Oldest AMC WM Guide Question

vftt.org

Help Support vftt.org:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

GNR

Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
69
Reaction score
7
After searching Ebay for AMC White Mountain Guides, I found one published in 1936, which, as of this posting, is going for $190. I feel is a lot of $$$, but I don't have any reference either for how much it might be worth.

What is the oldest AMC guide that a member of this community owns, and what is it worth(to you)? Is it part of a collection, or is it a family heirloom maybe? How far back can we go? I've searched here and on Google for some info on this but came up empty.
 
Man you people know "everything" dont you? It amazes me the level of knowledgeable people on this board.

I think you could ask basically anything and get an answer..

Thanks for such a great board.

M
 
as stated, first edition was in 1907 - these are quite collectible and catch quite a price in good condition. Some web searching at rare book dealers has brought up prices of $150 for the 1952 edition. I would say that the $190 is in line with reality for the older edition...

Finally - my library science school has finally paid off! :D
 
So is there any connection between the AMC White Mountain Guides and the earlier White Mountain Guides by S.C. Eastman? Those go back at least to 1858.
 
I bought a 1955 edition from Mike Dickerman's store, Bondcliff Books in Littleton, about a year ago for $40. The book is in very good to excellent condition overall and the maps are like new.

Doesn't Steve Smith run the Mountain Wanderer?
 
NH_Mtn_Hiker said:
I bought a 1955 edition from Mike Dickerman's store, Bondcliff Books in Littleton, about a year ago for $40. The book is in very good to excellent condition overall and the maps are like new.

Doesn't Steve Smith run the Mountain Wanderer?
You often find Mike at the Mountain Wanderer covering for Steve. Tuesday's, if memory serves.
Am not sure what the business relationship is. I think they own Bondcliff Press jointly.
 
A note about eBay:

The rarer the item, the wackier its pricing. As something gets commoditized by selling often, the final bidding approaches its "true" market value. But Limmers, for example, can either go at dead-on values (when there's lots of supply), or for strangely high or low values (when supply is spotty). I got mine for about $60, but the more usual market value for them actually hovers around $125-$140.

If the old AMC guides sell very rarely, it may be hard to discern a realistic "accurate" appraisal. That's when it may be better to buy from an expert dealer. You may not get a bargain, but you may be more assured of obtaining a realistic market valuation.

eBay allows you to get notifications whenever a given search term pops up. You can then track an item for a while before buying one. "Completed Sales" may also help.

Hope this gets you there,

--Mike
 
FWIW, I bought the 1940 edition on Ebay last year for about $60. It's very nice and it's interesting to look at the maps and see trails that no longer exist or have been dramatically rerouted.

I have been collecting the old editions of all the different AMC guides and issues of Appalachia for a while now. From what I've seen, it's the pre-WW2 WM guides that fetch the big bucks.
 
I have a 1920, 1928 and several in the 1930's. As far as value is concerned, to me they are priceless. I love reading them and looking at the maps. They really have some interesting information in them. For instance back then we were trampers, hikers were unknown. Woodcraft skills meant you knew how to use a compass. Great stuff!!
 
The 1936 is valuable as its pre Hurricane. For abandoned trail buffs, its a nice reference as a lot of trails disappeared afte the Hurricane. Make sure that the guides include all the maps, the value drops without them. Several dealers keep an eye on Ebay and snap up anything that is selling below market value. The pricing tends to vary significantly depending upon the time of year, I have gotten my best deals when during hiking season, once the weather gets nastier and people are hanging out at home, they tend to look at E-bay more often. I have picked up several prewar guides for less than $50 each a few years ago during the summer.

Other than the first edition, I beleive that there are three version of the 1921 guide and they are hard to find.

I have a twenties edition that recomends carrying morpheine int he first aid kit :)

An answer to BCSKIER, the 1961 Maine mountain guide is most likely the frist edition (I dont have mine in front of me) therefore its a bit more valuable, but the market is fairly thin. I have seen them in the 30 to 50 dollar range.
 
Here are some rough estimates based on my own collecting experiences. My oldest guide is from the early 1850s. These days, I'm mostly focused on ephemera and photos.

