Series Books for Girls

Nancy Drew: Two Strange Broken Lockets

2012-01-28T17:42:00.000-06:00

Revised text of Broken Locket

I really enjoyed reading the revised text of Nancy Drew #11, The Clue of the Broken Locket. I always enjoyed this text as a child. Nevertheless, the text has many weak spots. Following are some of the events that seem off.

As I read the revised text, I noted that the behavior of the girls was different from how I would have responded. Cecily meets the girls and invites them to spend the night. She doesn't know them!

At one point, Cecily's cat is taken to Mrs. Hosking's boarding house when the young people leave for a few days. It is assumed that Mrs. Hosking is willing to look after the cat. This seems a bit presumptuous.

Cecily's cat is very strange. The cat runs off, but the girls are able to get the cat to come to them. Would your cat come? My cats probably would not, or if they decided to come, I would be kept waiting for several hours.

Later, the cat ignores a bird call. What kind of cat ignores a bird call? Also, the cat settles down readily on the bed that the girls make for it. Cats sometimes go along with a bed selected by people, but not always. Last, why is the cat comfortable in a strange place with three strange girls? My cats would be terrified.

The behavior of the people is also odd. The cat finds a mouse and goes into the other room, presumably to eat it. Yuck. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let a cat be in the cabin with me eviscerating a mouse. Often, cats leave parts behind. The girls seem so unconcerned that this is occurring near them!

The villains rely on a tried-and-true method of keeping people away from the scene of their criminal activity: project the image of a ghost launch onto the mist so that everyone will see it and be afraid to come near. Really? It seems to me that the thrill-seekers would flock to the lake to see the ghost launch. The best way to avoid detection while committing a crime is to act like you are doing nothing wrong. Avoid drawing attention to yourself.

Original text of Broken Locket

I have always disliked the original text, and I expected to dislike it again upon this reading. I cannot stand the beginning of the story, in which everyone knows that the Blairs are frivolous people who are unsuited to adopt the babies. Yet, the Blairs are allowed to sign the adoption papers. I want to tear my hair out.

That aside, the original text reads a lot like a Kay Tracey book, which is the problem. I would like the original text fine if it were a Kay Tracey or even a Dana Girls book, but as a Nancy Drew book, the story is too strange. Rodney and Ruth have no apparent connection aside from being concerned about the babies, and Nancy makes a wild assumption that they are separated twins. Even crazier, Nancy is right!

In one scene, Rodney falls on the locket which has been tossed into the fire. The image of a heart is burned onto his forehead, which is bizarre. Everyone gets scared that something bad will happen because of the image on Rodney's forehead. Most all of the characters in the original text act like idiots.

Danish edition of the original text

Nancy has a car accident in the original text because she is so intent on following Ruth that she pays no attention as the road she is on intersects with a highway. This event astounds me because so many of the original text books herald Nancy's great ability in avoiding traffic accidents, skills that she is lacking in this book.

Colleen plots to have Nancy accused of theft. Colleen's name could easily have been changed to Lettie Briggs or Ethel Eaton, and Colleen would have been either the Danas' or Kay Tracey's sworn enemy. Having a vicious enemy like Colleen also makes the original text read much like a Dana Girls or Kay Tracey book.

In conclusion, I dislike the original text as a Nancy Drew book, but I would like it just fine as either a Dana Girls or Kay Tracey book. I enjoy the Kay Tracey books because of the absurdity. I'm not sure why this particular story was written as a Nancy Drew book. I expect more of Nancy Drew.

The original text is written better than the revised text, but the stories are completely different. The revised text has some problems, but the original text story is absurd. The revised text is a story that I enjoyed when I read Nancy Drew as a child. My vote is in favor of the revised text.

Nancy Drew: Twisted Candles and Larkspur Lane

2012-01-25T00:09:00.000-06:00

My thoughts will be brief on the ninth and tenth Nancy Drew books, The Sign of the Twisted Candles and The Password to Larkspur Lane.

Near the end of the revised text story for Twisted Candles, I felt that it was not at all logical for all of the relatives to come to the inn late at night. The original text was more logical since Sidney and Boonton were already at the inn, so it was not as much of a stretch for the other relatives to come.

I have always favored the revised text Twisted Candles since a little more time is devoted to Nancy hunting for hidden objects secreted behind the Sign of the Twisted candles. Upon this reading, that part of the revised text did not stand out as much for me, probably because the revised text is so short.

This time, I favored the original text.
..................................................

I enjoyed both the original and revised texts of Larkspur Lane. The primary difference between the two stories is that the revised text introduces a subplot with the villains attempting to coerce Morgan into stealing the crystal from the Cornings. I like the subplot with Morgan and thought I would miss it in the original text. I found that the original text is just as good, even with that part missing.

In both versions, Nancy drives her brand-new car into the middle of the woods, hiding it behind bushes. I cannot fathom why Nancy would drive a new car into the woods. The car would likely have been scratched!

In the original text, Nancy sends a message of "S. O. S." via carrier pigeon. In the revised text, the message is changed to "SP at once," which is said to mean "Sailplane at once" and also "Send police at once." Mmm, okay... What was wrong with "S. O. S."? Some revisions make no sense.

While I enjoyed both texts of Larkspur Lane, I favored the original text.

Nancy Drew #8: Nancy's Mysterious Letter

2012-01-22T00:01:00.022-06:00

When I write up these reviews, I do not bother to give a synopsis of the story. The reason has to do with my own personal preference. I cannot stand detailed summaries which mention everything that happens in a book. I would rather be reading the book. I am curious as to whether anyone else feels the same way as I do, since most people review books with detailed summaries.

Furthermore, I assume that most people who would find this blog post interesting are people who have actually read the eighth Nancy Drew book, Nancy's Mysterious Letter. As a result, my comments are centered on what I thought as I read the story. Now let's dive in.

When I read the revised text of Nancy's Mysterious Letter, I felt that the Shakespearean quotations left by Nancy Smith Drew as a clue came across as a bit stupid. I also thought it was a shame that the college students chose not to put on the Shakespearean play that they had practiced on with Ms. Smith Drew, since they felt they could not do it justice. How about trying? Besides, unknown to them, she was in the audience to watch their play. I just felt that they should have tried to do their best, since they had been through all of that work.

In the original text, the students do perform the original play. Furthermore, Ms. Smith Drew left no Shakespearean quotes behind as a clue, which are two big pluses for the original text.

One aspect of the story struck me differently than it did years ago. I have always hated the football game part of the story. I did not like it upon this reading in the revised text. However, for the first time, I enjoyed the game in the original text. Why? Because that part of the book was written much, much better than it was in the revised text. This is a third positive for the original text.

I did have one concern about the original text. In the revised text, Edgar takes up with Nancy Smith Drew because he knows she is to receive a large inheritance. He knows, because he read the letter that Nancy received about the inheritance. In the original text, Edgar does not steal that letter. Unless I missed something really obvious, it is pure coincidence that Edgar decides to marry Nancy Smith Drew. I was bothered about this during most of my reading of the original text, and it did detract from my enjoyment of the story.

Overall, the original text is more engaging and less rushed than the revised text. For that reason and previous ones already mentioned, I cast my vote for the original text as a better story.

By the way, I completely forgot to write about this book when I read it and have now reached The Clue of the Broken Locket in my reading. Fortunately, I was able to remember some of my thoughts!

A Box of Hardy Boys Books

2012-01-20T20:42:00.001-06:00

Today I received a box of Hardy Boys books that I purchased in an eBay Buy It Now. When I picked up the package from the porch, I felt the books shifting around inside the box. I also observed that the top of the box had been smashed down during shipment. Anytime I receive a package that might turn out to have possible damage or be interesting in some fashion, I photograph the outside of the package before opening it.

I opened the package.

Since the seller did use some bubble wrap to pad the books, I could tell that this package would not be a disaster. Unfortunately, the books were not wrapped in anything, so I was sure that at least some damage occurred, which was disappointing considering the excellent condition of the dust jackets.

In the upper left corner of the box, you can see the back cover of a random booklet that the seller enclosed, Wars End by Wing Anderson. I guess I can consider that my free gift.

By examining the seller's photos from the listing, I determined that the dust jacket for The Secret of the Caves was torn slightly during shipment. I suspect that the dust jacket of The Twisted Claw was also torn and creased during shipment, but that portion of the jacket was not shown in the seller's photo. Tiny pieces of dust jackets were found in the bottom of the box, so some flaking of the edges of the jackets did occur, but not enough to be considered significant.

Nancy Drew: The Secret of Red Gate Farm

2012-01-16T00:01:00.026-06:00

The revised text of the Nancy Drew book, The Secret of Red Gate Farm, held my attention from start to end, and I finished the book very quickly. In the original text, I enjoyed the scene at the very beginning in which Bess purchases the perfume. This scene is omitted from the revised text. Aside from that one scene, the original text does not have any major scenes that are omitted in the revised text.

I did not take notes, but it appears that very little of the original text was actually rewritten. Rather, much of Nancy's thoughts about what was happening were removed, and Nancy's communication with Chief McGinnis was utilized in the revised text in order to speed up events.

I found one detail from the revision to be a bit puzzling. In both versions, Nancy and her friends stop at a gas station where Nancy purchases gasoline and the girls eat ice cream. In the original text, Nancy pays with a $20 bill. Some men also purchase gasoline and pay with a $20 bill. Later, Nancy returns to the gas station and is accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. It is apparent to the reader that the men who stopped at the same time are the actual culprits, since Nancy is not a counterfeiter.

In the revised text, the man pays for his gasoline with a $10 bill, and Nancy pays for the ice cream with a $20 bill. Later, Nancy is accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. This time, the men cannot be responsible because they paid with a different denomination. Nancy's bill must have been counterfeit, and she received it from her father.

Both texts make clear that the men who stop for gasoline are part of the Hale Syndicate. The original text has them pass a counterfeit bill. Exactly why did the revised text change that part to where the men did not pass a counterfeit bill? Why make Nancy responsible? In the original text, the accusation against Nancy is just as startling as in the revised text.

I consider it a draw as to whether the original or revised text is better. I thoroughly enjoyed the revised text, and I enjoyed the original text just as much.

Nancy's Mysterious Letter Library Binding

2012-01-13T00:01:00.038-06:00

The most difficult to find Nancy Drew library binding is what I call the "1940s Style Library Binding." I cannot express how much I covet these books and how much I would like to find more of them.

Most likely, only a handful of them still exist, and the scarcity is on the same level as the very early first printing Nancy Drew books with dust jackets. However, these books are not worth much since few people are interested in them. This is all the better for me.

I was extremely excited when I spotted one on eBay, and it was a different title from any that I already had. I have not seen one for sale in several years. It was agonizing to have to wait a week for the auction to end and then to wait another week for the book to arrive.

During that week, I speculated on what the spine symbol would look like. Every book from this style of binding has a cute spine symbol that represents an important part of the mystery. This kind of little detail is why I consider library editions to be creative works of art.

Finally, my book arrived.

At first glance, I thought that the spine symbol was Nancy Drew, although I immediately knew better. These books do not feature Nancy on the spine. The spine symbol looks very much like one of the men on the original Tandy dust jacket for Nancy's Mysterious Letter.

The text block of the book is probably from late 1941 based on the thickness of the book. The book has a glossy frontispiece illustration and good quality paper. I very seldom find thick books that have been rebound as library editions. Even though a thick book was used, it could have been rebound into a library binding many years after it was printed. While a thick library edition indicates an old book, the binding does not have to be anywhere near that old.

Since I have found so very few of these books, I have had to guess about how old I think they are. Some libraries are too obsessed about destroying all dates and notations inside their discarded books, and those books are impossible to date. Some libraries leave only the later dates, and just because a book was checked out from a library in the 1970s does not mean that the book had not already been in that library 20 years previously. Other libraries are kind enough to leave certain notations, such as the date of purchase. I am always thrilled when that date is present, since it proves the age of the binding.

I have estimated that these books were likely printed during the very late 1940s or very early 1950s, based on the style of binding and the age of the original books which were rebound in the library binding.

With this new acquisition, I finally have one date. The inside front cover has a stamp noting that the book was bound by Geo. A. Flohr Co. Library Binders in Cincinnati, Ohio. The book was rebound on July 1, 1950, which fits into my estimated time period.

I hope that I can eventually find a few more of these books. I know that #3, 5, 6, 8, 11, and 15 exist. Library editions were not created as sets. Rather, random books that were sent to the bindery were rebound. Just because #15 exists does not mean that all of #1-15 exist.

The hunt for books that may not necessarily exist and the thrill when one is finally discovered is what makes collecting fun.

Nancy Drew #7 The Clue in the Diary

2012-01-10T00:01:00.001-06:00

Norwegian edition

I find the storyline for the seventh Nancy Drew book, The Clue in the Diary, to be a bit choppy with not enough explanatory information. As I read the revised text, I felt that it was lacking and wondered whether the original text would be better. All of the complaints I had about the revised text were also true for the original text.

I do not feel the pain of Honey and her mother as much as I should. In my opinion, the book should have opened with Nancy and her friends actually at the amusement park so that we could have gotten to know Honey and her mother. Being shown why the girls fall in love with Honey and her mother is better than being told about it.

Nancy's first meeting with Joe Swenson is very rushed in the revised text. Joe trusts Nancy way too quickly, giving her money to mail to his wife. A point in favor of the revised text is that the revised text makes for a better case about why Mrs. Swenson is worried about her husband. In the revised text, Joe's letters to his wife have been stolen by a mail thief. In the original text, Joe has only been away for one week, and I feel no urgency for the Swenson family. Mrs. Swenson's worry comes across better in the revised text.

I did note one interesting revision. The original text, page 19, has the following passage.

"Why don't they stop honking their horns!" Nancy exclaimed impatiently. "It doesn't help a bit—it just drives one almost wild."

"We'll be here all night," George observed gloomily.

The same passage appears as follows in the revised text, page 13.

"Why don't they stop honking?" George exclaimed impatiently. "It doesn't help a bit. We'll be here all night!"

Nancy shows impatience in the original text, and we just couldn't have the perfect revised text Nancy be impatient at all. Instead, George expresses that emotion.

Overall, neither the original text nor the revised text is significantly better than the other. Since I feel that the mail fraud subplot added to the mystery of what had happened to Joe Swenson, I will vote in favor of the revised text as a slightly better story. However, I don't like either version very much.

More Package Troubles

2012-01-07T00:01:00.038-06:00

Last week, I had to pick up a package at the post office because it arrived postage due of $7.31.

