Thought I'd let you know something I sort of knew but spotted on a website which might interest some people:

Some of Fred J Taylor's books are starting to become very collectable and hence very expensive. "Favourite Swims" in particular seems to be worth silly money on eBay.

So you'll be interested to note that <a href="www.watermeadow.co.uk">Watermeadow Books</a> are looking to republish a couple of Fred J's books - "Favourite Swims", and "Fishing Here & There". They aren't listed on the site as such, but I knew John (who runs the site and is a good friend of Fred's) was planning to republish Favourite Swims, and I notice that it is listed in the "Fred J Bibliography" section on that site.

So keep an eye on the site if you are interested.

I'm not in any way affiliated with the site, by the way, so this isn't an advert. Honest!

oh, and hello all - missed me? (again?)

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B*gger... my link didn't work. Oh well,

http://www.watermeadow.co.uk

It worked OK for me Glenn.

Yeh, but you're different, Del

[ 17. September 2004, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: Spindle ]

That's very true Glenn.

I've got a FJ "Trotting rod" made by Hardys, has that gone up in value as well??
Colin

About £85-100 Colin, depending upon condition. Or if two mug punters on Ebay both fancy it, perhaps a bit more.

Looked in on the link and I've got the "Fishing For Tench" book by Fred, in fact last night I went to bed early and read it through again. Most enjoyable.

When a new edition comes out it's great for collectors like me who buy books to read rather than just acquire them. I can then sell my 1st edition, buy the latest often more up to date version and still have plenty of change!

The "serious" type of collector will prefer first editions in as pristine a condition as he can find. These therefore can become very expensive, but such first editions also make very good investments. In fact the gap between 1st and later editions ever widens over the years, even in percentage terms.

For instance shops will charge big money for 1st edition copies of "Favourite Swims". The same goes for the follow-up "Fishing Here & There (More Favourite Swims)" and Fred J.'s "Tench". In fact the latter is one of the scarcest of the Richard Walker Angling Library that included "Grayling" by Reg Righyni, plus Jim Gibbinson's 1st book "Carp" published in 1968 (not to be confused with Jim's later book with the same title.)

I've currently got all the above-mentioned books for sale except for a 1st edition Favourite Swims (another hopefully coming soon). For further details just follow the link to Classic Fishing Books in my signature.