Has anyone else heard of this?

[Dark Muse]

I was reading an article in Utne, an alternative independent magazine, about this new trend that is apparently becoming popular in the book collecting world in which people are buying up first editions to modern books they predict will become classics and purchasing signed copies of books from new upcoming authors, hoping that their works will come to increase in value over time.

And they refer to this as Hypermodern Book Collecting. I was currious as just what the term Hypermodern means and how it is they had come to coin that term for it, but when I looked it up online I could not find any real explanations for it, or the term had first come about.

[Granny5]

It makes sense to me, Dark Muse. For someone wanting to start a collection without the funds to buy classics, this would be a great alternative.

[Dark Muse]

Yes, I never thought of it like that, but that is true. It is a way of building a future collection so to speak.

[MissKathryn]

Hypermodern just means baically instead of slowly collecting books as most people do with classics people are collecting more of the newer books and doing it very fast instead of a year or so after they come out.

[Dark Muse]

Oh yes, that makes sense, at first I was thinking it had to do with building up hype around modern books in the expectation that they will become classic someday.

[mono]

I was reading an article in Utne, an alternative independent magazine, about this new trend that is apparently becoming popular in the book collecting world in which people are buying up first editions to modern books they predict will become classics and purchasing signed copies of books from new upcoming authors, hoping that their works will come to increase in value over time.

And they refer to this as Hypermodern Book Collecting. I was currious as just what the term Hypermodern means and how it is they had come to coin that term for it, but when I looked it up online I could not find any real explanations for it, or the term had first come about.
"Hypermodern" sounds a bit hyperodd, but I have heard of this practice, and have even contributed to it somewhat myself, yet only among authors I personally enjoy, and for non-monetary reasons, as opposed to what rare booksellers and collectors call "scalpers," much like those people who stand outside concert venues, selling tickets for prices far above their worth.
The "hypermodern" (ha, what a term!) book collectors seem, in the words of Frank Zappa, "only in it for the money," and I have seen them at book readings/signings, purchasing multiple books by the featured author only to have every one of them signed, wait a few years or decades, then sell them at astronomical prices - I guess it seems better than forging authors' signatures (a well-known and disturbingly common practice), but awfully parasitic on reasons contingent upon the writer's fame. To answer your question directly, Dark Muse, I have never heard of the term "hypermodern" book collectors, but see the types around, perhaps just by another name - I think the practice quite clever, but would find it at least halfway respectable if the "hypermoderns" had any interest, respect, or affinity for the writer, or literature as an art.

[JBI]

I have a signed first edition of Northrop Frye's The Great Code - hopefully it will be worth something later - it cost me 6$ after all.