"That's fine with a small group of connoisseurs who love old travel guides and are willing to pay dearly for them. Lucinda Boyle, a vintage guidebook expert for Bernard J Shapero Rare Books in London, said an 1830s edition of Baedeker's guide to northern Germany recently sold for about $7,000."

"Not long ago, I found an 1880 edition of Murray's two-volume handbook on Egypt at the Librairie Ulysse on the Île St. Louis in Paris and briefly considered buying it for about $700. Catherine Domain, the shop's owner, actually used it for a trip to Egypt. 'It tells what people were seeing and thinking at the time. It's like taking a trip within a trip,'she said."

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