Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2006 Issue

Save Time, Increase Profits: Take Control of Your Foreign Affairs

We might be buying from sellers who have no interest in US dollars, but want to be paid in pounds or euros.


By Renee Magriel Roberts

The Internet has not only pushed bookselling into automation, but also into hypertension-producing foreign markets. It's great having access to all those bookstores in Edinburgh, or the customers from Japan, but every single methodology commonly available to complete foreign transactions appears designed to create headaches and cost us money.

Where booksellers might have once just sold books locally, now we get orders emanating from all sorts of unusual locations -- I once received one that read "Joe Smith, Mauritius, Indian Ocean". We might be buying from sellers who have no interest in US dollars, but want to be paid in L (pounds sterling) or C (euros). If that weren't enough to create anxiety, vendors are anxious to have either checks in their home currencies, or worse still, wire transfers directly into their bank accounts.

In addition to direct sales, we frequently buy books from overseas vendors, or engage in third-party transactions, where we buy from another seller to meet the needs of one of our customers. When either customer or vendor is located overseas, the timing of these transactions can be a killer. How can you be assured that by the time you receive a check from your customer, the exchange rate offered by your bank in a wire transfer will enable you to make any kind of profit? With really thin margins on third-party transactions, you can lose money if the money market goes against you.

One can always choose to only buy and sell domestically. I can understand this decision, especially when shipping and insuring incoming and outgoing offshore transactions can significantly shave off any profits. You could just roll up the moat and make do with US sales, but that is not a formula for success in a global economy.

When the dollar dips against the pound, for example, we notice a definite upswing in our foreign sales, and conversely, when the dollar rises, it is a better time to buy stock from overseas. If you are going to engage successfully in international trade, you have to be aware of the relative values of different currencies in order to maximize your profits.

If you just use third party sites to handle sales transactions, understand that you are being charged many times for the service they provide: built into the commissions and fees you are paying are hidden fees, such as the use of your money over time and the shaving of profits off the transaction via the exchange rate. To ignore the cost of the currency exchange is to tacitly agree to a continuous tax.

Rare Book Monthly

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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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  • Potter & Potter Auctions
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

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