There are many reasons to obtain collectible Oz books. Below you will find just a few of them.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book, written by L. Frank Baum in 1899, is regarded as America's all time favorite children's book and is considered to be so valuable that a first edition/ first state copy has sold for over $100,000!
Not everyone is aware, however, that L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen more Oz books in the series culminating with Magic of Oz published after his death in 1919 (1856-1919). All together, Baum wrote over eighty books in the Oz series as well as other stories.
Also, many readers may not know that as late as 1950s there was a vast conspiracy of silence about Baum. Even though children certainly continued to read them, and the publisher Reilly & Lee still had all the Oz titles in print, many librarians and critics of juvenile books put up an almost united front against the Baum's books alleging that some of the characters were inappropriate for children. Even the New York Public Library permitted no Oz books except The Wizard of OZ in any juvenile departments around the city! Even buying a copy was difficult because very few bookstores stocked Reilly & Lee books.
All that has happily changed. Grown-ups discovered Oz books, children continued to read them, and the theme related to the Wicked witch is even appropriate for the Broadway musical! Still, the fact that the Oz books were not available for such a long time affected tremendously their availability. Now L. Frank Baum's books are now treasures to find, especially when they are first or even second state editions and are in good condition (first state is the first printing during a press). For example, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written in 1899, had a first edition printing of only about ten thousand and of that, only about three thousand were in the first state, making the book one of most sought after. In comparison, the number of published Harry Potter books, other children's favorite, exceeds twenty - five million copies. With the supply dwindling and demand increasing, it is clear why collectible Oz books are very sought after by collectors.
Still, like with any other collectible field, it is easy to make costly mistakes. This site provides a future collector with invaluable information that helps anyone interested in collecting Oz books to avoid common pitfalls and offers useful tools to identify the true value of Oz books.
In my opinion, L. Frank Baum is the Lewis Carroll and the Hans Christian Andersen of the Unites States!
How some people exhibit love for Oz theme.