Selling V.B. Price Books in Albuquerque
A City at the End of the World, The Orphaned Land, and the definitive Albuquerque built-environment estate shelf.
The 1992 UNM Press first edition, the 2003 revised edition, the 2011 environmental companion volume, V.B. Price signature authentication, and the architect-planner-faculty-columnist estate fingerprint I see every month in Albuquerque book collections.
If you own an Albuquerque library that takes itself seriously about Albuquerque — meaning not just novels set here, but the city itself as a subject — you own V.B. Price. A City at the End of the World (UNM Press, 1992) is the single book-length treatment of what Albuquerque is, physically and civically, that every working ABQ architect, planner, UNM faculty member, and long-tenured columnist I have ever bought from has had on the shelf.
This pillar covers the 1992 first, the 2003 revised edition, the 20th-anniversary edition that followed, the 2011 UNM Press environmental companion The Orphaned Land: New Mexico's Environment Since the Manhattan Project, signature authentication for a living author whose inscribed copies circulate in the ABQ estate market, and the estate-shelf fingerprint that tells me a V.B. Price collection is coming before I have even unpacked the first box.
I handle Price through both operations: I take the complete Albuquerque-regional libraries for free pickup under the New Mexico Literacy Project side, and I run the individual-title buy-back side through SellBooksABQ for collectors who already know which V.B. Price printing they own.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Pillar Contents
- A City at the End of the World — 1992 UNM Press first
- 2003 revised & 20th-anniversary editions
- The Orphaned Land — 2011 environmental companion
- The writer behind the shelf — biographical sketch
- V.B. Price signature authentication
- The Albuquerque-urbanism estate fingerprint
- How I handle the pickup and pricing
- Frequently asked questions
A City at the End of the World — the 1992 UNM Press first edition
This is the book. When a first-time Albuquerque architect walks into an ABQ estate library and looks at the bookshelves to take the measure of the person who lived there, A City at the End of the World is one of the first titles they scan for. If it is on the shelf, the library is serious. If it is on the shelf inscribed, the library belonged to somebody who knew V.B. Price personally — which in ABQ civic circles is a short list of architects, planners, UNM colleagues, and editorial-page contacts.
The 1992 University of New Mexico Press first edition identifies cleanly. Title page reads: University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, with 1992 copyright. No "Revised Edition" language anywhere — not on the title page, not on the copyright page verso, not on the jacket flap, not in any preface. Later printings of the 1992 text exist, but the first printing is the collectible grade; the jacket's photographic front image and the condition of the dust jacket drive most of the price variance I see at the architect-estate tier.
The book is built as a sequence of linked essays rather than a single continuous argument. It treats Albuquerque's geographic setting — the Rio Grande corridor, the volcanic West Mesa, the Sandia escarpment — alongside the postwar planning decisions that produced the sprawl pattern, the civic buildings that did and did not work, and the architectural inheritance the Pueblo, Hispano, and Anglo builders left on the ground. It is not polemic and it is not nostalgic. It is a working civic document by somebody who lived in the city, walked it, and cared whether it went well or badly.
2003 revised and the 20th-anniversary edition
UNM Press issued a substantially revised edition in 2003 that added material on the intervening decade — Albuquerque's continued westward sprawl, the planning-reform efforts, the North Valley and South Valley annexation and development politics, and the architectural arc of the 1990s civic building program. The revised edition is clearly marked "Revised Edition" on the title page and carries a new 2003 copyright. It is a legitimate working reference and a reasonable collectible in its own right, but it is not a 1992 first and should not be priced as one.
A 20th-anniversary edition followed in the subsequent decade, again through UNM Press, with additional front matter and updated context for a city that has continued to change since Price started the project. The anniversary edition has its own collector constituency — particularly younger ABQ urbanists who came to the book through the 2003 or anniversary printings rather than through the 1992 original.
At the estate-library tier, I often see all three printings on the same shelf — architects and planners who read the 1992 first when it came out, bought the 2003 for the expanded material, and picked up the anniversary as a gift or a bookshelf refresh. If you are selling a V.B. Price shelf, the presence of all three printings is itself a mark of a serious long-tenured reader and generally raises the value of the collection as a whole.
The Orphaned Land — 2011 UNM Press
The Orphaned Land: New Mexico's Environment Since the Manhattan Project (UNM Press, 2011) is the environmental companion to A City at the End of the World. It takes New Mexico's post-1945 environmental record as a single coherent subject: Los Alamos and the weapons laboratories, the uranium mining and milling legacy on the Navajo Nation and in the Grants district, the groundwater contamination around Kirtland and the national labs, the acequia politics, the water-rights adjudications, the rural land-use questions.
