I regularly pay $30-$50 for service manuals. Maybe I'm just late joining the game, but a $20-30 manual is a real find for me. Parts manuals that I've found seldom go for less than $60, with hard to find or popular ones (1965 and 1968) often well over $100. I scored a '63 service manual just the other day using "Buy it now" for $30, and was tickled pink. No idea of the condition, but the description said that it was used with some writing in it. I steer away from the new or unused manuals, because I plan to use them!
With the increasing popularity of these cars, this stuff is only going to get harder to come by. As I mentioned the other day, I am concerned about the reprint manuals, as they are run on a copier. My experience with documents like these, especially heavy books, are that they eventually offset. I had one old book (not a parts book) that was fused together into one large brick... I take special care with my new ($115) '68 parts book to be sure that doesn't happen.
Don't get me wrong... it's great that new reprints are available, as some originals can be quite elusive. Most of the reprints are also the "Final" revision, having all mid-year changes and updates. Alot of the manuals you see on eBay are initial releases (Sept '64 for a 1965 book, for instance) so you won't know about mid-year changes.
Hopefully someone will start offset printing these one day. Any printers on the list??
Steve Charette
In a message dated 5/9/2002 9:16:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 19:07:03 -0700
From: danny owen <dannobowen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: IML:
Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just checked ebay for 1963Imperial parts to restore my two door.
There was a "nice" owner's manual that sold for $49.00.
That just floored me. I hesitated to spend $20 on one a few months ago. I'm
glad I did, as the one I got was mint.
Another that was pretty bad was thrown in with some other parts as a freebie.
I just can't believe that this literature is bringing this kind of money.
Danny
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