The seller had taken one of the medium priority mail flat rate boxes and wrapped it in brown paper. The package was then sent media mail, which is why the package arrived postage due for the balance of what priority mail would have cost for the package.

The postal service forbids the use of priority mail supplies for any service other than priority mail. USPS workers try to catch as many as they can, although most of them slip through.

I requested that the seller reimburse me for the $7.31, which he did without comment. I am always relieved when these situations work out without any melodrama. I have had sellers get upset in the past, as though I did something wrong.

This week, I had what I consider to be an epic damaged package, or perhaps the real situation is that the books were tossed in the box and then shaken around by USPS. I don't know what happened exactly, but the view of the inside of the box was horrific, and a number of the books were damaged.

This is how the package looked before I opened it.

I smudged out the addresses but left enough so that you can get an idea of how difficult it was to read the addresses. The seller used green marker on a product box that had dark colors on it. Part of my address was nearly indecipherable, so it is amazing that I received the package.

I took a photo of the bottom of the box, which looked a bit rough.

I took the above photos just so that I could combine them with the mention of the postage due package and come up with a blog post. I little realized what kind of mess was inside the box. I lifted the flaps to see this.

Uh-oh. One of the side box flaps was inside Tapping Heels. I pulled the flap away and lifted the remaining flap.

Not good. I gradually removed a few books at a time and snapped the following photos as I removed books.

Notice that a piece of the front panel of the dust jacket for Witch Tree Symbol is in the center of the below photo.

Several of the books were damaged with folds to either the front free or rear free endpaper. Some of the jackets were damaged.

The following photo shows the packing materials, some of which appear to be trash.

The seller's communication was professional and courteous, and I would not have expected this kind of mess inside the package. I am undecided on whether the books were placed inside the package neatly or as a giant mess. Two of the dust jackets were completely separated from the books, which is why I wonder whether the books were tossed inside the box haphazardly. The box did have empty space, so possibly the books were stacked, and the package was violently thrown around during shipment. In fact, if the box were in a vehicle that rolled over in an accident, that would account for how the books were arranged when I opened the package.

Either way, this was an interesting package to receive. While I am not pleased about the treatment the books received, I am also not upset about it. These were not books for my collection. I had spotted a decent Buy It Now right after it was listed, and I purchased the books, figuring that I would be reselling most or all of them. If the books had been ones that I knew I was keeping, I would have been very upset.

Here is a picture of what the package contained, once I had the jackets in mylar.

I hope you find these package situations to be interesting.

Be Wary of Certain Selling Practices

2012-01-04T00:01:00.005-06:00

I have seen quite a few listings which are not accurate as to the scarcity or value of the book that is up for sale. In this blog post, I will be citing some specific examples, but I will not be linking to them. I thought about trying to smooth over what I am about to write with a few opening statements, but I decided not to worry about it. No doubt, I will upset a few people.

Using Farah's Guide values to justify high prices

I see this practice quite often and by a number of different sellers. As an example, let's say that a seller has a first printing of the Nancy Drew book, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon, in dust jacket, which that seller has priced at $100. That seller tells buyers that the book is valued at $250 in Farah's Guide. The implication is that the seller is offering a great deal at $100. Not so, since Fire Dragon seldom sells for more than $50 these days.

Be wary of any listing that uses the Farah's Guide value to indicate the true worth of a book. My thought is always that if a book is worth $250, then why does the seller not ask that amount? The seller must feel that the book is worth less than the guide value.

Misinterpreting Farah's Guide

Sometimes, a seller misinterprets Farah's Guide without realizing it. I'd like to give the specific example, but all of you would immediately be able to find the listing. I have already given my opinion of listings that use the outdated Farah's Guide values to make the book seem more valuable. This listing falls into that category but goes even further, giving an incorrect reason why the book is worth even more than the Farah's Guide value. It has to do with thinking that two variants are the same printing when in fact Farah has separated them into two printings with different stated values. Always be careful of any listing that uses any means to magnify the value of a book.

Exaggerating the condition of books

Many sellers over-describe the condition of their books. One seller's books are always in "fine," "near fine," or "about fine" condition. My only comment is that the seller's pictures often tell a different story. In many cases, buyers are better off ignoring all of the seller commentary and focusing on what can be seen in the pictures. However, make sure you do read the seller's description for mention of any flaws that cannot be seen in the photos.

I caught another seller stating that a book had "absolutely no chipping anywhere to the jacket." If so, then why were small pieces missing at the extreme corners? True, the pieces were very small, but that would seem to negate the statement "absolutely no chipping." According to this site, "chipping" is "a small piece missing from the edge of a dust jacket."

Exactly.

Ignoring water damage

This one falls into the previous category, but it deserves its own section. Look carefully at photos for evidence of water damage. Even some collectors and knowledgeable sellers fail to disclose water damage. I saw one instance of a knowledgeable seller not disclosing what I could see in the photo. Not surprising, the buyer paid way too much, and then complained about the condition in feedback.

Below is a picture I took from a listing this fall. I don't know if the books had water damage, but The Haunted Bridge, which is second from the left in the top row, has the appearance of a water-damaged book. The whitish stain is how water damage often appears in photos.

Also notice the tape and stains from tape on many of the books. Sellers often fail to disclose old tape on books and jackets.

Stating that a common anomaly is a rarity and more valuable

Most people who sell extras of the UK edition Sampson Low Nancy Drew books with dust jackets mislead their buyers about the rarity of the books. Some sellers indicate that the books are rare because of the Dana Girls endpapers. All of the Sampson Low Nancy Drew books have Dana Girls endpapers, because Sampson Low apparently wanted to use the Dana Girls endpapers. The use of the Dana Girls endpapers may make the Sampson Low books interesting, but it does not make the them any more scarce or valuable. They are what they are.

Two Sampson Low books have misprints on the front covers. The Mystery of the Fire Dragon is "The Mystery of the Fiery Dragon" on the front cover. The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes is "The Clue of the Whispering Bagpipes" on the front cover.

I have seen multiple sellers charge really high prices for those two books as compared to other Sampson Low books based apparently on the very rare misprint. I have never seen a Sampson Low Fire Dragon without "Fiery Dragon" on the front cover, and I have never seen a Sampson Low Whistling Bagpipes without "Whispering Bagpipes" on the front cover. What would be rare would be a book without the error.

Pay the really high price if you want the book, but be aware that those books are worth no more than any of the others.

Stating that a book is the "true first edition" or "true first printing"

The part that bothers me is the use of the word "true" in front of "first printing" or "first edition." Using "true" indicates to me that the seller is 100% certain, when the seller really has no idea for any series that does not have a published guide, such as Connie Blair, Vicki Barr, the Dana Girls, and many others. The only series in which published guides exist that establish "true first printing" status are Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Rick Brant, and Judy Bolton. Statements made about any books in any other series are pure speculation, so the word "true" should not be used.

I try to be very careful about when I give first printing status. For instance, I am quite confident that the first picture cover printings of Dana Girls #1 through 23 list to Sierra Gold on the back cover and Nancy Drew to Dancing Puppet/Dana Girls to Sierra Gold on the inside. I have not made notes about the books past #24, so I would not feel comfortable absolutely guaranteeing first printing status for #24 and up. View the last part of this blog post to see how I found out that a certain book is not the first printing.

While published guides establish what we believe to be the true first printings, we really do not know for certain. Even the guides have used speculation to establish which books are the first printing. However, the guides have established what is accepted to be the first printing for each title, so sellers are fine in citing the guides and stating that a book is the true first printing.

In conclusion, I caution you to be careful about how you respond to the excellent salesmanship qualities that some sellers have. These sellers are very good at making their books seem quite desirable, but often, the books are less desirable than how they appear.

My Third Anniversary on Bonanza

2012-01-01T17:08:00.001-06:00

I opened my Bonanza booth, Jennifer's Series Books, three years ago today.

The first eight items listed in my booth.

My strategy has changed in the last three years. In early 2009, I pushed really hard to get people to come visit Bonanza (then Bonanzle). I had this feeling in the back of my mind that most of you thought I was crazy, pushing an unknown alternative site. I had no choice, since eBay was not working at all for me at that time. I pretty much took a stab in the dark and chose a site based on which one seemed to be the most aesthetically pleasing.

I managed to get a few of you to join and list some books. A few people bought books. Once I placed widgets here and on my website, traffic really began picking up. Now, three years later, I am not interested in trying to convince people to come to Bonanza. They will either come, or they will not.

I seem to have fairly consistent sales, regardless. My strategy now is to keep doing what I am doing. I have this blog, which was created in 2006 solely as a means for people to contact me. At that time, I barely understand what a blog was or why someone would want one. Next, I begin posting a few thoughts about eBay auctions and various books during 2007. I became more comfortable with the blog as time passed (putting thoughts out in cyberspace scared me at first), and my output increased during 2008.

I created my Facebook page awhile back, just because people who have storefronts are supposed to have Facebook pages in order to spam about what they sell. I then figured out that the Facebook page should be approached the same way as I do this blog. I should just post interesting information and interact with other people about shared interests. Once I changed my approach, I began to gain more followers rapidly and without having to beg people to follow me.

I have my Facebook page linked to Twitter, so whenever I post on Facebook, the same information goes to Twitter. I have decided that Twitter is pretty much useless for someone like me, but by having my Facebook posts sent to Twitter, perhaps something might happen. At least it keeps my Twitter account active without any effort.

I am going to continue to list on eBay to some degree, depending upon how busy I am. I still have my eyes on a top-rated seller account, and perhaps in a few more months, I might qualify. Of course, with my past luck, the day I qualify, someone will decide to leave me low DSRs "just because." Whatever happens, I will continue to list the bulk of my books on Bonanza. Even if someone tries to destroy me on eBay, they won't be able to hurt me on Bonanza.

I compiled my transactions per month over the last three years on Bonanza. Looking at the list, the data pretty much means nothing. Since I spent at least 20 minutes compiling it, I'm certainly going to include the data in this post.

Jan 2009 - 6
Jan 2010 - 31
Jan 2011 - 24

Feb 2009 - 6
Feb 2010 - 31
Feb 2011 - 17

Mar 2009 - 8
Mar 2010 - 28
Mar 2011 - 22

Apr 2009 - 7
Apr 2010 - 28
Apr 2011 - 18

May 2009 - 16
May 2010 - 34
May 2011 - 21

Jun 2009 - 14
Jun 2010 - 33
Jun 2011 - 30

Jul 2009 - 27
Jul 2010 - 24
Jul 2011 - 30

Aug 2009 - 32
Aug 2010 - 34
Aug 2011 - 14

Sep 2009 - 15
Sep 2010 - 18
Sep 2011 - 24

Oct 2009 - 35
Oct 2010 - 12
Oct 2011 - 28

Nov 2009 - 22
Nov 2010 - 20
Nov 2011 - 44

Dec 2009 - 30
Dec 2010 - 19
Dec 2011 - 26

Most transactions represent multiple items sold. I have sold 2,899 items on Bonanza in the last three years.

Here is where I list what I sold by series in December. I always think this is the most interesting part, because it gives an idea of which series books are the most popular. Not that we already didn't know...

Nancy Drew - 23
Trixie Belden - 17
Judy Bolton - 10
Dana Girls - 9
Hardy Boys - 3
Beverly Gray - 1
Edith Lavell - 1
Vicki Barr - 1

I sold a total of 65 books. I also sold a bunch of issues of series book publications, but I decided not to include those in my list, since that would have skewed the data.

Here is what I sold in December by dollar amount.

up to $4.99 - 11
$5-$9.99 - 25
$10-$14.99 - 10
$15-$19.99 - 4
$20-$24.99 - 6
$25-$29.99 - 2
$34.99 - 2
$39.99 - 1
$49.99 - 2
$59.99 - 1
$64.99 - 1

Most of my Bonanza sales continue to come from my website and blogs, with a few scattered sales from Google. Since my sales mainly come from my website and blogs, I no longer feel the need to try to convince people to come to Bonanza. As already stated, they will either come, or they will not.

My Book Collecting Year in Summary

2011-12-30T00:01:00.098-06:00

I have made some important acquisitions during 2011, so I thought I would summarize the ones that come to mind.

This year I acquired the first printing jacket, 1931A-1, to the Nancy Drew book, The Secret at Shadow Ranch, bringing the total number of first printing Nancy Drew dust jackets that I need down to just one, The Secret of the Old Clock. I purposefully never mentioned this acquisition when it happened, since it involved a strange sequence of events. If you go back and read through my Nancy Drew posts that involve early Nancy Drew books from back in September and the comments to those posts, you can probably figure out what happened.

I quite unexpectedly found the first printing of the Nancy Drew book The Clue in the Crossword Cipher during what normally would have been an uneventful trip to a local book store, detailed here. This brings the total number of first printing Nancy Drew books that I need down to just one, The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

The result is that 2011 brought me down to needing just one first printing Nancy Drew dust jacket and one first printing Nancy Drew book for the original 56 books.

I also made a very narrow upgrade to the rather difficult to find first printing book for The Sign of the Twisted Candles, detailed here and here. Actually, I'm not sure if the book I am keeping could be considered better, but in any case, I unearthed another example of an extremely scarce first printing book.

I made a fabulous find of early and first picture cover Hardy Boys books at a book store, detailed here.

I still need some stray first printing revised text and art picture covers for the Nancy Drew series. I made some headway in that regard this year as well. In December I acquired the first printing of the 1965 art for The Secret of Shadow Ranch, when formerly I just had the second printing of the 1965 art. I also acquired the first printing of the 1974 cover art to The Scarlet Slipper Mystery.

After an email exchange with another collector, I realized that I did not have the third art of The Clue in the Old Album with the black and white multi endpapers. This was the only Nancy Drew cover art that I only had in the double oval endpapers. I decided to solve that problem. I purchased two copies on eBay, and one of them ended up being the first printing of the 1977 cover art, thus giving me another needed printing.

I quit reading the Grace Harlowe books earlier this year, in part due to my inability to find Grace Harlowe with the U.S. Troops in the Argonne. Three copies were available online, but I did not wish to pay those prices, especially considering the condition of the books.

In December, an eBay auction appeared that had Argonne along with several other books from the Overseas series. After some debate, I decided to purchase the lot, which was priced a bit high. After the seller shipped the books, he told me that he had found an extra copy of one of the books, which he had added to the box. I was wondering which one and thought, "What if it were Argonne? Wouldn't that be funny?"

The package arrived, and to my delight, I discovered two copies of Grace Harlowe with the U.S. Troops in the Argonne in the box. It's amusing to go from not having a book at all to having two copies instantly.

