This auction was for the 1930A-1 printing of the first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock. The auction closed at $112.50. While the book had some stains and wear, all four glossy illustrations were present, and the book should have closed at a higher price.
I recently sold a copy of the first printing of Old Clock. See this listing. While my copy did not have the stains inside the book, it did have a faded spine. It is hard to say which book was in better condition since they had different flaws. I sold my book for $275.00.
The seller could have gotten more than $112.50 for the book.
Here is another:
NANCY DREW Brass Bound Trunk w/Dust Jacket Probable 1st Item #290327685320
This auction was for the very first printing of Brass Bound Trunk in dust jacket. The auction closed at $51.99, which was a nice bargain for the buyer. Check out this third printing of Brass Bound Trunk in dust jacket that I sold for $85.00. If I can sell a third printing for $85.00, then the first printing should have sold for above that amount.
This next auction is a perfect example of why eBay is no longer the best venue to sell valuable books.
NANCY DREW #3 the bungalow mystery 1932 printing in DJ Item #250452608674
The book sold at $338.00, which appears to be a good price for a thick blue Nancy Drew book with a dust jacket and glossy internal illustrations. But look:
The front flap lists only the first three Nancy Drew titles, which means that the dust jacket is the 1930A-1 first printing dust jacket. The first printing dust jackets of the first three Nancy Drew books are extremely scarce, even rare, and extremely difficult to acquire. The book is not the first printing book, so the book and jacket are mismatched by several years. Most of the value in the first printing is in the jacket, and it is not very hard to get a first printing book of Bungalow Mystery to go with the jacket. The jacket is nearly impossible to find and comes up for sale probably only once every five years.
This dust jacket is easily worth 10 times more than the winning bid price of $338.00. Sadly, I did not click on this auction while it was running, or I would have bid on it. (No, I would not have bid thousands of dollars on it, so I probably would have lost. I generally am not willing to pay above $500 for a book.) Even though the seller's title did not accurately describe what the auction contained, the book would have bought a much better price years ago on eBay when it was easier to find items.
eBay is no longer a good auction venue for this type of item. Books like this last one are better off in an auction house such as PBA Galleries. EBay is now a great place to find bargains. Most of the books fall far short of value.
8 comments:
It has gotten to a point that I do not even look at Ebay much anymore. I tried looking for a few books on Saturday, and my browser slowed down to a crawl. 45 minutes later I was still trying to look up a book. If I had put Nancy Drew in the search engine, I would have been there for days. Very inefficient use of time.
I received my copy purchased from you of the PC 1st printing of "Broken Locket". As usual, the book was carefully wrapped and shipped, and the book was exactly as described. I have been looking for this for a while. I've been collecting the original text PCs for about a year, and I think I have them all now. I need to go back and look. Love the older looking covers, and of course prefer the OT, although I must admit I have read few of the revised text books. Perhaps next I will attempt to get a set of first printing revised texts--- That should keep me busy for a while. Anyway, this post was really to let all followers of the blog know what a pleasure it is to buy from Jennifer's Bonanzle booth. If you are looking for quality series books, she should be your first stop.
Thanks again Jennifer!
Hi,
The prices will go up in the winter.
KT
It has gotten to a point that I do not even look at Ebay much anymore. I tried looking for a few books on Saturday, and my browser slowed down to a crawl.
That's exactly the problem. Fewer people are using eBay. Do you use Firefox? I finally solved my problem with Firefox hanging by doing a complete uninstall in which I had to lose all my bookmarks and preferences. I then restarted my computer and reinstalled Firefox. I can use Firefox on eBay again.
Internet Explorer is not compatible with eBay. I checked it again, and the speed is very slow.
Anyway, this post was really to let all followers of the blog know what a pleasure it is to buy from Jennifer's Bonanzle booth. If you are looking for quality series books, she should be your first stop.
Thank you for the kind comments, and I am glad that you are pleased with the book.
The prices will go up in the winter.
Perhaps, but something is very wrong with eBay. I see it more as each week passes. That Bungalow Mystery with the first printing dust jacket should have never sold for under $500.00, let alone for under $1,000.00.
People say that the summer is slow, but I have actually never noticed a summer downturn for series books except in August when people go back to school. I'm going to be very distracted in around a month when my regular schedule cranks up again.
Don't forget last summer when we had the buying frenzy. That one buyer would not have caused the raised prices if everyone else had been at the beach.
The die-hard eBay fans never are distracted from surfing on eBay. Recently, I read in the eSnipe blog that eSnipe does not see much difference in usage during the summer. The die-hard snipers use eBay and eSnipe as much in the summer as at any other time of year. Something else is going on here.
I think it's problematic to compare items that sold on Bonanzle to items that sold on eBay as done here. Because the former listings have fixed prices, they could theoretically wait an infinite time without being sold. Assuming they do, it means that someone stumbled across them at the right time, and was willing to pay the listed prices. Thus something that is significantly overpriced on Bonanzle may eventually sell while the same item listed on eBay attracts only average bids.
