If I wanted a particular book bad enough, I'd pay what the market price was. It's a shame about the inkjet print, but I would be paying for the book anyway. If it had a real print made by the photographer, so much the better.
My judgement on such a print would also be considered according to the photographer. If the photographer made inkjet prints as a matter of course, and that was the medium they worked with, I would consider it differently than if they worked say in silver gelatin, but the print in the book was an inkjet. In the latter case, it would feel more to me like a lazy cheap shortcut to add some value. Some may howl all they want, but inkjet printing is basically a time and labor saving shortcut. That's not to say making a good output file is easy, by any means, but in the end, it is what it is, a print produced completely by a machine. (I tried making them too, but I quit, because it holds no satisfaction for me.)
In all cases I am happier with non-inkjets. I have a Brooks Jenson print that I quite like, but I really wish it were silver. Up on the wall next to my other prints I can tell the difference, and knowing anybody with access to the file could produce exactly the same inkjet print sort of keeps my affection for it at a distance. I feel like it is a very good copy of an image, but a copy nontheless. Thats just how I feel, and somebody may point out that it is illogical. Maybe so, but that is still the way I feel.
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--J Brunner, The Prints of Darkness
I've had the good fortune to pick up a few photo books at cover price or even on sale that have appreciated startlingly. I'm very glad to have them, not only because of their appreciated value, but because they're beautiful books with beautiful images. Given what I'd have to pay for a single original print by some artists whose books I've collected, $500 for a book with an original print, inkjet or not, is a good bargain.
If it was a book I really wanted, limited print run and well produced I would certainly pay that amount, if it came with an original print so much the better. However an inkjet print would have no real interest to me.
The most I've paid for a photographic book so far is about 250 US$, 'What We Bought: The New World' by Robert Adams.
I would not buy the book. If I were an investor, yeah sure. I'm not. I collect photography books for the value of what's between the pages, not for what somebody else is willing pay for them. I have quite a few books that would now be worth many times what I paid for them if I were willing to put them in plastic wrap and never open them again but that's not why I bought them.
As for the print, an inkjet wouldn't matter much to me. Signed, it might potentially increase in value over time but, again, that's not a priority to me.
It certainly is interesting to read your input, thank you. I have to admit to spending a bit on an excellent book "Studio Portraits" by an Australian Photographer Peter Brew-Bevan. I'm not much into studio work but this book is interesting.
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