In 2011, I decided to resume going to garage sales and estate sales for the first time since the middle part of the 1990s. I had gone to a couple of garage sales in recent years, but this fall, I began to check the sales every single Saturday. I now am very interested in going to these sales, not so much for books but for the recreation. The books will be few and far between, but perhaps I can find something good in the coming months.

I also have the satisfaction of seeing that traffic to this blog continues to increase, although at a slow and steady rate. I have begun utilizing my Facebook page in a more appropriate fashion, and it is gaining interest. Best of all, I enjoy using my Facebook page.

I decided to begin selling again on eBay this year since I found eBay to once again be usable for selling. The primary motivation was the 50 free auction listings per month. eBay is useless unless the listings are free. I hope to attain top-rated seller status eventually, just so that I can see if it makes a difference.

In the meantime, I will continue to use Bonanza for the bulk of my sales and am pleased at the progress I have made there.

As the year ends, I want to continue reading the Nancy Drew books again for the first time in ten years, but I also now have a dilemma. Since I finally have all of the Grace Harlowe books, I feel like I should resume reading them.
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Edited to add: As pointed out in a comment, I forgot one of my most important acquisitions, Nancy Drew #78, The Phantom of Venice, in hardcover with dust jacket. I wrote about that find in this post.

Taiwanese Nancy Drew Books

2011-12-28T00:01:00.004-06:00

At least 11 of the Nancy Drew books were printed in Asia, probably in Taiwan and during either the 1970s or 1980s. These books are pirated editions. I have eight of these books.

Most of the books have the black and white multi endpapers. One book has light brown instead of black on the endpapers.

The cover art has the appearance of color photocopies of the original cover art of the Grosset and Dunlap editions. The colors and image quality are off slightly. Below, I have photographed two of the pirated editions, seen on the left, and two of the Grosset and Dunlap editions, seen on the right.

You should be able to clearly see that Ski Jump looks to be a bad reproduction of the original cover.

The inside of each book is exactly the same as the Grosset and Dunlap edition, except for the copyright page. Asian characters have been added to each copyright page.

These books have always mystified me, since I have never understood why someone would pirate Nancy Drew books. It now occurs to me that perhaps the books could be offered less expensively to buyers in Asia by pirating the books than they could by importing the books from the United States. In any case, these books make for an interesting variant for people who collect Nancy Drew books.

Follow Me on Facebook

2011-12-25T16:01:00.000-06:00

I want to remind everyone that I have a Facebook page, and I really enjoy posting bits of information there. Sometimes what I mention there will end up here in a more complete format; other times, I may only mention some information there.

I also have been adding books to my Bonanza booth.

Jennifer's Series Books

I have had people ask me about the best way to keep informed of whenever I list new books. You have two different ways. On the main page of my booth (follow the above link), look on the left side where the categories appear. Scroll down underneath the categories until you find the "Booth toolbox." If you choose the link that says "get new item alerts," you can receive an email when I list new items. Right under that link, you can also fave my booth. By faving my booth, you will see a link on the main page of your "My Bonanza" whenever I have listed new items.

I very often sell new items within 24 hours of listing them to people who have my booth faved, so you have a distinct advantage if you stay aware of when new items are listed. You can do this for any seller on Bonanza. Here is my page of faved sellers, which shows most of the people who sell series books on Bonanza.

My faved sellers on Bonanza

I am trying to motivate myself to list some books on eBay. I was enthusiastic back in October, but then I had such great sales in November on Bonanza that I did not have time. I had time in December, except for the week that I had the flu, but I usually do not sell on eBay in the few weeks before Christmas.

I have that first printing of Twisted Candles that I need to sell, and an eBay auction might be the fairest way to go. I also have two badly water-damaged blank endpapers Nancy Drew books that I might put on eBay. They are the extras which were purchased solely to get the first printing dust jackets. I put the jackets on other books, which left me with these horrible books with little value.

I hope everyone is having a good holiday!

Another Trip to Shadow Ranch

2011-12-23T00:01:00.001-06:00

As I continue my journey through the Nancy Drew books, I read the revised text of Shadow Ranch. I recall that I loved gazing at the Rudy Nappi cover art as a child. The phantom horse is so spooky.

I love the mystery of Dirk Valentine's missing treasure. This mystery has always been one of my favorites. As with Lilac Inn, I have always preferred the revised text.

I have always disliked the original text, although upon this reading, I viewed it much more favorably than previously. I have already mentioned that my reading of the early Stratemeyer Syndicate series in recent years has changed my perspective. This reading was the first time I had ever read the original text Shadow Ranch since reading all of the early series books.

I was struck by how much the book reminds me of the Outdoor Girls series. The entire tone of the book and all of the events from start to finish are extremely similar to the way the Outdoor Girls series is. Change a few names and rewrite some passages, and the book could easily become The Outdoor Girls at Shadow Ranch. In fact, Nancy suddenly acquires two new friends, Bess and George, at the beginning of Shadow Ranch and becomes part of a trio, similar to the Outdoor Girls and other series. This got me to thinking.

Edward Stratemeyer died as the first three Nancy Drew books were published. Harriet Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier had to scramble to get their father's business under control in the months after he died. During the first few months, Edward Stratemeyer's secretary, Harriet Otis Smith, was responsible for keeping the business going. Lilac Inn was the first Nancy Drew book published after Stratemeyer's death, but that book had already been written by Mildred Wirt, and Otis Smith edited it.

Grosset and Dunlap wanted the next book in the series, the one that was to become Shadow Ranch. The trouble is that Shadow Ranch had no outline, and nobody knew what story Stratemeyer had wished to tell. On page 133 of Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, Melanie Rehak gives Stratemeyer's description of Shadow Ranch: "A thrilling tale of mysterious doings at various places in the valley and around the ranch. It remained for Nancy Drew to solve some perplexing situations."

Otis Smith wrote up an outline based on that vague description. Since Shadow Ranch reads so much like an Outdoor Girls book, I wonder whether Otis Smith could have gotten some ideas from an outline for an Outdoor Girls book and changed it up for Nancy Drew. She also could have used an outline for Billie Bradley or Betty Gordon, which were still in print during the early 1930s but soon ended. It would be reasonable to assume that some outlines for those series were never used for books in those series. They could have been used for Nancy Drew. This is pure speculation on my part, but I see such a strong similarity in tone between the original text Shadow Ranch and early Stratemeyer books that I feel this to be a possibility.

Back to my thoughts about the story. The original text Shadow Ranch has some crazy, improbable coincidences that go beyond any of the coincidences in the revised text. For instance, Alice Regor is looking for her father, who is found near Shadow Ranch, and it happens that Alice's father went missing because of the actions of Martha Frank and her brother, which occurred in a completely different part of the country. Yet somehow, Martha and her brother show up near Shadow Ranch, while Alice's father also shows up near Shadow Ranch unknown to them. Next, Nancy and her friends also show up at Shadow Ranch with Alice, and everything randomly falls into place. This kind of crazy coincidence is how all of the early Stratemeyer Syndicate books are, and as I already stated, I have a suspicion that the idea for this story came from one of those series.

I still do not particularly care for the story about Martha Frank, and I overall do not care for the original text story as a Nancy Drew book. Nancy and her friends do a lot of exploring in the mountains, get lost, and nearly get attacked by wild animals. It just doesn't feel like a Nancy Drew book to me. However, if I read the book and pretend that it is an Outdoor Girls book and that Nancy, Bess, and George are Outdoor Girls, then the book is totally awesome.

If you are someone who enjoys the original text Shadow Ranch, I suggest that you try some of the Outdoor Girls books, say the second half of the series which are the best books. The Outdoor Girls books are great vintage stories that have the same tone as the original text Shadow Ranch. I always have to get in a good word about the Outdoor Girls series, which is a great series that is not collected by very many people.

Revisiting The Mystery at Lilac Inn

2011-12-19T00:01:00.001-06:00

As I continue revisiting the early Nancy Drew books, I began reading the revised text of The Mystery at Lilac Inn. The first two chapters annoyed me, since the descriptive information is too brief and various random disruptive events occur seemingly constantly.

The book barely begins when Nancy and Helen learn about Nancy having a double. Then, on the very next page, their canoe capsizes. The girls arrive at Lilac Inn to see that Emily is troubled. Next, one of the gardeners falls into a hole. A few pages later, a mysterious cry is heard from outside. This is all in the first fifteen pages. The events seem disjointed and thrown together.

Once I reached Chapter 3, I began enjoying the story. The mystery about Nancy's double is sinister. The jewel theft is quite a mystery, with suspicion thrown on Maud Potter. The mystery is intriguing in all aspects. I have always greatly enjoyed the revised text of Lilac Inn, and this time was no exception.

In fact, I enjoyed this reading so much that I almost felt like I was reading one of the longer original text stories. The story seemed fuller to me than the revised texts of the first three books. Perhaps the difference is that this particular story was almost completely rewritten whereas the first three revised text stories were mainly condensed versions of the original texts, which made those stories come across as inferior.

I have never liked the original text of Lilac Inn, so as I began reading the original text this time, I wondered what my reaction would be. I liked the opening scene in which Nancy meets Emily outside Lilac Inn and has lunch with her. After that interesting scene, Nancy gets caught up in servant problems.

Why would an average child during the Great Depression want to read about a girl moaning about servant problems? Perhaps girls really enjoyed learning about the problems of the upper class, but I find it really obnoxious. Even worse, every single one of the servants sent to Nancy is from a minority group and described as unsuitable. This subplot is racist, stereotypical, and not necessary.

In fact, the entire first part of this book seems off to me as compared to the first three original text books. Nancy and her acquaintances are too fixated on the problems of the upper class.

Next, we have Mrs. Willoughby and her friend, Clara Potter, who pick up Emily's jewels from the safe deposit box. They decide to take lunch at Lilac Inn with the jewels on the table inside Mrs. Willoughby's purse. The two women act nervous and talk constantly about how they hope nobody knows about the jewels. Of course everyone knows, since the women are acting so strange. Not surprisingly, the jewels are stolen. I find this part of the story to be very annoying. I cannot stand stupidity to be the reason why a theft happens.

Once I read past the theft and the immediate aftermath, I began to enjoy the story more. I found it hard to be very sympathetic to Emily, perhaps because she seems to spend too much time crying about her misfortune. I also found it hard to be sympathetic to Mrs. Willoughby, since she caused the theft of the diamonds.

Around page 80, I began to thoroughly enjoy the story. It felt like the story finally hit its stride at this point and became a good adventure and mystery. Nancy gets heavily involved in sleuthing and quits worrying about her servant problems.

In summary, I really enjoyed the revised text, except for the first two chapters. I enjoyed the original text overall, but I did not enjoy the first 80 pages as much. The stories both involve the diamond theft, but the revised text has the intriguing, dangerous plot with Nancy's double. For that reason, I prefer the revised text.

Revisiting the Rest of the Nancy Drew Breeder Set

2011-12-14T00:01:00.003-06:00

I have finished reading both the original and revised texts for the second and third Nancy Drew books, The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery.

The original texts of both books refer back to the events of The Secret of the Old Clock, which makes for strong continuity. That continuity was lost when both books were revised, since all of those references were removed. Offhand, I do not believe that the events of Old Clock were mentioned in any great detail in the original text books past Bungalow Mystery, and this makes me wonder how the series would have progressed if Edward Stratemeyer had lived past the publication of the first three books. We can be certain that the books would not have been the same, since daughters Harriet and Edna would not have been running the Syndicate if Edward had remained alive.

In the original text Hidden Staircase, Nancy spends a good bit of time in the early chapters of the books visiting with the Horner girls and Abigail Rowen about how they are doing after receiving Josiah Crowley's inheritance. It is during Nancy's visit to Abigail that she meets the Turnbulls and learns of the mystery at their mansion. In the revised text, the Turnbulls are related to Helen Corning, and Helen asks Nancy to solve the mystery.

In the original text Bungalow Mystery, Nancy and Helen are caught in the storm on Moon Lake, which is the same lake that figured so prominently in the events of Old Clock. The location was changed in the revised text.

My perspective on both of these stories has changed since I read them ten years ago. The last time I read these books, I had not yet begun collecting and reading the early Stratemeyer series such as the Outdoor Girls, the Blythe Girls, Girls of Central High, and others. I recall that I considered some aspects of the original texts to be better but that I still preferred other aspects of the revised texts, which were the ones that I read as a child. I believe that I considered the original texts to be better, but I can't remember my specific thoughts clearly.

Upon this reading, I quite distinctly find the original texts to be better, and I believe the fact that I have read so many of the early series is what has caused me to react so strongly in favor of these two original texts.

I recall that I strongly disliked the original texts of Lilac Inn and Shadow Ranch, so I am interested to see how I react to those two. Will I still strongly dislike them, or will I respond much more favorably?

Saturday's Estate Sale Finds

2011-12-11T00:01:00.030-06:00

I started going to estate sales a few months ago. I don't usually find any series books and have very little expectation of finding any. My main purpose is for recreation and to find useful items for low prices.

This weekend I finally found some series books. At the first sale, which was near where I live, I found a number of Hardy Boys books with dust jackets.

I also bought two Tom Quest, a Rick Brant, and a Landmark book at the same sale.

I next decided to drive to the other side of the city to attend several estate sales that were clustered close together. I normally don't drive to that part of the city, since the trip takes too long for very little reward. The only reason I decided to make the trip was because one sale showed a ceramic Christmas tree in one of the preview photographs, shown below.

The tree looked too much like the one on the cover of the Judy Bolton book, The Secret of the Musical Tree, for me not to check it out. I ended up purchasing the tree, which is very cute. The tree measures 12 inches tall and 7 1/2 inches in diameter at the widest point.

The pictures never show the ceramic Christmas trees to be as nice as they actually are.

At another sale, I found six assorted series books.

I would not have purchased the above books if I had not decided to go after the ceramic Christmas tree.

Seeking the First Printing of Nancy Drew Lilac Inn

2011-12-08T00:01:00.005-06:00

Sellers don't always respond well to questions, and some sellers even get paranoid about the questions. In a recent case, a seller decided to be secretive with me, and as best I can deduce, she treated me differently because of this blog. I'm not sure if she was intimidated or if she thought I was trying to trick her. In any case, she snubbed me by avoiding my question completely, yet she responded in an open fashion when someone else contacted the seller for me and asked the same question.

