Hyrule Historia Collector’s Edition Selling for Huge Amounts on eBay

It’s hard to forget the amount of excitement which was generated by the fan community when the English translation of Hyrule Historia was announced. Even more overwhelming was the reaction to the announcement of the Collector’s Edition, limited to just 4,000 copies worldwide. However, while the standard edition of the book continues to storm the Amazon’s best sellers list, you won’t find the Collector’s Edition on any retail site on the net. Why so? Because after mere hours of the coveted book going on sale, the 4,000 copies worldwide were sold in a matter of hours, with retailers having to cancel numerous orders (mine included) due to the unprecedented demand. Despite this, there is still one place on the net where there is no shortage of the rare book. But before you jump onto eBay to purchase one for yourself you may want to look twice at just how much the book is selling for. Hit the jump to take a look!

This picture is from an auction which ended on the 5th of February and as you can see, the 14 bids culminated in the book selling for a huge $212.51, with an additional $5 for shipping. Already the price has inflated a good three and a half times what it sold for during the short period when it was on sale. But this seems like an almost reasonable deal compared to the lot below.

The second lot above has an auction starting at £150, which is around $234. Which is already more expensive than what the book went for in the first auction. Not only that however, but the Buy It Now option prices the book at a massive £250, which equates to around $391. For a book which originally had a selling price of around $60. Despite eBay’s reputation of being able to find good quality products for bargain-basement prices, it is evident that there are no bargains, basement or otherwise, to be found here.

Perhaps the worst part of this is the motivation behind why people would sell items like these for such prices. Aside from the design of the cover and the fact that the Collector’s Edition has gold gilded pages, the two versions are absolutely identical in content, which is pretty much the book’s main selling point. What we have here then is exploitation of the fact that people would pay huge amounts of money for something which is only valuable due its rarity. Besides the fact that the book is rare, there is no reason for it to be selling for such an inflated price and therefore no reason why it should be so desirable, unless one has a severe aversion to the standard edition cover. Perhaps I am missing something here as I am not a serious collector of merchandise but setting a price of £250 for an item like this seems incredibly unfair and selfish.

But what do you think? Would you fork out this amount of money for a Collector’s Edition? Have these sellers gone too far in terms of personal greed and profit? Tell us in the comments below!

Source: eBay