Post #538634 by woofmutt on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 12:49 AM

Yes, the content is available inexpensively in another form.

Except...

That doesn't account for the fevered mind of the impassioned collector. Sure, the content might be in Remixed but it's not the original Intoxica! (How does one end a sentence with a title that contains an exclamation point without making the sentence seem exclamatory?)

Personally when it comes to books or music I'm a content guy. I'm just fine with having an eleven hundredth edition of Bridges of Madison County because the beautiful story of a mute alien structural engineer from the future falling in love with a deaf human geothermal scientist in the present***** is still the same.

But other people want that first edition. They obviously value the content but they also want a physical connection to the moment that content was made available to the masses.

And I have to admit, it is pretty cool holding a first edition of an old book or original pressing of an LP I love because the item was actually part of the moment when the greatness dawned.

But it's one thing to have been one of the few people who actually bought The Velvet Underground's *The Velvet Underground * album when it was originally released, another to shell out hundreds of dollars decades later for a copy of that origianl release.

*****I think that's what Bridges of Madison county is about. I've never read it, only seen the cover with the picture of the covered bridge and the lasers shooting out of it.