Another collector told me about this listing for a blank endpapers edition of the Nancy Drew book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

Nancy Drew The Mystery At Lillac Inn

The book was listed with a start price of $250 and a Buy It Now of $275. $250 was way too high if the book was not the very first printing but was not a bad price if the book was the first printing. I could not risk buying the book at $275 and have it turn out not to be the very first printing. After all, I would not be able to sell an unwanted non-first for that high of a price. I also had no desire to buy the book and have to ask to return for a refund, which could always end badly.

I had no option but to ask the seller about the post-text ads since no information was provided. This was my question.

In order to tell if this book is the actual first printing, we need more information. In the back of the book there should be a page that says "This Isn't All!" After that page, there will be several pages with advertisements. We need to know the name of the series advertised on each page and the last title listed in that series in the ad. For instance, the first ad page could advertise the Hardy Boys ending with Great Airport Mystery. Also, the book should have a glossy frontispiece illustration and three additional glossy illustrations scattered throughout the book. Are all four illustrations present? Thanks!

I received the following response.

Good morning,
Attached are the only additional pictures that I have of this item. Please feel free to contact us again with any additional questions.

Attached were four photos. The photos were of the copyright page, the title page, the glossy frontispiece, and the back cover. The seller did not address my question about the post-text ads at all. Based on the lack of response, I made the assumption that the book was not in the seller's possession. I was a bit annoyed that the seller evaded my questions, and I even mentioned the seller's response on my Facebook page. Others immediately drew the same conclusion that the seller did not have the book. Another popular opinion was that the seller was running a scam.

I tried again, and I regret that I made a comment about price, because I know better and any mention of price usually causes problems. Keep in mind that I was quite annoyed about the seller's evasion and that I was holding back on what I really wanted to tell her.

So you don't have the book in your possession? This is very disappointing. We have to know the post-text ads in order to know if this is the first printing. You are going to have a lot of trouble selling the book at that asking price without the post-text ad information in the description. If the book is the first printing, it is worth that much, but we can't tell from the information provided. Your book might be just a $50 copy, so we can't risk buying it to find out. It would be in your best interest to get the book in your possession and add the information I requested to the description. I'm not going to be the only person to ask. Thanks in advance.

I received this response.

I have the book in my possession, but did not take pics of the last pages. I will not sell it for $50. I believe you are the individual that has the jacket(s) for the first printing but not the book?

Now I knew that she had been to my blog and must have read something about first printing points. By now, I was convinced that the seller knew that the book was not the first printing and was trying to pull a scam. According to her statement, she had the book. Why not tell me about the post-text ads? Is it any wonder why I try to avoid asking sellers questions?

In retrospect, I suspect that the seller misunderstood my price reference as an attempt to trick her about the value. The truth is that the book might be a $50 to $100 book, and I could not risk paying $275 for a book that is worth much less. That was all I meant, but I'm sure she didn't understand that. Sigh. I tried one last time, and I was quite frustrated by this point.

I don't have to see photographs. What are the ads after the "This isn't all" page? That was all I wanted to know. The first page has _____ series with ____ as the last title listed. The second page has _____ series with ______ as the last title listed, etc. I don't want the book for $50. I meant that your book might be only worth $50, but I can't tell due to lack of information. If your book has the right ads, then I am willing to pay your price. I'm sorry that I am not making myself clear.

The seller never replied to my last message, which totally convinced me that the seller was up to no good. The seller had seemed evasive for some unknown reason. Does any seller want his or her buyers to think that?

After 24 hours had passed with no response to my final question, I gave up. However, I wanted to try to figure out what was going on with this seller. I took this public to my Facebook page, asking others to query the seller. I find it interesting how open the seller decided to be with the other people who made contact. I guess the seller didn't trust the collector with the blog but sure could tell others that the book is in a warehouse, which is why she doesn't know what the ads are.

Hmm... The seller told me that she had the book in her possession, but offered no explanation as to why she was avoiding my question. She immediately told someone else that it was in a warehouse, which is why she couldn't answer the question about the ads. I was thinking along those lines. I knew by her lack of response that she did not have the book with her, yet she told me that she had the book. Why didn't she tell me the truth?

Right after I was told about the seller's prompt response to the other collector's query, the seller raised the price to $1,000 with a Buy It Now of $1,100. Then within an hour of the big price increase, she canceled the listing. She also got back in touch with the other collector, telling her that she would get her the required information. Meanwhile, my last question continued to go unanswered. I, apparently, did not matter.

I find it interesting that the seller chose to snub me while answering other people's questions. The person she chose to answer was only asking for me. That person wasn't even interested in the book. The irony is that the seller snubbed the person who would have purchased the book, if a first printing, and decided to help the person who had no interest in purchasing the book.

Also interesting is that the seller decided that the book was really valuable because of the questions. Let's think about this. If the book had been hugely undervalued with a Buy It Now of $275, wouldn't I have bought the book immediately without asking a question? The seller would have never suspected anything. I never ask questions about books that are priced too low. I buy them, pay, and receive my purchase in the mail without the selling having any idea. Since I decided to wait on an answer, that should have indicated that I was not sure that the book was worth purchasing.

It is also a bit amusing that the seller assumed that she had the scarce first printing, considering how impossible it is to find. Let's consider what the probability is of a seller's book turning out to be the first printing. Farah's Guide shows seven blank endpapers printings. The first two printings have the same points, and I firmly believe that the first two Farah's Guide printings were the same print run. Therefore, I consider there to be six blank endpapers printings of Lilac Inn.

Assuming that an equal number of books were printed for each run, then the first printing would constitute no more than one-sixth of the surviving copies, or 16.7%. Considering that some middle to late 1930 books had smaller print runs, then it is quite likely that the first printing was much smaller than the subsequent printings, which explains why it never comes up for sale. Let's say that the first printing only had half as many copies. That would mean that no more than one-twelfth of the surviving copies could be the first printing, or just 8.3%. How funny that sellers assume that they have the scarce book!

The seller handled my query badly since she ignored my repeated questions about the post-text ads. I decided before I went to Facebook that even if the book were the first printing that I did not trust her and did not want to purchase the book from her. Is that how sellers want their prospective buyers to feel?

Another irony is that the very last time that I asked a seller about the post-text ads in Lilac Inn, I also did not receive a satisfactory response. I asked that seller within 10 minutes of the start time of the auction, and the seller responded that he was leaving town and was unable to answer. Really? The book had been listed for only 10 minutes, and he could not answer a question. In that case, I bid on the auction and won it for a little over $100, within the value of a later printing. I didn't want to take a chance on missing out on a possible first printing. It turned out not to be the first, and I sold it for slightly above what I paid for it.

With this kind of luck, I will have trouble ever finding the first printing of Lilac Inn, and my difficulty will not be restricted to the scarcity of the book. Lack of cooperation by sellers is a far bigger obstacle.
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I delayed publishing this post for a couple of weeks, since I was hoping to learn whether this book is the first printing. As far as I know, the seller never came forth with the necessary information. She has not relisted the book, and she has allowed all of her eBay listings to expire. Furthermore, none of her books sold, since all of them were priced very high. I believe that this seller is one of those people who is paranoid about possibly selling a book for too low of a price, so she makes sure that her books are priced very high.

November 2011 Sales on Bonanza

2011-12-05T00:01:00.100-06:00

November 2011 was my best month in the nearly three years that I have had my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza. Whether I quantify my November sales by the amount I paid in fees, by the dollar amount in transactions, by the number of transactions, or by the number items sold, November was the very best month I have ever had on Bonanza.

I sold a total of 158 items in 44 transactions. By series, this is what I sold.

Nancy Drew - 94
Dana Girls - 19
Trixie Belden - 18
Hardy Boys - 10
Cherry Ames - 4
Kay Tracey - 4
Peggy Lane - 4
Judy Bolton - 3
Connie Blair - 1
Zorro - 1

By dollar amount, this is what I sold.

up to $4.99 - 51
$5.00 to $9.99 - 63
$10.00 to $14.99 - 13
$15.00 to $19.99 - 9
$20.00 to $24.99 - 8
$25.00 to $29.99 - 2
$34.99 - 5
$39.99 - 1
$49.99 - 2
$54.99 - 1
$69.99 - 1
$249.99 - 1
$349.99 - 1

Most of my sales were Nancy Drew books, and unlike usual, the types of Nancy Drew books that sold were of almost all varieties that I have available for sale. I sold early books, books with dust jackets, original text picture covers, revised text picture covers, library editions, softcover editions, and tweed books without jackets.

The breakdown by payment method is as follows.

PayPal - 21 (47.7%)
Google Checkout - 6 (13.7%)
Checkout by Amazon - 17 (38.6%)

For the first time ever, fewer than half of the payments came through PayPal. PayPal's slogan is, "PayPal. The world's most-loved way to pay and get paid." Are we sure about that? Buyers are now choosing other methods rather often.

I commented in a previous post that I was not certain of the source of my November sales. For the first half of the month, my sales came primarily from direct traffic, from which I could not determine the exact preceding source. For the second half of the month, my sales came primarily from my website and blogs. I have to assume that a large percentage of my total sales for the first half of the month were from my website and blogs.

Bonanza's page rank is now a 5. Back when the site was Bonanzle, its page rank was either 4 or 5. The page rank was 0 in the first few months after the site's name changed from Bonanzle to Bonanza, which is why traffic was so bad at that time.

I have also checked my Bonanza booth's page rank, which is now a 3. This is very good for a booth on an alternative site that supposedly does not get much traffic. For comparison, this blog also has a page rank of 3, which it has had for years. My website, series-books.com, has a page rank of 4.

Page rank is Google's assessment of a website's importance, and the page rank goes from 0 up to 10. The difference between a page rank of 3 and a page rank of 4 is exponential and similar to how the Richter scale works with earthquakes. Most individuals who have a website will never be able to attain a page rank above around 5. Page ranks above 5 tend to be the large commercial sites.

I checked some current page ranks to show how some of the really popular sites rank.

eBid.net (a competitor to Bonanza) - 4
eCrater.com (a competitor to Bonanza) - 6
Alibris.com - 7
eBay.com - 7
Target.com - 7
Walmart.com - 7
Abebooks.com - 8
Amazon.com - 9
CNN.com - 9
Facebook.com - 9
Google.com - 9
Twitter.com - 9
Yahoo.com - 9

The transaction rate is increasing on Bonanza. Individual sellers may not necessarily see a difference, but from what I am able to determine, Bonanza's sales volume is up greatly from what it once was. Anyone who has regular sales on Bonanza can get an idea of what Bonanza's overall sales volume is, since our transactions have transaction numbers. Bonanza assigns the transaction numbers in sequential order.

My transactions for November 2010 have numbers ranging from 1045729 on November 3 up to 1127817 on November 30. Those transactions occurred over a 28 day range. Subtracting the numbers and dividing by 28 yields an average of 2931.7 transactions per day for the entire site during November 2010.

My transactions for November 2011 have numbers ranging from 2122973 on November 1 up to 2257103 on November 30. Those transactions occurred over a 30 day range. Subtracting the numbers and dividing by 30 yields an average of 4471 transactions per day during November 2011. This is a 52.5% increase over one year ago.

Of course, this is just a rough estimate by someone who does not have the actual data. There can be no way for me to determine what the actual sales rate is for Bonanza, but I can tell by the transaction numbers that the rate is definitely increasing. I find it encouraging to know that the site is gaining ground.

Revisiting The Secret of the Old Clock

2011-11-30T00:01:00.001-06:00

It has been around 10 years since I have read any of the original 56 Nancy Drew books. I have been meaning to revisit them, but I have not been motivated to do so. This last week I decided to read The Secret of the Old Clock. I chose to read the revised text version, since that was the one I read as a child. Following are my various observations.

Upon this reading, I found that the revised text book is way too short, and so I decided to read the original text version immediately after reading the revised text. The original text version does take a good bit longer to read, and the story is fleshed out better.

The primary reason given for the revision of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books is that the revisions were done to remove racial stereotypes. While this may indeed have been one of the reasons, more likely the revisions were motivated by the need to renew the copyrights and to replace worn printing plates.

The revised text Old Clock does remove the unfortunate stereotype of the drunk, colored caretaker who allows the thieves to trick him. But at the same time, the revised text book adds other stereotypes which are not present in the original text.

In the original text Old Clock, the Horner girls need money badly in order to run their farm. Allie Horner wants to buy more chickens. I guess that wasn't a worthy enough reason to need an inheritance.

In the revised text Old Clock, Allison Hoover has a fantastic voice, and a voice teacher tells her "that some day we shall know Allison Hoover as an operatic star!" She needs the money for voice lessons since she is destined for greatness. Now that is a much more worthwhile reason, right? We can't have poor girls wanting to have more chickens. We need them to have poise and be brilliant in some fashion.

Little Judy does not exist in the original text version. In the revised text version, the Turners are going to be able to give Judy "the kind of schooling we think she should have!" This is an example of the stereotypical fashion in which the wealthy elite think. A young girl who is better than her economic situation can only thrive with expensive, private schooling.

In the original text, Nancy drives the officer back to the station. In the revised text, the officer drives Nancy's car back to the station with Nancy as a passenger. This is that stereotype of male superiority that was prevalent during the middle part of the 20th century. Interestingly, Nancy is more subservient in the revised text books than she is in the original text books.

Another example of how Nancy is more subservient in the revised text books is how Nancy interacts with the caretaker, Jeff Tucker. She is amused by the drunk, colored Jeff Tucker, and does not treat him very well. In the revised text, Nancy is quite polite to the white, elderly Jeff Tucker. She is not polite to the drunk, colored Jeff Tucker. It appears that Nancy is impolite only because Jeff is drunk; unfortunately, Jeff's race is mentioned all the way through the text, and he speaks in the stereotypical southern dialect. An entire essay could be written about the two Jeff Tuckers, how Nancy treats them, and how even the white Jeff Tucker continues the same racial stereotyping.

I noted that the revised text book needs some revision. The revised text book mentions the photostat machine, which is not mentioned in the original. I read about the photostat machine on Wikipedia, and the company that owned it had already been sold by the time Old Clock was revised and was in the process of being replaced by Xerox. The revised text used a term that was on the way out at the time it was written. Now, the term has been obsolete for more than 50 years.

People who dislike Nancy Drew criticize her for her perfection. They clearly have read the revised text books. I don't have a problem with it, but at moments, even I am given pause.

The revised text Old Clock adds the scene in which the dress is torn by one of the Topham girls in the department store. Nancy just so happens to love the dress and insists upon trying it on. Of course the dress fits perfectly, and Nancy suggests to the clerk that they have it altered to hide the tear. Oh how perfectly perfect it worked out! The clerk was not blamed for the torn dress, and Nancy saves the day! The original text scene of the Topham girl breaking the vase would have sufficed.

