Margaret Langstaff writes about books and the book business for several national periodicals.

OverBooked reflects her views on trends in the book industry.

Baby-boom collectors join the hunt for a 'flatsigned' treasure

BY MARGARET LANGSTAFF

Book freaks of baby boomer vintage have now lived long enough for the artifacts of their youthful reading to have acquired the luster of reverence and unreality that qualify them as collectible. Anyone of a certain age reading this column is sure to have stashed away in cardboard boxes, somewhere, first editions of certain authors' works that other people, usually of similar vintage, are willing to pay good money for.

E-books be damned -- old books are still alive and kicking and appreciating in value with every passing day. Those of us who cut our eyeteeth on Salinger, Cheever, Updike and Bellow; on Kerouac, Burroughs and Ferlinghetti; on Tom McGuane, Richard Brautigan and Tom Robbins: harken! Thar's gold in them boxes in the attic, maybe.

A thriving trade has grown up around the books of this generation's salad days. And as we start down the path of filthy lucre to cash in on these unexpected opportunities, a strange thing often happens: with a tingling in the hands and heart, our lust for books is refired, causing us to re-enter the book-buying frolic with renewed zest. "Gads! If someone will pay 100 bucks for my first edition of The Exorcist today, I wonder what a fine first edition of the latest V.S. Naipaul opus with a fine, not price-clipped dust jacket, and a printing line number that runs 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 will bring 20 years from now?" Suddenly, you see, even new titles of quality take on a luminous green glow.

No, you were not mad all these years as you voraciously bought, read and shelved every book you drooled over. No! You were investing!

If you'd only known, you would have taken better care of your treasures. Connoisseurs of first and rare editions are a fussy, nit-picky, monomaniacal sort. Did you write your name in the book? Points off. Did you cut the price off the dust jacket? More points off. Worse, is the dust jacket missing altogether? Barely worth collecting at all. God forbid, did you underline or highlight the pages? Forgetaboutit. Does that first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird that you picked up long ago on a bargain table have a mark on the edges indicating the publisher remaindered it? Then it's not as highly prized as a copy that doesn't have such a blemish. Oh, and all that tossing, dropping and slamming we did with those fond companions of our raging-hormone days? Shouldn't have been so rough. Bumps, dings and jabs count off.

In the midst of this ironic frenzy, the very notion of autographed copies has morphed into a new and wonderous thing with layers of nuance and hierarchies of meaning. There are signed limited editions; there are signed numbered limited editions; there are tipped-in autographs (signed on a separate piece of paper and inserted/attached to the book); inscribed autographs (in which an author signs a book to or for a specific person); author presentation copies (given by the author to someone, frequently some time after publication date and in response to a request). And there are, by golly, flatsigned copies, a Stephen King coinage for the most desirable of the signed copies in this inky universe of heightened value. Signed copies of the flatsigned variety are those the author him/herself flat-out signed in the first euphoria of publication at a semi-liturgical event usually held in a bookstore.

And now a word of caution: read up on this phenom before you take that wheelbarrow full of gold bricks in bound covers to the auctioneer or rare bookseller. The more you know, the better off you will fare at the book fair. A good place to start: ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter (considered indispensable by the experts). And for a sampling of current prices: Advance Book Exchange Web site (abe.com) and Ebay's First Editions Web site (ebay.com).