I was reading Allen Ahearn's "Book Collecting: A Comprehensive Guide" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1989) tonight. He makes a comparison between coin collecting and book collecting, and the market forces and factors in each discipline.

Ahearn's analysis of the rare-coin market, and also of the rare-book market, was modified a bit when the 1995 edition of his book was published. "Very fine copies of scarce books are rare" was softened to "very fine copies of scarce books border on being rare," and all discussion of particular "very fine" rare coins being hunted down five at a time over a matter of weeks, as if they were Thomas Kinkade prints or limited-edition Beanie Babies, was completely gone.