The Big November Run on Series Books

2011-11-27T00:01:00.010-06:00

Based on my Bonanza sales for November, upon which I will report in greater detail in a future post, I am wondering whether eBay has finally reached a tipping point in which buyers are now going elsewhere. We already know that eBay has been losing sellers at a large rate, but are the buyers now tired of eBay's changes?

My November sales on Bonanza have been brisk throughout the month, and I have sold a substantially larger number of books than usual. I have not been able to determine the exact reason. My sales have been attributed to a variety of sources including direct traffic, which tells me nothing.

I have noticed that Bonanza's page rank is now at 5, which I believe is the page rank that Bonanzle had right before the name change of September 2010. It took around one year for Bonanza to regain Bonanzle's old page rank. This could be part of the reason why my sales have been very good.

I recall that Country Living Magazine had a small spread on Nancy Drew in the October issue. My November sales have been largely driven by sales of Nancy Drew books, so I have to consider that magazine article as a possible factor.

I also have to look at what is happening with eBay. In just the last month, eBay has changed its search algorithm yet again. They simply will not leave it alone, and that is eBay's primary problem. I am noticing that my search results for Nancy Drew on eBay include items such as car repair manuals. The clutter in eBay's search makes it much harder to find quality items.

Another possibility is that we have a very enthusiastic buyer on eBay who has been buying Nancy Drew books like crazy for several months. This person is buying many duplicates and is having a slight effect on the average prices paid for Nancy Drew books on eBay. This person is, to a degree, "hogging all the books." I am confident that most people who bid regularly on Nancy Drew books on eBay have been outbid by this person on at least some books. I have been outbid by this person a number of times.

So that you will be aware of how enthusiastic this buyer is, he has purchased $3,511.37 in Nancy Drew books in just the last 30 days, and for the previous couple of months, his purchase history showed similar amounts. Therefore, this person may have purchased around $10,000 in Nancy Drew books in the last few months. Actually, he might possibly have purchased as much as $13,000 in Nancy Drew books, since one of his first purchases was a $3,000 book.

What I am wondering is whether some people are getting frustrated about being outbid on so many books and whether this person's actions are causing more people to look outside eBay. What has been strangest about my November sales is that I am suddenly selling my Nancy Drew books with dust jackets.

You know... those books that no one has wanted from my Bonanza booth, that have been collecting virtual dust for a year or so, that I have been trying to gradually sell on eBay at high enough prices to keep certain people from buying them and leaving me low DSRs. Those books. People are actually buying them now—a number of different people, in fact.

Some of my more expensive Nancy Drew books with dust jackets have even sold. I have managed to sell two different copies of the "glowing bracelets" Lilac Inn dust jacket in November, and the first one that sold had been listed for over a year. It sold. I listed another, and it also sold within just a few days to somebody else. It's weird.

In November, I sold the most expensive book in my Bonanza booth. I have also sold a few books and a DVD that I believe I listed on Bonanza back in 2009. I like it, although I don't know why it is happening.

A Dana Girls Book with a Different Color of Ink

2011-11-24T00:01:00.006-06:00

I bought a large lot of Dana Girls picture cover books, which I received on Wednesday. The books were in very high grade condition, and I upgraded around 18 of the books in my set. In some cases, I chose to keep the book I already had if it was an earlier printing, with the drawback being that I was keeping a book in lesser condition.

In a couple of cases, I ended up keeping both books due to printing anomalies. The Secret at the Gatehouse is unusual because the ink on the top edge appears to be lavender rather than the usual green or uncommon blue that was mentioned in this post.

I wondered if the color would match any of the Judy Bolton or Connie Blair picture cover books.

The ink does not match at all. I then considered whether the ink could have been blue that has faded. Below, I have photographed the book next to a book with the blue ink on the top edge.

The ink does look like it could have been blue originally. The reason why I tend to be skeptical is because of the high grade of the lot in which this book was found. The rest of the books all have the green on the top edge, and the green is not faded like often seen with these books. Since the other books do not have faded ink, I feel like the ink on this book is probably not faded.

I also found a Stone Tiger in this lot which is of interest. In my post about the Stone Tiger I found with the blue on the top edge, I stated that I believed that it was the first printing. Pictured here is the book I just found along with the book with the blue on the top edge that was the subject of that post.

The book with the blue on the top edge lists to Stone Tiger on the back cover. On the inside, it lists Nancy Drew to Moonstone Castle and Dana Girls to Stone Tiger. The book that I just purchased also lists to Stone Tiger on the back cover. However, on the inside, it lists Nancy Drew to Moonstone Castle and Dana Girls to Lost Lake. I now believe that the book that lists to Lost Lake on the inside is the actual first printing.

With a series like the Dana Girls, we do not have a detailed price guide. In fact, we do not have a guide at all. With Nancy Drew, we know about all of the printing variations, but with other series, we have very little idea. I have seen many Stone Tigers that list to Stone Tiger on the back cover and inside. I have always assumed that they were the first printing. It appears that the true first printing lists to Lost Lake on the inside and is quite scarce by comparison.

Also of interest is the great difference in colors of the artwork from my two Stone Tiger books.

I like to find books which have variations in the cover colors and will often keep examples of these different variations.

Examining the Cover Art of Library Editions Part 2

2011-11-20T00:01:00.064-06:00

One of the major library bindings for the Nancy Drew series was done by the American Publishers Corporation during the 1960s and 1970s. These books have a green binding, and like with all other library editions, were created by rebinding the text block from regular editions that were published by Grosset and Dunlap.

For most of the APC books, the cover art was taken from the first cover art of the regular picture cover edition from the early 1960s.

Just like with the Nancy Drew library editions mentioned in my previous post, these editions feature cover art that appears to have been traced from the cover art of the regular editions. The finished result has less detail than the original illustration. #1-43 and #49 were done in this fashion.

APC became more creative with #44-48 and #50. For these books, one of the internal illustrations from the regular edition was copied for the cover art. In each case, the APC cover art is an exact duplicate of that internal illustration. For The Double Jinx Mystery, the illustration was altered slightly below the placement of the title and at the very bottom where two branches were extended.

My favorite is The Double Jinx Mystery. I like this cover art better than the cover art for the regular edition, in part due to the exciting action depicted. What if Nancy slips and falls? What if the bird gets away? Imagine how attractive this illustration would have been in full color. Compare to the regular edition of The Double Jinx Mystery.

I also enjoy the other APC editions which feature cover art copied from internal illustrations.

These Nancy Drew APC editions are neat since the cover art differs from the regular editions.

Examining the Cover Art of Library Editions

2011-11-16T00:01:00.001-06:00

My favorite library editions feature the cover art from the regular editions. A common misconception about these books is that the cover art is exactly the same as the regular editions. Actually, the cover art consists of line drawings that have been redrawn by someone using the original cover art for reference. The result is a new take on the old cover art. For that reason, I consider the library editions to be very interesting collectible editions.

One type of library edition is the Multi Library Binding. These books feature cover art that mimics the blue multi endpapers, except that the illustrations are not from the blue multi endpapers.

Multi Library Binding

When I first began collecting these books, I thought that the cover art was a copy of the blue multi endpapers. Upon closer inspection, I realized that different book covers were used, and some of them were from the Russell Tandy dust jackets.

Blue Multi Endpapers

Even though the images from the Multi library binding are based on the Tandy and Gillies dust jackets, they were not copied directly from those dust jackets. They were copied exactly from the earlier Cameo Library Binding. The drawings appear to be exact duplicates of the line drawings from the covers of the Cameo library editions.

The center image on the Multi library binding is based on Broken Locket. Compare that image to the image on the Broken Locket Cameo binding and to the original Bill Gillies dust jacket.

Notice that the lines from the Multi edition illustration and the Cameo edition illustration appear to be identical. The library edition cover art appears to be identical to that of the Gillies jacket upon casual inspection, but look very closely. The artist probably traced the Gillies jacket to make both versions have the same proportion, and then filled in the rest as a line drawing. The result is a strikingly similar illustration.

My 11/11/11 Book Find

2011-11-12T00:01:00.063-06:00

On Friday, I decided to check one of the book stores to see if anything interesting had shown up. I almost reconsidered, since the last three times I have been to that store, I have found nothing. I decided to go anyway.

Upon my arrival, I spotted around seven Nancy Drew picture cover books on the shelf, and I knew that most of them had not been there before. At least I had some books to check. Mystery of Crocodile Island was the one I spotted first, since the cover faced me from my direction of approach. I knew I would likely buy it, simply because I can always use another extra to sell. I pulled Crocodile Island off of the shelf and determined that I would purchase it.

I noticed that the next book to the left of where Crocodile Island had been was a copy of The Clue in the Crossword Cipher which looked like it could have been from the 1960s and was in pretty good shape. As always, I was ever hopeful, but I knew that my wish would almost certainly not come true. I snatched Crossword Cipher off of the shelf and immediately turned it over to the back cover, where I saw that the last title listed was The Phantom of Pine Hill.

I stared at the back cover in disbelief for around five seconds or so. I was thinking something like, "This can't be... seriously? I must be mistaken." I checked the price, which was low like all of the Nancy Drew books always are. I then stared at the back cover again making sure I was thinking straight and that I was holding Crossword Cipher and that it did list to Pine Hill. Yes, I was right.

In the back of my mind, I thought of my knowledge that two variants exist, one with an interior list and the other without. I didn't care at that moment which version I had in my hands. I already own the one with the list, but that book is in horrible shape and is hardly worth having. I have been seeking a Crossword Cipher listing to Pine Hill that is in good shape for the longest time. The presence or absence of an interior list is trivial.

I held onto my Crocodile Island and Crossword Cipher and checked the remaining books. I determined that I would purchase Twisted Candles and Larkspur Lane since they were early picture covers in nice shape. Both books list to Pine Hill.

Clutching my books, I checked the other part of the store where the newer Nancy Drew books are kept. I saw three Applewood editions, #1, 2, and 3, but I was not interested in buying them. I paid for my purchase and left.

Once I was inside the car, I thought to check for the interior list in Crossword Cipher. The book I had just purchased does not have the interior list, which means that it matches the points for the 1967A-1 first printing according to Farah's 12th edition. This is good, since I can now state that I have the first printing of Crossword Cipher.

There is the problem of the books that list to Pine Hill and have an interior list, and Farah has not yet determined whether the book with or the book without the interior list is the true first printing. Since I do have my horrible condition book that has the interior list, I now own the first printing of Crossword Cipher regardless of what Farah decides. I hope to eventually acquire a nice copy with the interior list present, so that I have a nice book either way.

My horrible Crossword Cipher with the interior list

This purchase means that the only first printing Nancy Drew book from the original 56 that I do not own is The Mystery at Lilac Inn. I do have the first and second printing dust jackets for Lilac Inn, but I can't seem to get my hands on that book.

By the way, I am now down to needing only one first printing Nancy Drew dust jacket, which is the 1930A-1 jacket for The Secret of the Old Clock. I am very close.

Also of note, I almost never find books that I greatly desire for my collection while checking local stores. The last time that I found a book locally that was high on my want list was in 2007, when I found the Ruth Grosby book, Mystery Across the Border, in dust jacket in an antique shop.

My book find of November 11 was quite remarkable indeed.

Nancy Drew Game: Alibi in Ashes

2011-11-11T01:29:00.000-06:00

Her Interactive released its 25th Nancy Drew game, Alibi in Ashes, in October. In this game, Nancy has been arrested for setting fire to the River Heights Town Hall. While Nancy is detained inside the police station, her friends must find clues to help clear her name. The player switches between Nancy, Bess, George, and Ned during the hunt for clues.

I found the early stages of the game to be a bit disjointed with having to switch between characters all of the time. In several cases, I had no idea what to do next and had to use spoilers. Later in the game, Nancy is finally allowed to leave the police station, and I found that portion of the game to be the most satisfying, since the game play reverted to the old familiar methods.

This game has far fewer tasks and puzzles than the older Nancy Drew games. While some puzzles in previous games have been way too difficult, I would have appreciated having just a few more puzzles.

This game also seems shorter than many of the older Nancy Drew games. Her Interactive has shifted a bit with its focus, and the games' composition has changed.

Even though this game is different from earlier games, I still enjoyed playing it and recommend it to people who like the Nancy Drew games.

October 2011 Sales on Bonanza

2011-11-07T00:01:00.108-06:00

I sold 90 books in 28 transactions in my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza. This is what I sold by series.

Nancy Drew - 70
Dana Girls - 11
Judy Bolton - 4
Trixie Belden - 3
Vicki Barr - 1
Hardy Boys - 1

As always, Nancy Drew is my biggest seller.

This is what I sold by price.

up to $4.99 - 30
$5.00 to $9.99 - 42
$10.00 to $14.99 - 10
$15.00 to $19.99 - 4
$20.00 to $24.99 - 2
$34.99 - 1
$39.99 - 1

As usual, the less expensive books are the ones that sell the best. What is so great about having an established presence on Bonanza is that I am able to sell the inexpensive books that I sold on eBay in the late 1990s. I can no longer sell those books on eBay due to the high fees.

Here are my sales stats for October.

The list of items sold does not match up with the number of items that I actually sold during October. The sales stats go back just 30 days, and I captured the data on October 31. I sold 19 items on October 1, so those items are not included in the screen capture.

Someone recently asked in the Bonanza forums about whether anyone's sales had increased due to offering payment methods other than PayPal. My overall sales have remained steady for months, so I cannot tell. However, I decided to compare the payment methods for my sales for now and one year ago.

I compared August, September, and October 2010 to August, September, and October 2011. Here is the breakdown by payment method.

August 2010

PayPal - 24
Google Checkout - 8
Checkout by Amazon - not offered
money order - 2

September 2010

PayPal - 13
Google Checkout - 5
Checkout by Amazon - not offered

October 2010

PayPal - 6
Google Checkout - 5
Checkout by Amazon - not offered

August 2011

PayPal - 7
Google Checkout - 4
Checkout by Amazon - 3

September 2011

PayPal - 17
Google Checkout - 3
Checkout by Amazon - 5

October 2011

PayPal - 14
Google Checkout - 3
Checkout by Amazon - 10
money order - 1

This sample includes 63 transactions for 2010 and 67 transactions for 2011. The breakdown by percent for the payment providers is as follows.

2010

PayPal - 68%
Google Checkout - 29%
Checkout by Amazon - not offered
money order - 3%

2011

PayPal - 57%
Google Checkout - 15%
Checkout by Amazon - 27%
money order - 1%

Offering Checkout by Amazon has reduced the number of transactions processed through both PayPal and Google Checkout. The effect on Google Checkout is more profound, with a reduction of nearly 50%. I do not know whether offering Checkout by Amazon has increased my sales, but offering other payment methods has reduced the number of transactions paid through PayPal.

