Fancy cookbooks and the recipes of famous chefs are being published by the truckload but the vast bulk of them won't survive into the future because their appeal is fleeting.

Tim White, one of the owners of Books For Cooks in Melbourne, says there are "literally thousands" of cookbooks published every year, so people wanting to start a collection need to choose carefully. "There has to be some essence of difference or quality about it," he says.

An example of quality is the "beautiful, elegant writing" of Elizabeth David whose books, he believes, helped changed the way the English-speaking world thought about European casual food.

Books classed as "different" include publications such as the Liberace cookbook. White says this type of book tends to be collectible because it's "quirky and unusual and there were only one or two print runs".

If you want to go back further, the better books have already sorted themselves out from the dross by remaining in print, or in the public mind, for literally centuries. Barbara Fisher, who dealt in old cookbooks until her retirement a few months ago, suggests seeking 18th- and 19th-century English writers such as Elizabeth Raffald, Hannah Glasse, Maria Rundell and Alexis Soyer.

The ubiquitous Mrs Beeton can be bought in editions from 1861 to the present but Fisher suggests considering the lesser-known Eliza Acton.

"She's a very collectible cookery writer," Fisher says. "She is actually a little bit earlier than Mrs Beeton and the feeling is that Mrs Beeton actually pinched a lot of her recipes - and her recipes are lovely."

The attractive yet frustrating thing about collecting cookbooks - apart from the fact that there isn't a definitive, ultimate collection to own - is that most have been used and bear the marks of this all over their pages.

On one hand, this means that many collectable cookbooks aren't tremendously pricey because of years of wear and tear. It also means, however, that vast numbers of books simply haven't lasted the distance.

"The reality is that early cookbooks, and even cookbooks today, are not made from expensive materials," White says. "They were printed on the cheapest possible paper and lived in the worst room of the house for books - fat, smoke and heat - and tended to get stains on them. Often they're not sold on at all because they just die in the saddle."

Very rarely, an untouched copy of a seminal cookbook will come up for auction and when it does, the price can be astronomical - as when a pristine copy of an 1864 publication, An Australian Aristologist, by Edward Abbott, sold two years ago for more than $8000. Most books, though, are well within reach. Some rarer works will set you back a few thousand dollars but many very collectible books will be $500 or less.

"I don't think there's any doubt that [books by] Elizabeth David or Jane Grigson will continue to slowly and inexorably rise," White says. "First edition hardcovers in good condition aren't common and they command good prices. Equally, early Australiana will just continue to rise."

Fisher agrees. "It's very interesting to collect Australian cookery because it's still possible to pick up books [inexpensively]."

My collection

Mitch Green insists he has made recipes from most of the cookbooks in his collection ­-which is pretty impressive, given that he has "somewhere between 1000 and 1200 cookbooks".

"My wife thinks it's a bit excessive," he laughs.

An IT consultant, Green says that if the internet had been around when he started collecting he probably wouldn't have bought quite as many books but he's not about to ditch anything.

"I do love my cookbooks," he says. "It is actually fairly difficult to get into my cookbook collection these days, because over time I've got quite fussy about what I want. I used to buy anything at one stage but now I look at them and think, 'Well, am I ever going to use any of this? And is it worthwhile as a reference book?' "

Green has always bought his cookbooks to use rather than thinking about future value, so he's not interested in seeking first editions or rare publications. He's chuffed if he buys a book that becomes sought after, which has happened on a few occasions, but he's not about to pay a fortune for anything ­- although he's a sucker for dessert books and will always snap up the latest publication by Christine Manfield, David Thompson or Thomas Keller.

His advice to people thinking about starting a collection is to decide what to collect at the start. Those keen on historic first editions will have to save for them or buy the best they can and gradually trade up.