Buy a magic book, sell your liver

Books shouldn't be an "investment."

Magic books shouldn't be an investment. Or rather, they shouldn't be an investment as you'd invest in a fund or crypto. The idea behind the latter is to invest in it, then sell it later to get more money out of it. Magic books shouldn't be like this, yet this is precisely what they've become.

We see it time and time again. People are buying multiple copies of a limited quantity magic book, only to sell it on eBay one day later.

We also see people complaining on forums that reprinting a long-out-of-print book will make their "investment" worth less.

Look, your investment being worth less is not the problem here, you dipshit!

The problem is that we have people hoarding information they'll never use. They only buy it to resell it later. This is fucked up, this is hurting magic. This is making sure that people who actually want to study and improve at magic don't have the chance to do so. Why? Because the people who actually love it and are likely performing semi- or fully professionally often don't have the money to pay triple the price for knowledge.

The other group it's hurting is young magicians. When I was 15 I bought the Vernon books in a magic shop for 30 euro's. I would keep recommending these books to people, only to find out that they were out of print and nearly impossible to get for under 100 euros. All things fair, they're good books, but when I was 15, I could've never afforded 100 euros. The result? Some kids these days don't even know who Vernon is, and if they do, they have an impossible time getting their hands on the material.

When I was 15, my mentor Ger Copper sold me multiple books worth over 100 euro's for 10 euro's each, with the following line:

"I'd rather have you pay 10 euro's for these and actually read them, than for these books to rot away on the shelf of some collector that's never going to open them."

Those words have always stuck with me, and that's the way I believe we should treat magic books. We should help spread knowledge and light, not hoard them for monetary gain.

Once and for all, to all those who buy magic books with the intent to resell them later for a profit. F!@k YOU!