I have also continued my increased presence on eBay. In last month's blog post on my sales, I explained about my success in moving up to Above Standard Seller. I have now increased my transactions to 119 for the last year, keeping me in the Above Standard Seller category.

My dollar amount in sales is two-thirds of the amount needed for top-rated seller status, so I need to continue for around four more months at my current rate. Will I make it? It depends upon how much I sell and whether I can avoid low DSRs, which I cannot control. Some sellers of series books leave low DSRs for other sellers out of spite. I have managed to avoid that situation in the last couple of months, but just barely.

Which Twisted Candles Book to Keep

2011-11-03T00:01:00.002-05:00

I detailed here how I had found a first printing Nancy Drew Twisted Candles book and had to decide whether to keep the book I already had or the book I had just acquired. I stated that the decision would be like making a coin toss.

This is my first printing Twisted Candles dust jacket.

I purchased it as the 1932D-2 printing in 2006. The 1932C-1 and 1932D-2 printings have the same dust jacket, and the only difference is the book. The 1932C-1 book is extremely elusive. Approximately one year after I acquired the dust jacket, I was finally able to buy the 1932C-1 book. I swapped out the books, which unfortunately meant a downgrade in the condition of the book but an upgrade in the book/jacket combination to the 1932C-1 printing.

My first printing book is in rough shape, and I have wanted an upgrade. As of right now, I still want an upgrade, even though I now have another book. I have a difficult decision to make on which book to keep, because both are in rough shape.

In the below photos, the book on the left is the book that I have paired with my first printing dust jacket, and the book on the right is the one that I just acquired.

The book on the left is more worn on the edges of the boards and has a discolored spine. Those are the only two condition details which are worse for that book. Both books have a cracked front hinge. Both books have stains on several pages. Both bindings are weak, and both books have significant spine slant. All four illustrations are present in both books.

My initial reaction was that I would keep the book I already had. After removing the jacket from that book and seeing the discolored spine, I began to consider keeping the book that I just acquired. As of right now, I am leaning in that direction. The condition of the two books is virtually identical, except for the wear to the edges of the boards and the appearance of the spines.

Neither book is worthy of having a jacket placed on it, but one book will hold that honor. Which one would you keep?

Pondering a Buy It Now

2011-10-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

I recently ran across a Nancy Drew lot on eBay that had a starting bid of $39.99 and a Buy It Now of $85.00. The postage cost was $8.00.

CAROLYN KEENE 1930 SET OF 15 BOOKS SOME WITH JACKETS NICE COLLECTION

I like finding Buy It Now lots, because I can buy the lots outright, avoid having to bid against other collectors, and sometimes get really good deals. The Buy It Now was high enough on this lot that I was not sure whether I wanted to make a purchase. However, I was tempted.

I have mentioned many times how I rely on pictures to make decisions about listings, and this can avoid me having to ask questions. I made several observations about this lot.

I knew that many of the books probably had the four glossy illustrations. I did not know if the illustrations were still present, but I was quite sure that a number of the books in this lot would have had the illustrations originally.

I also knew that the jackets for Hollow Oak and Mysterious Letter dated those books to 1941 or before, since the jackets did not have a spine symbol. Based on my belief that many of the other books had the internals, I concluded that these two books likely had the internals or were at least from the late 1930s.

Last, I realized that the wraparound dust jackets would most likely be on tweed books from around 1958 to 1961. I knew for sure that Old Clock and Haunted Showboat would be from that era.

The question was whether the lot was worth purchasing. I have shied away from buying Nancy Drew books with dust jackets in the last couple of years, since I am still trying to rid myself of the many I purchased around four years ago. That was one of the reasons I was not sure whether to purchase the books.

The value of Nancy Drew books with jackets has fallen greatly, and even if the two books with jackets also have the glossy internals, I could not be sure of selling the books for high enough of a price to be certain that the lot was worth purchasing. Still, I was intrigued by "what ifs."

I wanted to ask the seller a question, but decided against it. Anyone could have bought the books while I sat back and waited for the answer to a question.

I finally decided to purchase the lot, since I decided that in the worst case scenario, I would end up not keeping any of the books and would sell them for what I paid for them.

The books arrived today.

So, what did I end up receiving? Here they are in the order of the above picture.

Hidden Staircase - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, lists to Mysterious Letter, 1933 printing

Lilac Inn - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, lists to Mysterious Letter, 1932 printing

Shadow Ranch - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, no ads, 1932 printing

Red Gate Farm - glossy frontispiece and at least two internals, one might be missing, lists to Mysterious Letter, 1933 printing

Twisted Candles - The book is the elusive 1932C-1 first printing with "This Isn't All!" with a box drawn around it followed by Nancy Drew to Mysterious Letter and Judy Bolton to Invisible Chimes. All four illustrations are present.

Larkspur Lane - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, anywhere from a 1933 to 1937 printing, definitely not the first printing

Broken Locket - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, 1934 to 1936 printing

Ivory Charm - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, 1936 first or second printing

Whispering Statue - glossy frontispiece, 1937A-1

Tapping Heels - glossy frontispiece, 1939 or 1940 printing, not the first printing

Old Clock tweed with jacket listing to Old Stagecoach

Blackwood Hall tweed with jacket listing to Golden Pavilion

Haunted Showboat tweed with jacket listing to Old Stagecoach

Mysterious Letter - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, jacket lists to Ivory Charm and is in very nice shape

Hollow Oak - glossy frontispiece and three glossy internals, jacket lists to Ivory Charm

I'd say that I did okay. Mysterious Letter is of particular interest, because when I was first collecting Nancy Drew books, I found that the Mysterious Letter Tandy jacket was very elusive. I could never seem to find decent early copies. I do have first and second printing dust jackets which both have flaws. For that reason, I will keep this book and jacket.

Twisted Candles is also of particular interest due to the extreme difficultly in obtaining the first printing book. Read through this post for details. Unfortunately, the book is a bit rough, as is the one that I have used for my first printing dust jacket. I'm not sure which one I will keep; it will probably be like a coin toss. When I can't tell, I usually keep the one I already had "just because."

I won't be keeping Hollow Oak with the dust jacket, because I already have at least two extras plus the ones in my collection. At least for me, the thick early printings of Hollow Oak in dust jacket are rather common, and I have no trouble accumulating multiple extras.

In closing, I want to explain why I knew that the thick books probably had the internals. I could tell by the color of the bindings and by the texture of the covers. If you own any Nancy Drew books with internals along with some from around 1939, compare the covers, and you will see the difference.

In the above photo, you can see the texture of the covers of the books in the top row. Click on the photo to see a larger version, where you can also see the texture of the cover in the lower left corner, which does not have the internals.

All in all, this was a fun purchase.

1930A-1 Nancy Drew Lilac Inn First Printing Book

2011-10-27T00:01:00.013-05:00

An auction for the 1930A-1 first printing book for the Nancy Drew, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, just closed. The book sold for $407.07.

The Mystery At Lilac Inn - Nancy Drew - Blank EPS - 1st Edition - 1931

The book is not in the best of condition, but the seller provided pictures of the post-text ads, proving that the book is the first printing.

The photographic proof of the content of the post-text ads likely helped the book reach this high of a price.

I have previously written about the extreme scarcity of the first printing of Lilac Inn. I gave detailed information in my post, "Scarcity of Nancy Drew Lilac Inn First Printing". I also included the book in my list of the "Ten Rarest Nancy Drew Books and Collectibles."

The first printing Lilac Inn book may perhaps be the most difficult to acquire of the early first printing Nancy Drew books. It is definitely harder to find than the 1930A-1 Old Clock first printing book. Keep in mind that I refer to the bare books, not the dust jackets, which is another situation entirely.

Farah's Guide values the 1930A-1 Old Clock first printing book at $1,000, yet I know of only one time that an example sold that high. That example hardly counts since the buyer was that infamous buyer from the summer of 2008 who was buying $30,000 in books per month on eBay and allegedly paying with stolen money. Aside from that one case, I do not recall seeing the book sell that high in the last ten years.

By contrast, Farah's Guide values the 1930A-1 Lilac Inn book at just $500 in very good or better condition. The example that just sold is not in very good condition. If Farah's value were correct, the book should have sold for far less than the guide value. This example sold for slightly above $400, which is higher than the 1930A-1 Old Clock in similar condition normally brings.

I feel like the values given for the two books should be switched with each other. The 1930A-1 Old Clock first printing book is worth more like $500 and the 1930A-1 Lilac Inn first printing book is worth more like $1,000. That would seem to be more accurate, in my opinion, especially since this one first printing continues to elude me. Of course, I have no intention of paying $1,000 for one, but the value of the Lilac Inn first printing book is certainly higher than that of the Old Clock first printing book.

Remember that no portion of this post is meant to be critical of David Farah or his guide in any fashion.

Edited on November 23, 2011 to add: The first printing of Lilac Inn cannot be determined by outward appearance only. You must give the post-text ad information, which you will note is shown in photographs in this blog post. The four post-text ad pages are "This Isn't All!" followed by Hardy Boys to Great Airport Mystery, Outdoor Girls to Canoe Trip, and Blythe Girls to Margy's Mysterious Visitor, in that exact order. The same ads in a different order means that the book is not the first printing. Any other combination of ads means that the book is not the first printing. Later printings are much easier to find and are worth much less than the first printing.

Why Certain Series Are More Popular

2011-10-24T00:01:00.003-05:00

Periodically, I give my site statistics, which is a way to assess which series are the most popular among collectors. This data shows visits to each section of my website for the last six months. I have only given the top 25 series.

1. Nancy Drew - 24,538

2. Sweet Valley High - 16,233
3. Trixie Belden - 5,735

4. Dana Girls - 3,451

5. Judy Bolton- 2,059

6. Beverly Gray - 1,508

7. Vicki Barr - 1,440

8. Cherry Ames - 1,246

9. Kay Tracey - 1,077

10. Ruth Fielding - 1,076

11. Penny Parker - 955

12. Outdoor Girls - 852

13. Moving Picture Girls - 790

14. Connie Blair - 772

15. Betty Gordon - 723

16. Shirley Flight - 715

17. Blythe Girls - 495

18. Sara Gay - 445

19. Sally Baxter - 431

20. Susan Sand - 380
21. Peggy Lane - 349

22. Billie Bradley - 325

23. Kit Hunter - 283

24. Melody Lane - 263

25. Riddle Club - 249

I changed the font color for some of the books to make certain patterns stand out. Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High are by far the most popular series. Trixie Belden is a distant third place but is far in front of the rest. The Dana Girls is significantly more popular than Judy Bolton, which is just slightly more popular than Beverly Gray, Vicki Barr, and Cherry Ames.

I used the same font color for Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, Judy Bolton, Beverly Gray, Vicki Barr, and Cherry Ames because those series were all published by Grosset and Dunlap and were cross-promoted during the 1950s when baby boomers were reading series books. Overall, those series are the most popular, and I have long had the opinion that those series are the most popular due to the cross-promotion and because they are the ones most remembered by current collectors.

Additionally, the Dana Girls is much more popular than the other series books, and the strong cross-promotion with Nancy Drew is the probable explanation. The books were advertised as "By the author of the NANCY DREW BOOKS," and I have often seen the books sold on eBay in lots with Nancy Drew books, since many people see "Nancy Drew" on the covers and think the books are Nancy Drew books. I have also seen the books identified in antique shops as Nancy Drew books. Very likely, young readers and their parents made the same mistake decades ago.

Kay Tracey, Ruth Fielding, and Penny Parker have approximately the same popularity. Those three series were published by Cupples and Leon during roughly the same years as each other and were cross-promoted.

The earlier Grosset and Dunlap series books such as the Outdoor Girls, the Moving Picture Girls, the Blythe Girls, and the Riddle Club do not have the same popularity as the later Grosset and Dunlap series books. This is most likely because these series were published long before current collectors were born.

Big Sale at Jennifer's Series Books

2011-10-20T16:54:00.001-05:00

I have increased my coupon discount to 15% in my Jennifer's Series Books booth at Bonanza. The extra discount will last at least through the weekend.

I have also applied a 15% visible markdown to my Nancy Drew books with dust jackets.

Nancy Drew Thick with DJ
Nancy Drew Tweed with DJ

This means that the Nancy Drew books with dust jackets are 15% off plus an additional 15% off when you apply the coupon code. The visible markdown will last no longer than seven days, since visible markdowns are limited to no more than seven days per month.

Also remember to check out my page on Facebook.

Nancy Drew $1 Box Picture Cover Editions

2011-10-20T00:01:00.007-05:00

Note: No part of this blog post is intended to criticize David Farah and his guide. Some of you are way too sensitive and seem to think that any opinion that differs from Farah's is somehow a criticism of him and his guide. I have great respect for Farah, and all I am doing is pointing out that collectors' observations about scarcity and value may be different from what is presented in a guide.
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I was asked recently about the Nancy Drew $1 box editions and which ones are the hardest to find. The Hardy Boys guide mentions which $1 box editions are the most scarce. By contrast, the Nancy Drew guide makes no comments about scarcity, and all of the values are nearly identical in Farah's Guide. If the Hardy Boys $1 box editions have unequal scarcity and a great disparity in value, then one could conclude that the Nancy Drew $1 box editions also have unequal scarcity and a disparity in value.

Farah's Guide values #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 at $20 each. He values #37 and 38 at $25 each. I have found #38 to be by far the easiest one to find. I acquire an extra copy of #38 at least once every few months without even trying. #38 has little value unless in excellent condition. As I have detailed in past blog posts, we now know that two $1 box printings of #38 exist, which explains why it is so common. Since #38 is so easy to find, its value is the lowest of all of the $1 box editions.

#37 is also rather easy to find. I also acquire extras of #37 on a somewhat regular basis, but less often than with #38. This means that #37 should also have a lower value than the remaining $1 box editions.

Of the other six, #6 is the easiest one to find. After that, I am not sure which ones are the easier ones to find, but #4 is definitely one of the most scarce $1 box editions. I sold a #4 $1 box edition in an auction in the last couple of years for something like $35, and the book was not in that great of shape.

This brings up another point. The $1 box picture cover editions are all very hard to find in excellent condition. Even with #38, collectors have difficulty in finding a nice copy. The $1 box books seem to be made from similar materials as the book club edition picture cover books. The book club PCs are also really hard to find in decent condition. #7 with the 1932 text also seems to be made from the same materials. The other first PCs are generally easier to find in nice shape than the $1 box books and #7 with the 1932 text.