The 2011 UNM Press first is the collectible printing. Identification is straightforward — UNM Press imprint, 2011 copyright, no revised-edition notation. The book has a narrower readership than the urbanism volume — environmental historians, acequia and land-grant advocates, UNM faculty in law and environmental studies, and the older generation of ABQ and Santa Fe journalists who covered the labs — but its readership is durable. When The Orphaned Land arrives on an estate shelf alongside A City at the End of the World, the collection is usually from a serious environmental-law or civic-advocacy household and the rest of the library often confirms it.
A 2011 first with a clean jacket prices respectably but below the 1992 urbanism first. A signed or inscribed 2011 first adds meaningful premium at the specialist tier. I buy both books through SellBooksABQ for named-title inquiries and take the complete Albuquerque-regional libraries they usually live inside for free pickup under the New Mexico Literacy Project side.
V.B. Price — the long Albuquerque tenure
Vincent Barrett Price — V.B. Price on the byline — has been a working Albuquerque writer, editor, columnist, and public intellectual for more decades than most ABQ institutions have existed in their current form. The shortest version of the biography: long-time columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune through the decades of its operation; co-founder and editor of the online New Mexico Mercury after the Tribune's closure; affiliated with the University of New Mexico in architecture and urban-studies teaching; and author of the two UNM Press anchor volumes covered above plus poetry collections and edited volumes that sit alongside them on the same shelves.
What this means for the resale market is continuity. V.B. Price's readership is not a single-generation phenomenon that peaked and receded. It is rolling — ABQ-Trib subscribers from the 1980s, UNM architecture graduates from the 1990s and 2000s, New Mexico Mercury readers from the 2010s, and current UNM students reading Price in urbanism and environmental-studies coursework all own the books. That rolling readership is why the estate shelves keep showing up at the warehouse, and why the 1992 first edition has held its floor price through decades that flattened many regional-press titles.
Price is the son of the actor Vincent Price, which is a fact that surfaces occasionally in inscriptions and provenance notes but is not, for resale purposes, the story. The story is that he is an Albuquerque writer who chose this city as a subject when very few people were choosing it as a subject, and who stayed with it long enough to write the definitive book.
Signed and inscribed copies
V.B. Price is a living, working author who has done decades of local readings, signings, UNM events, and civic-organization appearances. Signed copies are meaningfully more common than for mid-century authors like Fray Angélico Chávez or Erna Fergusson whose signature pools are closed by death. That availability does not erase the premium on signed copies, but it does shape it — a signed 1992 first of A City at the End of the World carries a modest premium over an unsigned 1992 first, not the 3-5x multiple you see on closed-pool signatures.
Where the signed-copy market concentrates is in inscribed copies — personalized to a named recipient, particularly a named Albuquerque architect, planner, UNM faculty member, civic librarian, Tribune or Journal colleague, or known ABQ cultural figure. An inscribed 1992 first to a recognizable ABQ provenance is the tier where serious collectors will pay real money, and where the book crosses over from urbanism-library item to civic-archive artifact.
Signatures should still be verified against known exemplars before any high-value transaction. Rolling decades of signing means handwriting drift is real; signatures from the early 1990s and from the 2010s do not look identical even when both are authentic. A dealer or collector with V.B. Price exemplars on file — or direct access to the author through the UNM or ABQ civic networks — is the safest authentication route before a high-tier sale.
The Albuquerque-urbanism estate shelf
V.B. Price on a bookshelf tells me, before I open a single box, what the rest of the library will look like. The Albuquerque-urbanism estate shelf has a consistent fingerprint: Price's two UNM Press books (often all three printings of A City at the End of the World); Paul Horgan's Great River two-volume set; Harvey Fergusson's ABQ novels (Wolf Song, Rio Grande, Grant of Kingdom, and the autobiographical Home in the West); Erna Fergusson's Albuquerque (1947) and my Southwest; Fray Angélico Chávez's Origins of New Mexico Families for the genealogical context; and a UNM Press regional shelf that runs from architecture and planning monographs through acequia and land-grant titles through the Southwest-author novels this site covers elsewhere.
Architects add monograph shelves on Antoine Predock, John Gaw Meem, and Bart Prince — the three architectural bodies of work most entangled with Price's subject matter. Planners add zoning-code bound volumes, MRCOG regional-plan publications, and the Duke City and Albuquerque: The City of Bernalillo County-style civic-history volumes. UNM faculty add the relevant academic shelves — law and water rights for environmental-studies people, architecture history for design-school people, regional literature for English-department people. Civic librarians and retired Tribune or Journal staff add decades of clipping-file reference books and the complete run of annual civic-statistics volumes.
When a family calls for a pickup and mentions a parent who was an architect, planner, UNM faculty member, or working ABQ journalist and the shelf includes V.B. Price, I plan the pickup for a full box-van load. These libraries run long, they include condition-variable trade books alongside the collectible firsts, and the right move is to take the complete collection under the New Mexico Literacy Project side and sort it back at the warehouse rather than trying to pick-and-choose on site.