The most valuable guides are the AMC guides from 1907-1936. 1936 is the most interesting because of the hurricane. They start at about $100 on up to around $600. The first edition can sell for considerably more, but $400-$600 is about right. From 1940 to 1963, they sell for around $40-$100. From 1966 to 1983, $20-$50. 1987 and later, except the most current edition are usually under $20.

There is less interest in non-AMC guides. Tripp's and Eastman guides going back to the 1850s can be had for under $150. Chisholm (Sweetser) guides from 1880-1913 around $50-$100. The Starr King guide was as common as the bible, so you shouldn't have to pay more than $40-$100 to obtain one in good condition, althought the price on this one tends to vary wildly. Drake's travelogue is excellent and not too uncommon, around $100.

Other guide books appear rarely, so it's hard to put an price range on them. A number of excellent guides were produced to cover a specific area or a small number of trips and lasted one or two editions. My favorites are from the 1920s - O'Kane's 1925 guide and Bradford Washburn's Presidential range guide from 1926 (with photos by Shorey). O'Kane is easy to find, but many others don't appear on the market very often. For example, it's been a few years since I've seen an early WODC guide for sale. It's tough to estimate prices on these. Good luck finding them in libraries, either, most of the old, interesting guides have been stolen from the ones I frequent. :mad:

Individual issues of Appalachia tend to be overpriced. About $5 an issue is reasonable after 1970. $5-$10 per issue is reasonable for 1950-1970. From 1930-1950 expect to pay $10-$30. Anything before that will range from $20-$50 each, with the earliest for much more. Early journals were unfocused, so do some research in libraries to identify specific issues you'd like to add to your collection. The bound editions are common, but you may have to prod a librarian to pull them from storage.

For all of these, I find that if the bookseller has an interest in White Mountain history, the price goes way up (with the exception of the Mountain Wanderer). My local bookseller who will remain unnamed charges on the high end for even the most common items. If you find a bookseller with a handful of items, good deals can be had. eBay is not as good as it once was for this, the demand is still high, but not as high as it was around 2000-2001.
 
Last edited:
I remember during the rah-rah days of the internet boom in the early 2000's that a first edition 1907 AMC guide with all the maps went for the unbelievable price of $1,250 on eBay. :eek: :eek: :eek: Mike Dickerman even commented on the crazy price in one of his weekly columns.
 
Last edited:
The 1907 book is called "Guide to the Paths and Camps in the White Mountains Part I" and is considered an ancestor to the AMC White Mountain Guide because it was produced by the AMC Department of Improvements. It included the North Country, Presidentials, Carters, Conway-Jackson, and the Eastern Pemi, but not Moosilauke, Kinsmans, Franconias, Western Pemi, Sandwich Range, or Southern NH.

If you are collecting rare books you should get them in mint condition for greater profit potential while if you actually want the information they contain you can get worn copies much cheaper and not feel that you need to wear white gloves to read them. Some classics are available as reprints.

Older guidebooks are primarily of interest to historians who want to know where Mt Lethe really was and contain little of value to actual hikers. Before some date (1923?) are off copyright and useful information can be freely republished such as on the abandoned trails website.

Older Appalachia magazines contain both fascinating and useless material, I often glance at a couple volumes when in a library that has them. Hopefully they will be scanned by the Google Library project so the content will be both widely available and better indexed.
 
Last edited:
at some point I have owned most of the Whites mountain classics including a first edition of the AMC guide. I paid 200 bucks for it and sold it for 300, now that was before the internet destroyed book collecting as we all knew it. You cannot realistically buy books that are that old with the internet competition, 1250 bucks on ebay? completely overpriced.
 
RoySwkr said:
Before ~1950 are off copyright and useful information can be freely republished such as on the abandoned trails website.

For books published before 1950 there's a chance the author didn't renew the copyright at the end of the original 28-year term (in which case the copyright expired before the rules changed in 1978 to make copyrights last longer), but if they did renew, the book is still under copyright. Books published or registered before 1923 are definitely in the public domain.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15t.html
 
Top