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Rare Books Insider – Dec 20, 2021

Welcome to Rare Books Insider for 20th December 2021 – FREE version.

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We use Moneyball tactics to discover undervalued, mispriced, and hidden gems in Fractional Investing.

Rare books in 2021

Rare books continued their sideways trajectory into the last trading week of 2021 on the fractional markets.

Data from Rally

Zooming out, the picture looks different for the broader rare books market. November was no doubt boosted by the sale of the US Constitution at Sotheby’s for $43m, but it was a strong month regardless.

And it’s not just November. Year on year, book sales are $590m higher for 2021 than they were in 2020.

Data courtesy Rare Books Hub

Last week

Fractional Secondary Markets

Two books started trading on Rally’s secondary market last week: The Federalist Papers and Flemming’s The Spy Who Loved Me. The former was mostly flat while Spy jumped 10%.

Auctions

Harry Potter has featured in our hero image two issues in a row

We’ve been tracking Heritage’s books to film auction for a few weeks now, and it didn’t disappoint.

For the second week in a row, a Harry Potter first UK edition sold for big bucks, but this time it was a monster result.

A pristine copy of the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (one of 500 total) sold for a modern-fiction record $471k, nearly 6x its pre-auction estimate. A slightly dinged up version went for £94k at Sotheby’s the week prior.

Another copy, which sits somewhere in between the two copies above, will IPO on Otis this week for $115,800 (more on this below).

The rest of the auction featured a number of notable sales and record-breakers.

A set of all three Lord of the Rings books shattered a 20-year old record when it hammered at $103k. A complete set of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, all of which were autographed by the illustrator, went for an even $100k. A copy of The Great Gatsby matched Narnia with an even $100k.

At the high end, rare books are flying.

This week and next week

Fractional Market IPOs

Are you sick of hearing about Harry Potter yet?

One new book to IPO this week – the first rare book to feature on fractional platform Otis.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 1st Ed, 1st Print

  • Market Cap: $115,800
  • Inferred Value: $180,000
  • Drop: 12/20/21 on Otis
  • Recommendation: [INSIDERS ONLY]

Fractional Secondary Markets

One new book opens to secondary trading this week – Animal Farm by George Orwell. Our inferred value for it is around $6,500.

Auctions

I couldn’t find anything interesting at all going on before the new year. Sorry!

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Author

Picture of Wyatt Cavalier

Wyatt Cavalier

With a background in finance & intelligence analysis, Wyatt has an unhealthy obsession with finding the best blue chip investment opportunities. His previous newsletter, Fractional, resonated deeply with subscribers, bringing actionable insights and unconventional trading strategies. His rare book collection specializes in banned editions. He currently lives in Spain with his beautiful wife, three young boys, and dog Monty.

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    Disclaimer: The authors of Alt Assets, Inc. are not finance or tax professionals. They are self-taught accredited investors, sharing information, research, and lessons learned. The published content is unique, based on certain assumptions and market conditions at the time of publishing and is intended to serve solely as research, not financial advice. Alts I LLC (the “Fund”) is an affiliate of Alt Assets, Inc. and the Fund has conducted a private placement offering under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The Fund may invest in one, several or all of the alternative asset classes that Alt Assets, Inc. publishes content on its site. Any published articles on Alt Assets, Inc. that an alternative asset has a “buy”, “pass”, “overvalued” or “undervalued” designation does not factor into the asset classes that the Fund through its manager ultimately invests in, and thus, any of the Fund’s investments that have positive designations on the Alt Assets, Inc.’s site are purely coincidental as the Fund is actively managed and guided by its own investment parameters as summarized in the relevant private placement memorandum.