How I handle the pickup and pricing
Two operations, same warehouse, same owner, same truck. If you have a single V.B. Price 1992 first you want to sell as a named-title transaction, run that through SellBooksABQ — the buy-back side quotes against the actual edition, condition, jacket, and signature status. If you have a full ABQ architect-planner-faculty-columnist library and you want the whole thing gone in one pickup with tax-donation documentation for the trade and general-reference portion and a cash component for the collectible firsts, that runs under the New Mexico Literacy Project side and I schedule the pickup, bring the van, and handle the sort.
The owner's decision tree is short. Single named title or a short named-title list — SellBooksABQ. Complete library including named collectibles mixed with trade books and general reference — NMLP free pickup with cash-plus-donation settlement. Not sure which applies — call 702-496-4214 and I will work it out on the phone.
Pricing floor: I do not price below real-sale data. Where a 1992 first has rolling sold-comp data, that floor is where I start. Where an inscribed first has provenance to a named Albuquerque architect or planner, the ceiling opens up. Where a 2011 first of The Orphaned Land arrives with signature and environmental-law provenance, it prices well. I do not use asking-price averages; I use real recent sold comps, and I explain the math to any owner who wants to see how the offer was built.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most collectible V.B. Price book?
A City at the End of the World (1992, University of New Mexico Press). This is the definitive book-length treatment of Albuquerque as a built environment — its geography, its bad planning decisions, its adobe-to-strip-mall architectural inheritance, and the civic possibilities still on the table. No other single volume occupies the same position in the Albuquerque urbanism canon. The 1992 UNM Press first edition is the collectible piece. The 2003 revised edition expanded the book substantially and is a legitimate working reference, but it is not a first. A 20th-anniversary edition followed. Architect, planner, and civic-library estate shelves almost always include one of the three printings; a 1992 first in a jacket is the prize.
How do I identify a 1992 first edition?
Look for the University of New Mexico Press imprint on the title page, publication year 1992, and no "Revised Edition" or "Second Edition" language anywhere — not on the title page, not on the copyright page, not on the jacket flap. The 2003 revised edition is clearly marked "Revised Edition" and carries a new copyright date. A later anniversary edition is marked accordingly. If it says Revised anywhere, it is not the 1992 first.
Is V.B. Price's signature collectible?
Yes, though less scarce than mid-century closed-pool signatures. A signed 1992 first carries a premium over an unsigned first. An inscribed copy to a named Albuquerque architect, planner, UNM faculty member, or civic figure is the top tier — those personalized inscriptions root the book in the local intellectual community the book itself is about. Signatures should be verified against known exemplars before any high-value transaction; handwriting drift across decades is real.
What about The Orphaned Land?
The 2011 UNM Press environmental companion to A City at the End of the World. It treats New Mexico's post-1945 environmental record as a single subject: Los Alamos, uranium, groundwater contamination, acequia politics. A 2011 UNM Press first is a solid mid-tier collectible — valued by environmental historians, acequia advocates, environmental lawyers, and UNM faculty. Narrower readership than the urbanism book, but durable.
Who should own the V.B. Price shelf?
Albuquerque architects and urban planners; UNM School of Architecture and Planning faculty; civic-library collections; ABQ-native families with a strong sense of local history; environmental lawyers and acequia advocates for The Orphaned Land specifically; and anyone who read the ABQ Tribune in the decades Price was columnist there.
What else comes with the V.B. Price estate shelf?
The Albuquerque-urbanism fingerprint: Paul Horgan's Great River two-volume set; Harvey Fergusson's ABQ novels; Erna Fergusson's Albuquerque (1947) and my Southwest; Fray Angélico Chávez's Origins of New Mexico Families for genealogical context; architect monographs on Antoine Predock, John Gaw Meem, and Bart Prince; zoning-code and MRCOG regional-plan volumes if the owner was a planner; and a UNM Press regional shelf that runs wide across architecture, law, and Southwest literature.
How do you reach out for a pickup?
Call 702-496-4214 or use the contact form on the home page. Named-title transactions run through SellBooksABQ. Complete Albuquerque-regional libraries run through the New Mexico Literacy Project free-pickup side. If you are not sure which applies, call and I will sort it out on the phone. I serve Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Corrales, Placitas, the East Mountains, Bernalillo, Santa Fe, and the North and South Valley.
Related Pillar Guides
UNM Press Deep-Dive
V.B. Price's publishing home. The 1992 A City at the End of the World and 2011 The Orphaned Land are both University of New Mexico Press — the regional academic anchor for ABQ urbanism and environmental writing.
Selling Paul Horgan Books
Horgan's 1954 Great River two-volume Pulitzer history is the historical-narrative companion to Price's urbanism book — same Rio Grande corridor, same civic subject, different century. Both books live on every serious ABQ civic-history shelf.
Selling Robert Julyan Books
The Place Names of New Mexico, The Mountains of New Mexico — the gazetteer shelf that reads next to Price's ABQ/Rio Grande essays in local-history estates.