To go back to value, Farah assigns all of the $1 box editions approximately the same value. Let's say that Farah's value is accurate for #37 and #38 in excellent condition. Before I continue, I should clarify what I mean by "excellent condition," since the last time I made this distinction someone missed my point completely and told me that it was easy to find that book.

Here are two photos of first picture cover books for Nancy Drew #19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, from left to right. The first photo is of the bottom edges of the books, and the second photo is of the top edges of the books.

I consider the above books to be in excellent condition. The following two photos are of my $1 box edition picture cover books, #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 37, and 38 from left to right. The first photo shows the bottom edges, and the second photo shows the top edges.

Do you see the difference in condition between the two groups of books? I consider my first printing picture cover books of #19 through 24 to be in overall excellent condition. I do not consider my $1 box books to be in overall excellent condition, although the books I have are generally in better shape than many copies that surface.

Now that I have clarified what I mean by condition, I suggested that we consider Farah's value of $25 for #37 and #38 to be accurate for books in excellent condition. Farah assigns #1-6 a value of $20 each. However, #1-6 are harder to find than #37 and 38. For that reason, the value of each of #1-6 in excellent condition is probably more like $50, if one in excellent condition can be found. The value could possibly be higher.

A Touching Inscription

2011-10-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

This post is from November 13, 2010 and was never published.
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Sometimes I read an inscription inside an old book, and I stop to reflect about the original owner and her life. The book is a circa 1942 copy of the Nancy Drew book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn. It has a glossy frontispiece illustration and poor quality paper that has deeply yellowed. The dust jacket is missing.

The inscription reads, "To Dolores (7) Carolyn Keene mystery's given to her on 12th Birthday by Mother." Dolores would have been born in around 1930, so she would now be around 80 years old, if she is still alive.

On that 12th birthday, Dolores received seven Nancy Drew books with dust jackets. The books would have been nice and new with white paper and shiny clean brand-new dust jackets. What a splendid birthday present!

The books cost $0.50 at that time, so Dolores' present cost her mother $3.50. I used an online inflation calculator to compute that $3.50 in 1942 would be close to $50.00 today.

I'm sure Dolores had lots of fun reading those books.

My Best eBay Finds

2011-10-11T00:01:00.013-05:00

The main body of this post was written in May 2009. I'm pretty sure I did not publish it because some people would think it wrong to take advantage of a price set too low by a seller. A recent thread on eBay's message boards, Ethical issues with reselling, explains my position. One high-end antiquarian book seller who sells books valued at $10,000 and up explained the issue like this.

If they ask you what it's worth, your professional opinion when (and if) rendered, must be accurate to the best of your knowledge. If they come to you, on your premises, and request a value estimate, your professional opinion when (and if) rendered, must be accurate to the best of your knowledge. When you buy at auction, it's the seller's responsibility to set the price, and whatever you pay, you pay - usually.

I see a tremendous difference between making very low private offers to uninformed sellers in an attempt to defraud them and buying a book at a low price which was set by the seller with no input from me.
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Some of you already know this story, but I never tire of telling it. The best...by far...eBay purchase that I have ever made was the true first printing with blank endpapers of the Nancy Drew book The Clue in the Diary with dust jacket for only $25.00.

I had trouble sleeping that night, so I got back up. I checked eBay, because that was the thing to do. I checked newly-listed Nancy Drew books, and I saw the gallery photo of the book and jacket. The images were side-by-side, so it was easily discernible without clicking on the listing that the book was the true first printing of Diary with blank endpapers and dust jacket. I saw the Buy It Now of $25.00.

I clicked on the listing and scrolled down. I knew that I had to act fast, and even then, it might be too late. I looked at the photo and glanced at the seller's feedback percent, but I hesitated for around ten seconds. It was one of those cases in which my reaction was, "Are you serious?!" I was worried that it was too good to be true. I quickly initiated the Buy It Now process and successfully purchased the book. I then got out my Farah's Guide and verified that the jacket did match the points for the true first printing.

The book had been listed an entire hour before I saw it. At that time, many people were trolling the eBay listings for good deals, so any good Buy It Nows would usually sell within the first five to fifteen minutes of the start time. I am not kidding. The good books sold fast. How this book had such an obvious gallery photo and lasted for an hour, I'll never know. If I had been able to sleep that night, the book would surely have sold by the time I checked the listings.

I had trouble sleeping that night after I purchased the book since I knew that the seller could always figure out what he had. Whenever I purchase something on eBay, I know that it is never truly mine until I have it in my hands. I am generally not willing to pay the Farah's Guide value for any of the early Nancy Drew first printings, so I have had to rely on pure luck to obtain the ones I have.

I requested priority mail and paid the seller. I wanted to get that book quick! A few days later, I had the book in my hands, and it was exactly what I expected.

I have seen a first printing Diary book and jacket in just about the exact same condition sell for around $2,500.00, so my Buy It Now of $25.00 was quite an amazing deal.

Another time I bid on a blank endpapers edition of Old Clock for the heck of it. I did not bid very high at all and did not expect to win the auction at all. I certainly did not expect to win the auction for around $5.00. I still do not understand how that happened. When I received the book, I determined it to be the 1930A-1 first printing. It did not have a dust jacket but was in excellent condition. The first printing of Old Clock in similar condition typically sells for around $500.00 and can sell for a higher amount.

Those are my two best eBay finds.
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I hope a few of you will share your best finds. They don't have to be valuable books bought cheaply. A "best find" can simply be a particular purchase that meant a great deal.

September 2011 Sales on Bonanza

2011-10-07T02:09:00.000-05:00

I sold 80 books in 24 transactions in my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza. This is what I sold by series.

Nancy Drew - 48
Dana Girls - 12
Vicki Barr - 8
Trixie Belden - 5
Judy Bolton - 4
Kay Tracey - 3

Nancy Drew is my biggest seller with the Dana Girls in second place. Those two series are normally in first and second place.

This is what I sold by price.

up to $4.99 - 25
$5.00 to $9.99 - 39
$10.00 to $14.99 - 5
$15.00 to $19.99 - 5
$20.00 to $24.99 - 4
$29.99 - 1
$39.99 - 1

In recent months, my highest number of sales has been for books priced at $4.99 and less. This month, my highest number of sales was for books priced from $5.00 up to $9.99. As in previous months, sales are strongest for the less expensive books that are not worth selling on eBay.

Here are my sales sources.

The stats show more than 80 items since freebies are included. Additionally, I forgot to grab this data on the first of the month, so the stats shown include part of October. The stats show that many of my sales continue to come from my website and this blog. One person used the search term "Bonanzle" to come to my booth from Google. The name "Bonanzle" continues to be remembered by buyers.

I have also been selling books on eBay in an attempt to ramp up my sales volume. My initial goal was to move up from "Standard Seller" to "Above Standard Seller," which I achieved near the end of last month. I seem to have hit the right method for selling books on eBay, for the first time in three years.

Towards the end of 2008, I wrote about my eBay problems, which were caused by buyers leaving me low DSRs. One buyer left me a low DSR because she thought that Nancy Drew books and jackets always list to the same title as each other and thought I misrepresented a book. Even worse, someone buying to resell series books began to target me with low DSRs. My items were hidden in search, and I had to move to Bonanza (then Bonanzle).

Now that I have no low DSRs at all, I seem not to have the same problems in selling. I do not expect to ever go back to eBay and sell at the rate that I once did, since I enjoy low fees on Bonanza. However, I like to have the convenience of selling books fast in the auctions. eBay works as a nice back-up venue.

Since I have achieved the "Above Standard Seller" status, the next step is "Top-Rated Seller," and at my present rate, I will need around six more months to achieve that goal. I have some doubt as to whether I will be able to move up to "Top-Rated Seller" since most of my sales are on Bonanza.

In a previous post, I explained how sellers of vintage books do not necessarily need to be top-rated in order to have sales. For that reason, I am not very concerned with whether I achieve the top-rated status. I mainly would like to do so for at least a short time just so that I can determine for myself whether the status makes any difference at all.

Nancy Drew Blog Party

2011-10-05T02:12:00.000-05:00

Jennifer Fisher is having a Nancy Drew blog party all month in her Nancy Drew Sleuths blog. Each day the blog will have new posts on all things Nancy Drew. This is a rare opportunity to experience a series book blog with new posts every single day. It is difficult to maintain new blog posts even once every few days, as I well know.

By the way, I am in a position right now where I am only managing around two new blog posts per week. Part of the reason is my schedule, but also, when I am tired I tend to be less creative. This reduces my output.

I am trying to post minor comments on my Facebook page a bit more often than I post here, so be sure to follow me there.

Opinions Needed on Nancy Drew Relaunch

2011-10-01T23:38:00.001-05:00

The original Nancy Drew series ended with #175 in 2003 and was replaced by the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series. The Girl Detective series had mixed reviews and was not well-received by many fans. That series will soon be ending and will be replaced by the Nancy Drew Diaries. Jennifer Fisher has done a write-up in her blog and wants fans to state their opinions on how Simon and Schuster should approach the new series. We want Nancy Drew to remain viable. Please go to Jennifer Fisher's blog and give your opinion.

I decided to give my opinion both here and in Jenn's blog. My opinion is as follows.

I have long considered Her Interactive to be the strongest licensee for Nancy Drew. The Nancy Drew games capture the essence of Nancy Drew and have a strong following. I believe that Nancy Drew remains viable mainly due to the efforts of Her Interactive. The games have flourished while the books have floundered. Exactly why is that?

Nancy Drew has been successful for more than 80 years because she is resourceful, clever, and levelheaded. Furthermore, Nancy has never had a well-defined personality, which enables readers to assume the role of Nancy Drew as they read the books. For several generations, girls have experienced Nancy Drew's adventures along with her and as her. By keeping Nancy as a blank slate and by making her clever and resourceful, girls could have fantastic adventures through her and have experiences that they would never have in their own lives.

In the Nancy Drew games, the game player literally plays as Nancy Drew and experiences Nancy's adventures just like the readers of the books always have. While the player, as Nancy, makes a few mistakes during game play, the player, and therefore Nancy, maintains her dignity. The games have humor, which is important, but the humor involves funny events along with the antics of the other characters, most particularly Joe Hardy who is always up to something. Nancy Drew is never made to look bad.

This is where the Nancy Drew Girl Detective books fail. The main objective of the books seems to have been to make Nancy Drew look as clumsy and inept as possible, and at the same time, make Nancy's friends appear to be more capable than her. Who wants to read a book about a girl who seems to be developing early-onset dementia since she can never remember to fill up her car with gas? Who wants to read a book about a girl whose friends are all more capable than she is? That concept is rather depressing to me. I want to be the capable sleuth.

Additionally, the books need to have better cover art. While a reader should not judge a book by its cover, the truth is that most all readers do. The covers attempt to make Nancy Drew look trendy, and perhaps they do, but to me, she looks like an airhead with a bit of an attitude. I hardly want to collect the books, which is why I stopped buying them new at around volume 10. I am slowly collecting the set secondhand at reduced prices.

The cover art also suffers from a lazy design department which seems uninterested in trying to make the covers look different from each other. Take the following four books, for instance.

Nancy looks to be wearing exactly the same outfit on all four books. Need I say more?

Simon and Schuster should take a look at what Her Interactive has done with the Nancy Drew games. The games feature a smart, inquisitive detective who makes just minor mistakes. The games tell interesting stories, and the dialogue between the different characters is engaging. I greatly anticipate the release of each new Nancy Drew game, while I no longer care about the new books at all.

Take a look at the design for the newest Nancy Drew game.

When I view the artwork, I anticipate how great the game will be and think of the fun I will have playing it. Isn't that how I should feel when I see the cover of a new Nancy Drew book?

Dana Girls Original and Revised Texts

2011-09-30T00:01:00.060-05:00

The Dana Girls series was released in two sets. The first set was published from 1934 through 1968. The following books from the first set were republished in the second set, which was in print from 1972 through 1979.

17. The Ghost in the Gallery, 1955
19. The Winking Ruby Mystery, 1957
20. The Secret of the Swiss Chalet, 1958
21. The Haunted Lagoon, 1959
22. The Mystery of the Bamboo Bird, 1960
23. The Sierra Gold Mystery, 1961
24. The Secret of Lost Lake, 1962
25. The Mystery of the Stone Tiger, 1963
26. The Riddle of the Frozen Fountain, 1964
27. The Secret of the Silver Dolphin, 1965
28. Mystery of the Wax Queen, 1966
29. The Secret of the Minstrel's Guitar, 1967
30. The Phantom Surfer, 1968

I was asked recently about whether the 1955 and 1975 versions of The Ghost in the Gallery are the same story or whether the texts have significant differences. Specifically, I was asked whether the books are as different as the original and revised texts of The Secret of the Old Clock. I have never paid attention, so I had to carefully compare both books in order to answer the question. I have probably only read the 1955 version and never cared to read the 1975 version. I only have the 1975 version because it is from the second set and has different cover art.

The 1955 version of The Ghost in the Gallery has 209 pages and 25 chapters. The 1975 version has 180 pages and 20 chapters. The two books definitely tell the same story, and the main difference appears to be that the text has been rewritten and condensed for the 1975 version.

I would say that the two books are less different than the two versions of Old Clock. The books are different, but more in the way of the later revised text Nancy Drew books, such as #25-34. Here is an excerpt of the same scene from The Ghost in the Gallery from both stories.

1955 text:

Jean took the other two letters from the mailbox. One was addressed to her, the other to Louise. She knew from the handwriting that the letters were from Ken and Chris. Probably an explanation of the boys’ strange actions about the Saturday night dance.

A moment later Jean exclaimed unbelievingly, "Louise, listen to this! Chris was informed that the dance had been called off!"

The letter to Louise said practically the same thing as Jean’s, that they were told the school dance had been called off. Someone deliberately had played a mean joke on the Danas!

Revised 1975 text:

The following afternoon, when the girls returned to their suite to prepare for the dance, they found a telephone message on Jean’s desk. It read:

Ken Scott and Chris Barton called to say they are sorry to miss the dance tonight. They hope to be invited next month.

Stunned by the message from the boys, Louise and Jean flopped on the couch in their study.

"This means we can’t go to the dance!" Jean wailed.

Louise thought, What could have happened to make Ken and Chris change their minds?

The two versions have approximately the same number of words, but the character count has been greatly reduced. The first version has 561 characters while the second version has 494 characters.

