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Kate Bush - Signed Books Available On Friday 20 Jan at 9am (Waterstones, Rough Trade & Selected Independents)

A very limited number of signed copies will be released and can be pre-ordered from selected bookshops and record shops, from 9am on Friday 20th January (UK only).

NME state Waterstones and Rough Trade will be two of the bookshops.

How To Be Invisible: Selected Lyrics - Paperback | Kate Bush

Tags: Bush, Kate

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Permalink Reply by CS on April 7, 2023 at 1:26pm

Do most of the eBay ones have a Rough Trade sticker? I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same flipper gangs that cornered the signed Elton's and caused the riot at the Queen pop-up last year which shut the shop down. I overheard someone at Rough Trade West, who only got a dozen or so copies, say they asked people who wanted one Kate Bush trivia. This kinda thing should be the way forward to weed out the resellers. That and maybe limiting the advance warning.

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Permalink Reply by crazyrabbits23 on April 7, 2023 at 9:14pm

Remember one of the quotes earlier in this thread by Stepenaut: "Collecting rare stuff isn’t an exercise in pure communism. If it were, there would be no such thing as a collectors’ market to begin with."

Flippers, unfortunately, are always going to be part of the ecosystem, for better or worse. I don't like it, and I don't engage in it, but there is nothing saying someone is "barred" from buying something if they aren't a fan. You can have all the safeguards in the world, but that isn't going to stop someone dedicated/mercurial enough from taking opportunities to make profit on hotly-wanted items.

Look at this very thread -- there were likely several people here, myself included, that only got a copy of this because of a website link that was never posted publicly, was not indexed on the website until after the fact, and was only sent out to specific subscribers in a loyalty program, which was then posted here by a very kind member. People are going to take every advantage they can to get something, especially when it's something signed by a heavily-coveted artist selling extremely-limited supplies of their own signed work.

Realistically, there are more important things I get irked by as a collector. The weird, antisocial people who go to thrift stores and hog sections while scanning everything in their way and then buying carts full of books for little-to-no purpose. The absurd markup that some retail chains and aftermarket platforms (a couple of which were mentioned in this very thread) have done with signed works after the fact. People who try to skip lines at author signings by claiming they're personal friends, and/or simply butting in.

I don't necessarily like seeing certain members bragging here about reselling stuff immediately after buying it, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I've also benefited from deals by flippers. I just bought a dual-signed book a couple weeks ago that was bought by a flipper in my city for $5-6 and sold to me for $25. The dual signed Samson/Gilmour photo and book was bought by me from someone who resold at just above face value a couple months after "Dreamers" came out. And there are a handful of other items I've purchased because I've weighed the opportunity cost and decided it was better for me to pay a premium on a scarce item vs. waiting for months/years/never getting a copy to begin with.

In the grand scheme of things, less than 20% of the available supply (500 copies) being sold on EBay is a drop in the bucket.

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Permalink Reply by Vamonos on April 8, 2023 at 3:48am

I reckon that photograph of DG/PS unlikely fell into the hands of flippers. It was given away to fans who had bought tickets to her book launch event as a compensation for delays due to covid - and it was a real surprise to us when they announced it.

I got 1 and could have had 2, but we decided to do the right thing and told them we only needed one. That was my very first signed item and what made me realise there are many collectors out there who would pay hundreds for a photograph like that. I felt so stupid about refusing the 2nd photograph that I made sure to buy 2 signed CDs when they came up for sale. I still have them both.

I don't usually sell repeats and I am not against people who do - it's their property and they can do with it whatever they want. Usually I just give them to friends and family as birthday gifts or trade them.

Pure flipping is on a different level though. It's lowlife idiots who think they found an easy way to make money and they can outsmart real collectors and fans by going to extreme extents of audacity to get what they want. Many times they are the ones creating the scarcity because they hoard anything and everything with a potential re-sale profit.

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Permalink Reply by David Blaydes on April 8, 2023 at 10:51am

got mine ,nice to think Kate held this in her hands and only signed 500 got lucky!

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Permalink Reply by Allginger on April 8, 2023 at 11:10am

Anybody received their Rough Trade order yet?

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Permalink Reply by Lester Freeman on April 8, 2023 at 11:20am

Obviously we will never know the answer but I wonder how many have the additional words hidden in the signature page?
How many people don’t even know that’s a thing and sitting with a copy of one ? I’m

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Permalink Reply by Joe on April 8, 2023 at 4:02pm

I do wonder how many fakes will crop up. There seems to be a few variations in writing style which is inconsistent. This latest UV signed book presents some red flags. All the copies which have had longer text have been in capitals, this is not. Some of the lettering seems inconsistent too.

There also seems to be a difference in brightness when the UV torch is used on the hidden message. The brighter ink could indicate a legitimate hidden message. The sketchy signatures on eBay have all been with a duller ink.

In my opinion the book which has the “Now you’ve read between the lines” is definitely legitimate. Not sure about the other…

Again, these are just my observations.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Woods on April 9, 2023 at 2:16am

I like that it says signed edition on the signed page, not just the sticker on the cover. But I agree, the invisible ink is wide open to fakery and there’s big money for them.