Selling V.B. Price Books in Albuquerque

If you own an Albuquerque library that takes itself seriously about Albuquerque — meaning not just novels set here, but the city itself as a subject — you own V.B. Price. A City at the End of the World (UNM Press, 1992) is the single book-length treatment of what Albuquerque is, physically and civically, that every working ABQ architect, planner, UNM faculty member, and long-tenured columnist I have ever bought from has had on the shelf.

This pillar covers the 1992 first, the 2003 revised edition, the 20th-anniversary edition that followed, the 2011 UNM Press environmental companion The Orphaned Land: New Mexico's Environment Since the Manhattan Project, signature authentication for a living author whose inscribed copies circulate in the ABQ estate market, and the estate-shelf fingerprint that tells me a V.B. Price collection is coming before I have even unpacked the first box.

I take the complete Albuquerque-regional libraries these books usually live inside as a free donation pickup under the New Mexico Literacy Project — the whole collection gone in one trip, the collectible pieces resold to fund the work and the rest donated or recycled, nothing to the landfill. I don't buy books. But if you own a V.B. Price first and want to sell it yourself, I won't let it leave the house unrecognized — I'll tell you which printing you have and where to sell it: a specialist dealer, an auction house, or the right online marketplace.

A City at the End of the World — the 1992 UNM Press first edition

This is the book. When a first-time Albuquerque architect walks into an ABQ estate library and looks at the bookshelves to take the measure of the person who lived there, A City at the End of the World is one of the first titles they scan for. If it is on the shelf, the library is serious. If it is on the shelf inscribed, the library belonged to somebody who knew V.B. Price personally — which in ABQ civic circles is a short list of architects, planners, UNM colleagues, and editorial-page contacts.

The 1992 University of New Mexico Press first edition identifies cleanly. Title page reads: University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, with 1992 copyright. No "Revised Edition" language anywhere — not on the title page, not on the copyright page verso, not on the jacket flap, not in any preface. Later printings of the 1992 text exist, but the first printing is the collectible grade; the jacket's photographic front image and the condition of the dust jacket drive most of the price variance I see at the architect-estate tier.

The book is built as a sequence of linked essays rather than a single continuous argument. It treats Albuquerque's geographic setting — the Rio Grande corridor, the volcanic West Mesa, the Sandia escarpment — alongside the postwar planning decisions that produced the sprawl pattern, the civic buildings that did and did not work, and the architectural inheritance the Pueblo, Hispano, and Anglo builders left on the ground. It is not polemic and it is not nostalgic. It is a working civic document by somebody who lived in the city, walked it, and cared whether it went well or badly.

The Orphaned Land — 2011 UNM Press

The Orphaned Land: New Mexico's Environment Since the Manhattan Project (UNM Press, 2011) is the environmental companion to A City at the End of the World. It takes New Mexico's post-1945 environmental record as a single coherent subject: Los Alamos and the weapons laboratories, the uranium mining and milling legacy on the Navajo Nation and in the Grants district, the groundwater contamination around Kirtland and the national labs, the acequia politics, the water-rights adjudications, the rural land-use questions.

The 2011 UNM Press first is the collectible printing. Identification is straightforward — UNM Press imprint, 2011 copyright, no revised-edition notation. The book has a narrower readership than the urbanism volume — environmental historians, acequia and land-grant advocates, UNM faculty in law and environmental studies, and the older generation of ABQ and Santa Fe journalists who covered the labs — but its readership is durable. When The Orphaned Land arrives on an estate shelf alongside A City at the End of the World, the collection is usually from a serious environmental-law or civic-advocacy household and the rest of the library often confirms it.

A 2011 first with a clean jacket prices respectably but below the 1992 urbanism first. A signed or inscribed 2011 first adds meaningful premium at the specialist tier. I take the complete Albuquerque-regional libraries these books usually live inside for free donation pickup under the New Mexico Literacy Project; if you'd rather sell a 2011 first yourself, I'll tell you what it is and point you to a specialist dealer, an auction house, or the right online marketplace.

Signed and inscribed copies

V.B. Price is a living, working author who has done decades of local readings, signings, UNM events, and civic-organization appearances. Signed copies are meaningfully more common than for mid-century authors like Fray Angélico Chávez or Erna Fergusson whose signature pools are closed by death. That availability does not erase the premium on signed copies, but it does shape it — a signed 1992 first of A City at the End of the World carries a modest premium over an unsigned 1992 first, not the 3-5x multiple you see on closed-pool signatures.

Where the signed-copy market concentrates is in inscribed copies — personalized to a named recipient, particularly a named Albuquerque architect, planner, UNM faculty member, civic librarian, Tribune or Journal colleague, or known ABQ cultural figure. An inscribed 1992 first to a recognizable ABQ provenance is the tier where serious collectors will pay real money, and where the book crosses over from urbanism-library item to civic-archive artifact.

Signatures should still be verified against known exemplars before any high-value transaction. Rolling decades of signing means handwriting drift is real; signatures from the early 1990s and from the 2010s do not look identical even when both are authentic. A dealer or collector with V.B. Price exemplars on file — or direct access to the author through the UNM or ABQ civic networks — is the safest authentication route before a high-tier sale.

How I handle the pickup

I don't buy books — that's not what this is. If you have a full ABQ architect-planner-faculty-columnist library and you want the whole thing gone in one trip, I schedule a free donation pickup, bring the van, and handle the sort: the collectible firsts get resold to fund the work, the trade and general-reference books are donated or recycled, and nothing goes to the landfill. If you have a single V.B. Price 1992 first you'd rather sell yourself, I won't let it leave unrecognized — I'll tell you exactly which printing and condition tier you're holding and point you to where it sells: a specialist dealer, an auction house, or the right online marketplace.

The owner's decision tree is short. Want the whole library gone in one trip — NMLP free donation pickup, and I'll flag anything genuinely valuable before it goes so you know what you have. Want to sell a single named collectible yourself — I'll identify it and tell you where it sells. Not sure which applies — call 702-496-4214 and I will work it out on the phone.

What these books are worth: a 1992 first holds a floor set by rolling sold-comp data. Where an inscribed first has provenance to a named Albuquerque architect or planner, the ceiling opens up. Where a 2011 first of The Orphaned Land carries signature and environmental-law provenance, it prices well. If you're selling one yourself, ignore asking-price averages — real recent sold comps are what matter, and I'm glad to walk any owner through how to read them so you don't give away or undersell something genuinely valuable.