I started collecting books officially in January 1998. Jim taught me about first editions and condition and many other things as I followed him around books stores. And I had read Ian Ellis's Book Finds.

Both Jim and Mr. Ellis talked about types of books to collect ... fiction such as mystery and literary fiction. But they described children's books as not being as collectible since they were usually found in poor condition from being read a lot.

I was not an expert by any means on book collecting but did know a little about the basics.

In May 1999 I went on a business trip to Albany, New York. I arrived in the afternoon and was staying at a Marriott Hotel.

That evening I left my room to go out to a restaurant. I got to the elevators and punched the "down" button. When the elevator stopped on my floor, I got in. A family of four was in the elevator ... a husband and wife and two children - a boy and girl who were about 11 or 12.

The boy and girl were doing something I don't think I have seen before. They were both standing in the elevator and each was reading a hardcover book that had a dustjacket.

This immediately made me very curious. What book would be so interesting that they had to be reading these books while standing!!!

Well, I found out as the elevator took us down to the ground floor. I was able to see the name Harry Potter on one of the books. I don't think I said anything to the family and the two kids continued reading as they walked off the elevator into the lobby.

This obviously made an impression on me and I resolved to do some research when I got home. I had now been collecting books for nearly a year and a half and maybe had 30-40 books in my bookcase at this time.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book was published by Bloomsbury in the UK in 1997. The second book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, followed a year later.

The US versions were published by Scholastic Books beginning in 1998 and followed the UK books by a year. One or both children I saw in Albany probably had both gotten copies of second book just before I saw them.

In the summer of 1999, the third book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was about to be published in the UK. This was the true first of course.

This is when it seemed like the Harry Potter craze began. My daughter was 13 at the time and she and my wife both purchased and quickly read the first two books and every subsequent book published.

I went on the internet and begin looking at listings of the Harry Potter books.

In June of 1999, I began researching the Harry Potter books that were just becoming wildly popular. The third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had just been released in the UK. And the second book was out in the United States.

Here is my recollection of the prices on abebooks.com at the time in US dollars:

June 1999

Harry Potter and the Philosphers's Stone (UK) ... $1000

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (UK) ... $200

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (UK) ... $50

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (US) ... $100

At that time I knew the importance of an author's first book and knew about true first editions. So I was not surprised that the first UK book was the most expensive. But this was back in 1999 - $1000 was a lot of money for me to spend on a book.

The Prisoner of Azkaban was just coming out that summer and had a first printing of 10,000 (the same as the first two I found out later). But I read that all of these were sent to Australia at the request of J. K. Rowling. The books that were offered at $50 were "collector's editions" that did not have a dustjacket.

I knew that the trade edition would be more likely to appreciate. So this was very confusing to me.

And then there was the first US edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. $100 was more than I had paid for any book at that time. Could I find a first in a book store? Well ... no. The book had been out too long. It was into multiple printings quickly.

Also, there was a little problem with "points". According to the December 2007 issue of Firsts magazine (highly recommended by the way) the US first is "one of the trickiest of all the books to identify. The book itself must have purple diamond-embossed boards and red cloth. The dust wrapper must carry a price of $16.95 and have raised gold foil on the front panel. The first state (the most expensive) carries a Guardian blurb ...".

As you can imagine I was very confused as I did not have this information.

So let's now take a quiz...

How many of the above books did I buy? (the answer is shown later)

a. 4

b. 3

c. 2

d. 1

e. 0

Also, in the Firsts December 2007 issue were prices for the above books:

December 2007

Harry Potter and the Philosphers's Stone (UK) ... $30,000-60,000

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (UK) ... $2,500-5,000

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (UK) ... $2,500-3,500

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (US) ... $4,000-6,000

Just incredible prices ... and these were two years ago!

So what did I do? The answer to the quiz is e!

I never bought even one collectible Harry Potter book!

I told Jim about Harry and I think he has at most one of the books in collectible condition. Even Nicholas Basbanes wrote in one of his books that he was astonished at the prices of the Harry Potter books and did not buy one.

I still can't believe that I didn't buy at least one. In hind sight I would have taken out a loan and bought every one I saw on ABE!

Where did I go wrong? Perhaps I thought way too much about what to buy and kept putting off the decision. Not being able to find a US first in a book store was really perplexing.

And the large rapid increases in prices were certainly a deterrent! One other thing that may have contributed was not having a broadband internet access ... I only had a dial-up modem and there was much less information on the internet 10 years ago.

You just don't know how high a book will go even though I had good reason to believe that Harry Potter would be big ... the two children reading while walking should have told me to buy.