A more relevant comparison would be to compare a larger sample of fixed price listings. For example, if something were to sell on Bonanzle, look for comparable fixed price items on eBay in both current and completed auctions. To balance it out, the same thing would have to be done with eBay items: if they sell, check items on Bonanzle.
It's also really hard to say that The Bungalow Mystery is an example of why eBay is not the best venue. The listing was the error of the seller; I'm sure that if it was listed as "Nancy Drew The Bungalow Mystery RARE 1st DJ" it would have sold for several multiples of what it did. Exactly how much more is up for speculation, and that could only be substantiated by studying trends (as described above) across multiple venues). Bonanzle would obviously not be the place to sell this book in this scenario, because the seller did not know what he had. He would most likely have listed it for no more than $75, certainly not helping his cause. PBA Galleries, on the other hand, might have generated a higher end sale than eBay could have. Yet it doesn't matter, because the seller would have had to know what he had to bring it there.
It's also worth mentioning that when PBA auctions sold a large collection a while back, many of the high end lots either did not sell or had little bidding activity.
Luc
The listing was the error of the seller; I'm sure that if it was listed as "Nancy Drew The Bungalow Mystery RARE 1st DJ" it would have sold for several multiples of what it did.
I appreciate your comments, and you have helped me to pinpoint better what I wish to state, which is that eBay's auctions have eroded enough that sellers no longer have any room for error. The low end price is the seller's fault, yet years ago, the auction would have been easier to spot and would have still reached near its true value.
I normally would have clicked on the auction. If I had, I would have bid at least $1,000 on it, even though that is double the largest amount I have ever paid for a book. If I had bid, the auction probably would have closed at over $1,000 unless I got lucky and won.
Since at least the start of the year, I have not been checking eBay very carefully like I once did. This is because the searches are now so cluttered, at least the ones with lots of results like Nancy Drew. I'm missing out on stuff, and I have to force myself to wade through all of the junk in order to try to spot the few gems.
I also want to add that the first printing dust jackets of the first three Nancy Drew books (jackets that list three titles to Bungalow Mystery on the front flap) are so extremely rare (remember that I never use "rare" lightly) that they maintain their value regardless of venue, time of year, or recession. Close to zero Nancy Drew collectors have these dust jackets. I have a partial dust jacket of Hidden Staircase listing to Bungalow Mystery. I do not have the first printing dust jackets for Old Clock or Bungalow Mystery.
These jackets tend to get noticed when listed on eBay, and they do not have to be labeled correctly in order to be noticed. Far more people want them than non-Nancy Drew collectors can possibly understand. Often when they get listed, the auctions are pulled because buyers make private deals for below value.
That first printing Bungalow Mystery jacket should have been noticed. *I* should have noticed it, but I have been having search problems on eBay for months, and my searching has become sloppy. I cannot be the only one having problems. In fact, I'm not, because the first comment to this post gave evidence of more severe problems than what I have had. This is why eBay is no longer the excellent venue that it once was. Years ago, rare books would find their true value. Not necessarily so, now.
Also, the PBA Galleries auctions that did not sell were extremely overpriced. For instance, the first printing of Missing Map with dust jacket was priced at $750.00 and did not sell. Farah's Guide only values that printing at $230.00, and Farah's Guide is over the value. The current value for the first printing of Missing Map is probably around $100.00.
Farah's Guide values the first printing dust jacket of Bungalow Mystery at $5,000.00 and states that it could sell for considerably higher if offered at auction. Farah is wrong on many of the values, but he is not wrong on the values for the first printing dust jackets for the first three Nancy Drew books. They are worth thousands of dollars. They are priceless rarities.
Jennifer,
You forgot to mention who pointed this auction out to us collectors on the Nancy Drew Sleuths group back on the 12th -- message # 69054.
As you mentioned, the 1st printing dustjacket is quite rare. To be more exact, there were 7,225 sold in the first half of 1930, followed by an additional 10,266 copies sold for the second half of the year.
Regards,
Frank
It is quite true, Frank, and the credit is all yours. In light of some of the comments, I regret that I was not much more specific about my thoughts when I wrote the original post.
It seems that I did not make myself clear. I chose early thick first printing Nancy Drew dust jackets on purpose because they do hold their values over time, and I have a firm grasp on their scarcity and what they are worth. I would never choose a book like the third Connie Blair book and compare eBay prices to those on another venue. The comparison would mean nothing, and the point made about comparing many sales would apply in that case.
There are certainly not very many of those first printing Bungalow Mystery dust jackets left, and they seldom come up for sale. I only have most of the first printing Nancy Drew dust jackets because I have been able to spot them hidden in listings such as that one. I will be kicking myself forever for not clicking on that auction before it ended!
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