Book Board Chat

Highest realized Ebay prices for "celebrity" high school yearbooks

$900.01 Best offer accepted for Mickey Mantle's Sophomore yearbook. Normally a Sophomore yearbook would realize much less than the Senior book, but in this case the book is very fragile with a soft cover, and hand bound with clips so it is quite scarce to see one that has survived in good shape and intact. In addition Mick has a really nice individually-posed head photo (often lacking in lower year presentations.) A good price for a tough book.

$382 Joe Perry Senior year. The Aerosmith singer attended a small private academy and thus, again, one does not see this book very often. It has a full page of photos (as they were allowed to design their own Senior pages.) Strong price

$375 Set of 3 yearbooks comprising 2003, 2004, 2005 Laguna Hills High School and portraying all of the Reality TV personalities from The Hills etc. including Lauren Conrad, Kristin Cavalleri etc. Someone is a big fan as that was the upset price and it did not go beyond.

$374.99 A set of Sophomore, Junior and Senior yearbooks for former pitching great, Hall of Famer and now President of the Texas Rangers, Nolan Ryan. This demonstrates how far the market has fallen for these kinds of books, as this set was in overall OK condition and Nolan has good appearances in all three books. In 2006 this would have sold for $1200+

$305.03 Ted Williams Junior Year. Ted only appears in a group shot of the baseball team, and even if you are under 40 you need to squint a bit to make him out. Only commands the price due to the name...and was a decent price for a relatively unattractive book. The Senior version sells frequently in the $500-$1250 range depending on condition.

$199.99 Tony Robbins (self-help guru) Senior year. Buy it Now FAN

$189.99 Steve Jobs Junior year (sold 4 days before his death...another copy listed after his death at $699.99...doubt if it will sell!) Nice small posed head photo and as a bonus one gets a small posed head photo of Chris-Ann Brennan, the mother of his first child, Lisa (whose paternity he denied for several years, forcing mother and daughter to live on welfare...oops not supposed to drop notes like that while all of the homages are still out there?) The Senior version has sold in the past for $400-$600 as he and Bill Gates have an iconic following as THE two tech titans.

$169.99 Jeffrey Katzenberg and Leon Black as Seniors. Smaller school, might not even have been bought for the personalities, but to replace lost personal book or because a relative/friend was pictured.

Overall, as those here from the old Book Board know, I would be able to fill a long post with books that sold over $1000 quite often going back 4 and 5 years. That world has dramatically changed. The very, very top end is still fairly strong, but most everything else makes a GREAT market for collectors....and since I am a collector, I do not mind seeing the prices I pay go down.