D'Abrera books still hot and worth the green !

[trehopr1]

These past few days I was following auctions which were posted on EBay featuring some clean volumns of D'Abrera's series. Of note was a 1982 copy of his Part 2 Holartic butterflies and Part 1 and Part 2 of his Oriental butterfly volumns. The oriental volumns were also 1982 copies. I bid on the Holartic copy to $60 but, folded my hand due to monetary constraints. It wound up going for $118 bucks plus $10 bucks for shipping. Both Oriental volumns sold for $132 bucks each respectively plus the additional $10 bucks shipping.
Not too shabby for books which have been regarded by some as "coffee table fare". I know I would not go about placing a $120 or $130 odd dollar book out on my coffee table for visitors to leaf thru like some cheap newspaper.
And while I do know that content is limited in the text and that there are nomenclatural mistakes as well as changes which have occurred; it still shows that there is a community of collectors out there who still find the series beautiful, useful to an extent, and something they still don't mind acquiring when possible !

[Deleted]

As pictoral identification guides the books are still very useful, you just have to ignore his "opinions"

[exoticimports]

That's not expensive. What do you think LeMaire's Arsenura and Ceratocamp books would go for? I just stole a Collector's Grade Publications BREN book for $150 and I'll flip it for $450 easy.

[Adam Cotton]

Holarctic part 2 was published in 1992, not 1982.

Adam.

[trehopr1]

Sorry about the wrong year on the Holartic book. Just went with what the seller advertised.
As regards the cost; I can only say that something I view as expensive is all relative to your station in life. I am a family man with teenagers and only a modest income. I have to save as best I can for anything collection related and whatever choices I make must be carefully weighed.
Any book in the $100 range or more is indeed expensive to me. I have bought an awful lot of nice specimens from old collections with a hundred bucks and been quite happy! The specimens always come first in importance followed by drawers and than books a distant third place.
I really do like books and have managed a few pricey ones (100 to 400) price range over the years but, I seldom nowadays have such freedom.

[nomad]

The only extensive colour butterflies of the World identification guides since Seitz that cover all the fauna regions. A massive amount of material from the World's best butterfly collection. For the colour illustrations alone, second hand copies will only increase in value.