what did he expect?  Did he think the NPG was going to ship 12 books from London to California and back?

With someone like Dylan, the value is all in the signature itself, backed up with the all-important provenance which comes from buying from a renowned institution like the NPG.  You don’t get to pick and choose how he signs it.  You either buy the book when you get the opportunity, or you miss out.

I would have bought one of those Dylan’s in a heartbeat!

I’m a long-time Dylan collector, who owns some very rare stuff.  Just happened to catch wind of the signed Face Value books on the afternoon they went on sale.

Very happy to add this to my collection:


Gorgeous! Well done. Do you think my sole Dylan is real? (Posted in Dylan autographs months ago)

Ack.  It’s so hard with Dylan.  I’m tempted to say no on this one.  Sorry!  Just an opinion, albeit an educated one.  I have a friend who owns a beautiful signed and dated 1978 promo photo, and it’s not a close match with yours.

How did you come by it?  Does it have any provenance at all?

I found it decades ago in the bin at a used record store for peanuts with no attention drawn to the signature. Thanks.

I always say follow the money with this stuff.  It’s not a cast-iron guarantee, but whenever I’ve found stuff for peanuts it’s usually turned out to be legit.

But, as always, the usual rules go out the window where Dylan is concerned.  Without provenance, it’s going to come down to the style.  Like I say, this one is not convincing me, but others may feel differently.  My advice would be to bump your original thread and canvas more opinions.

Given the option, I tend to prefer hardsigned copies over bookplated ones. However, if it's only a bookplate that's available for a desired signature, I'll take what I can get. For me the big issue is appearance. In my opinion, a lot of bookplates are ugly. This could be because they're oddly placed (a lot are applied by the bookstores now and not the publisher), they're boring generic publisher bookplates, or because they prominently feature a Premiere Collectibles logo.

Like Stepeanut, I personally don't care about the author actually handling the book. In most instances these days, publisher-direct signed copies feature a tip-in anyways, so the book page was signed independently of the book. This doesn't really seem significantly different than them just signing a bookplate.

I was going to make this same point. A tipped in signature page, which is far more common than some realize, may appear better than a bookplate, but it is not entirely different if you think about it.

I have gotten some incredible inscriptions in books that I have sent to the authors, but for simple signed books the official bookplate is largely acceptable to me.

I much prefer tip-in.

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