Vintage Pierpont
Australian History Antiquarian & Collectible Business & Economics Personal Finance True Stories Humorous Non-Fiction Finance
First-edition hardcover of Trevor Sykes’ cult classic “Vintage Pierpont,” published in 1985 by Special Edition Information Australia, is one of the scarcest and most entertaining titles in Australian financial literature. Written under Sykes’ long-running satirical alter-ego “Pierpont,” the book distils the best of his newspaper columns that skewered board-room bombast, mining scams and corporate hubris during the 1970s-80s boom years. Because the first print-run was tiny and most copies were thumbed by stock-brokers, finding a tidy, tight-block example—complete with the original witty line drawings—is genuinely difficult in the collectable market.
What makes this copy extra appealing is the neat, anonymous gift inscription on the fly-leaf (not author-signed, but a charming period detail) and the fact that the pages remain crisp and un-foxed. Closed page-edges show only light shelf marks; there are no dog-eared corners or cracked hinges, so the book presents beautifully on a shelf and is perfectly readable. As a piece of Australiana it captures the larrikin spirit that once dominated the business pages, while as a finance title it doubles as a hilarious cautionary guide that still feels relevant to today’s investors.
Young adults, MBA students and seasoned collectors all hunt for this title: students love the plain-English explanations of take-overs and booms, while antiquarian dealers list it alongside “Other People’s Money” and “The Go-Go Years” as essential reading on speculative manias. In the secondary market first-edition copies in this condition seldom appear below the three-figure mark, making the book both an engaging read and a sound store of value.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
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