The Ghost in the Gallery is the only Dana Girls book that had a significant revision, because it was the only one that was reduced from 25 chapters to 20 chapters. The remaining titles all had extremely minor edits which were mainly made to improve the continuity since the order of the titles was changed for the second set.

Using The Clue of the Stone Tiger as an example, opening the 1963 and 1972 versions to any random page shows the text beginning with the same word at the top of the page and ending with the same word at the bottom. Likely, a few minor edits were made scattered through the texts, but the page count and content of each page remained identical.

The first page of each book begins with the same two paragraphs. The books differ slightly in the third paragraph.

1963 version, first page, third paragraph:

The three Danas, en route home to Oak Falls from a long trip, were in a Chicago hotel room. They had just delivered a valuable German shepherd dog, Baron von Neckar, to its owner who had come to the city from New York on business. The two sisters and their aunt had planned to stay for a little sightseeing.

1972 version, first page, third paragraph:

The three Danas, en route home to Oak Falls from a long trip, were in a Chicago hotel room. The two sisters and their aunt had planned to stay for some sightseeing, but this latest news made them wonder if perhaps they should go directly home. They had been away for some time on a Western trip.

The paragraphs have been changed, but they take up exactly the same amount of space on the page. Some words here and there have also been changed. In the 1963 version, Cora Appel is a "timid, rather harebrained young woman," while in the 1972 version, she is a "timid but faithful young woman."

The revisions are very minor in this book. I have compared some other Dana Girls books that had minor revisions and made the same observations. Readers of either version will enjoy exactly the same story and notice nothing. Only a careful comparison shows that some revisions were made.

Ten Rarest Nancy Drew Books and Collectibles

2011-09-25T00:22:00.000-05:00

I found the phrase "ten rarest Nancy Drew Books" as a search term that led someone to this blog. I decided to list some of the rarest Nancy Drew books and collectibles. For people who are not very familiar with collecting Nancy Drew, be aware that the book or collectible has to be exactly like what I mention. If I state that a book has to list to a certain title, then an example that lists to any other title does not match.

Many Nancy Drew collectibles or book variants are scarce or perhaps rare, but I am only going to mention the ones that seem to be so scarce that most people will either never own them or will have much difficulty in acquiring them.

For a few items, I will give you an idea of value. For others, too many factors would influence the value. In some cases, the value may not be particularly high, because few people might be interested. Just because an item is rare does not mean that many people desire it.

Here is my list of ten rare (or at least very scarce) Nancy Drew books and collectibles in no particular order.

Nancy Drew Canister Puzzle

Courtesy of www.nancydrewsleuth.com

The boxed versions of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys puzzles from the late 1970s are findable, but the canister versions are extremely elusive. I recall seeing them up for sale only once online, and I believe that this picture is from that listing. Since the canister puzzles are so extremely elusive, I wonder whether the canister version was some type of promotional item. The canister puzzle is probably worth at least several hundred dollars.

#78 The Phantom of Venice Wanderer Hardcover with Dust Jacket

#57-78 in the Nancy Drew series were published in hardcover editions with dust jackets in small print runs, unlike the very common softcover versions. I covered this topic in greater detail in this blog post. The dust-jacketed versions are much harder to find, but most interested collectors are able to acquire the majority of them.

#78 The Phantom of Venice is the one that is just about impossible to acquire and, with its dust jacket present, is probably worth more than $100 as a library discard and worth more than $300 if not a library discard. If the book does not have a dust jacket and is a library discard, then I expect that it would sell for well under $100.

My Nancy Drew Date Book and Homework Planner

Courtesy of www.nancydrewsleuth.com

This homework planner seldom comes up for sale, which makes it extremely scarce.

The Mystery at Lilac Inn first printing book

The first printing book for The Mystery at Lilac Inn is very elusive. The first printing dust jacket seems to be slightly more common, and it is also very elusive. I have a first printing dust jacket that is mismatched with a later book. I also have a second printing dust jacket that is mismatched with a later book. For some reason, quite a few of the early Lilac Inn jackets are matched with later books, which makes the first printing book extremely hard to find. My guess is that sales of the first printing of Lilac Inn were lower than sales of the first printings of other early Nancy Drew books.

The first printing Lilac Inn book has four post-text ad pages. The ads are "This Isn't All!" followed by Hardy Boys to Airport Mystery, Outdoor Girls to Canoe Trip, and Blythe Girls to Margy's Mysterious Visitor in that order. The order is important, because a later printing has the same ads in a different order.

The Secret of the Old Clock with the 1930A-1 dust jacket

This jacket is now showing up more regularly than it once did, but few examples are known to exist. The dust jacket has a front flap that lists three Nancy Drew titles, ending with Bungalow Mystery. The value depends upon the condition. Examples in rough shape have sold for several thousand dollars. All other printings are not worth anywhere near this much.

Nancy's Mysterious Letter first printing book

The first printing dust jacket is scarce but can be found without a huge amount of trouble since it was used on the first three printings. The first printing book is nearly impossible to find. The first printing book has a post-text ad that ends with Clue in the Diary. Some buyers have had trouble with sellers answering questions about the post-text ad wrong, which adds to the difficulty in acquiring this book.

The Sign of the Twisted Candles first printing book

This first printing book is just about impossible to find, especially because sellers do not answer questions correctly. The post-text ads are "This Isn't All" with a line drawn around it in the shape of a box, Nancy Drew to Mysterious Letter, and Judy Bolton to Invisible Chimes. A later printing has the same Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton lists in the same order, but has "This Isn't All" without a line drawn around it. This is the cause of all the trouble.

Sellers don't understand the difference, and questions have to be phrased very carefully. I had to return a book for a refund due to this problem since I used the phrasing in Farah's Guide. I asked the seller if "This Isn't all!" was within a box, and the seller said that it was. The seller thought I meant that the text was in the shape of the box rather than with a line drawn around it.

Nancy Drew #5, 8, and 11 with incorrectly numbered dust jackets

In 1950, the cover art changed for ten Nancy Drew titles. The wrong number was placed on the spines of four of the dust jackets, #2, 5, 8, and 11. Read this post for a complete explanation. #2 with the incorrect number, 8, on the spine is very scarce but can be found. #5, 8, and 11 with the incorrect numbers are infinitely harder to find than #2. The vast majority of collectors will probably never be able to find misnumbered examples of #5, 8, and 11.

The Clue in the Crossword Cipher first printing book

This book lists to The Phantom of Pine Hill on the back cover. As I recently explained, the book is elusive, although I know of several people who own it. The book is very difficult to locate, especially because sellers do not answer the question about the back cover list correctly.

Nancy Drew: Detective Dust Jacket Wrapper

Courtesy of www.nancydrewsleuth.com

Two printings of The Password to Larkspur Lane came with a wrapper on top of the dust jacket that advertised the movie Nancy Drew: Detective starring Bonita Granville. The wrapper is extremely scarce and is worth several thousand dollars in excellent condition.

When Private Offers Backfire

2011-09-20T00:01:00.005-05:00

Sometimes making private offers can backfire on the person who makes the offer. Recently, four early Nancy Drew books with dust jackets came up for sale. A collector desperately tried to get the seller to close the auctions. The seller refused. Ultimately, the person who made the offers won three of the four auctions. The seller refused to sell those three books to the winning bidder.

Since I am sure that the winning bidder will read this, I want to make one point clear: I had nothing to do with the seller's decision not to sell the books to the winning bidder. From what I was told, two other eBay users gave the seller information about the winning bidder that caused the transaction to fall through.

Vintage Nancy Drew Secret Of The Old Clock 1st edition

This auction was for an Old Clock book with a dust jacket that lists to Lilac Inn. The auction closed at $532.56. This offer was posted in the listing:

DEAR SIRS, HELLO AND KINDEST REGARDS!! I WILL GIVE YOU 200 DOLLARS BY OVERNIGHT MAIL TOMORROW MORNING IF YOU STOP THIS AUCTION RIGHT NOW AND SELL TO ME. CONSIDERING THE BOOK IS 80 YEARS OLD, AND THE BAD CONDITION OF MOLD, I AM OFFERING YOU A FANTASTIC PROFIT!! YOU DONT WANT TO GIVE THE BOOK AWAY FOR 10 DOLLARS !!

Vintage Nancy Drew The Hidden Staircase 1st edition

This auction was for a Hidden Staircase book with a dust jacket that lists to Lilac Inn. It closed at $572.22. This offer was posted on the item page:

DEAR SIRS, HELLO AND KIND REGARDS!! I WILL GIVE YOU 100 DOLLARS IF YOU STOP THIS AUCTION AND SELL TO ME THIS BOOK. I WILL OVERNIGHT MAIL YOU THE MONEY. CONSIDERING THE AGE, THE MOLD, AND THE POOR CONDITION OF THE BOOK, I AM OFFERING YOU A FANTASTIC PROFIT!! YOU DONT WANT TO GIVE THIS BOOK AWAY FOR 10 DOLLARS.

Vintage Nancy Drew Mystery At Lilac Inn 1st edit 1930

This auction closed at $449.00 and was for a Lilac Inn book with a dust jacket that lists to Shadow Ranch. This offer was posted on the item page:

DEAR BRIAN, HELLO AND KINDEST REGARDS!! I WILL GIVE YOU 400 DOLLARS FOR THIS BOOK, 400 DOLLARS FOR THE OLD CLOCK BOOK, AND 400 DOLLARS FOR THE SHADOW RANCH BOOK, AND 400 DOLLARS FOR THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE. BRIAN, THAT IS A 1600 DOLLAR PROFIT FOR YOU.CONSIDERING THE AGE OF 80 YEARS, THE BAD CONDITION, AND THE MOLD, THIS IS THE GREATEST PROFIT YOU WILL MAKE THIS YEAR!! BRIAN, LAST MARCH, ANOTHER SELLER LISTED 3 NANCY DREW BOOKS OF THE SAME VINTAGE AS YOURS,BUT NEW DUSTJACKETS.I OFFERED HIM A GREAT DEAL. HE HELD OUT.I WARNED HIM ITS A BUYERS MARKET.HE LOST THE BOOKS FOR LESS THAN 50 DOLLARS EACH.NEXT DAY, HE EMAILED ME AND ASKED IF MY OFFER WAS STILL VALID.TOO LATE.HE LOST THE BOOKS FOR PENNIES.HE WAS FURIOUS WITH HIMSELF FOR NOT ACCEPTING MY OFFER. IN THIS BANKRUPT ECONOMY, YOU CANNOT BE GREEDY AND HOLD OUT TIL THE LAST DAY.SMART PEOPLE TAKE THE HIGHEST OFFER.BRIAN,MY OFFER FOR 1600 DOLLARS IS ONLY VALID UNTIL WEDNESDAY MORNING.

Vintage Nancy Drew The Secret At Shadow Ranch 1st edit

This last auction was for the first printing book and jacket for Shadow Ranch. While this was the most desirable of the four books, it was also in the worst condition. This auction closed at $799.35. This offer was posted on the item page:

DEAR SIRS, HELLO AND KIND REGARDS !! I WILL GIVE YOU 100 DOLLARS IF YOU STOP THIS AUCTION AND SELL THIS BOOK TO ME. I WILL OVERNIGHT MAIL YOU THE MONEY TOMORROW MORNING. CONSIDERING THE AGE OF 80 YEARS OLD,THE BAD MOLD, AND THE BAD CONDITION OF THE BOOK, THIS IS A FANTASTIC PROFIT FOR YOU!! YOU DONT WANT TO GIVE THIS BOOK AWAY FOR 10 DOLLARS.

The immediate effect of these offers is that the seller decided that the books were not fit for eBay. He was not used to selling on eBay, so he was unaware that most collectors check eBay auctions. The seller was not going to accept the offers, but he was seriously considering canceling the auctions. He had approached a local book dealer about the books and thought that he was better off taking that dealer's offer than letting the auctions run. The seller was planning to cancel the auctions during the last day if the bids were not high enough. I managed to convince him that he was best off letting the auctions run until the very end.

Desperate private offers can scare sellers into not selling the books at all. This situation serves as a good example of why collectors might not want to come on so strong. In the past, we also have seen collectors contact sellers and gush over the books, telling them the highest price in Farah's Guide for a book in excellent condition, despite the poor condition of the book offered for sale. That behavior can also cause the books to be removed from eBay.

I suggest that anyone who is interested in these types of Nancy Drew books go ahead and place an early bid in the auction. I do that each time I see a book like these. We need sellers to know that the only interested collectors are not just the people who are making the private offers. So few people now bid early on these auctions that it often appears that nobody is interested.

Note: The person who made the offers on these auctions is the same person who had the auction mentioned here closed early.

Jennifer's Series Books on Facebook

2011-09-17T19:47:00.000-05:00

I have a page on Facebook for Jennifer's Series Books. I created the page awhile back because everyone said that was the way to promote. I did like I was told and mentioned each time I put books up for sale. While that information is useful to people who are interested in buying from me, it is not the correct way to utilize a fan page.

I also became tired of talking to myself when I would state that I had listed some books. I would rather interact with other collectors than post dry content. The result was that I mostly abandoned the page.

I recently changed my method of approach, and I now enjoy posting on my page. I mention very little about what I am selling. I feel like most people who know about the Facebook page also know about my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza.

Much of what I mention on my Facebook page is not going to be mentioned here, so it is worth following.

Collectors Behaving Badly

2011-09-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

1932 NANCY DREW Book "NANCY'S MYSTERIOUS LETTER" Keene

The book appears to be from around 1942 to 1943 by the pulp paper and general appearance.

Question: The fact that it lists titles that weren't even written until a decade after 1932 wasn't enough of a clue to figure out that it's neither a '1st edition' not a 'Printing year: 1932' book?

Answer: Well,thank you for being so kind with your response. The others interested can determine how to bid on the book.

That was hardly necessary. The person who commented was nitpicking about the item specifics, which we all know tend to be wrong. Why would someone attack a seller over the item specifics?

The seller selected "1st edition" in the item specifics, which can be considered true depending upon how the term is defined. While I dislike that term greatly, any book that has the original text could be considered a first edition. However, most people feel that it means first printing. Regardless, collectors should not attack sellers when the term is used incorrectly.

The seller also selected 1932 as the printing year, which is not true. Since the book was copyrighted in 1932, I can see why someone would use that year. It's not a big deal. As a buyer, I never look at the item specifics unless I cannot see the books in a picture well and am trying to figure out if they are hardcover or softcover books, such as with the Wanderer editions.

Even if the seller was gushing about how the book was a true first printing and was dead wrong, treating the seller badly is inappropriate. A gentle note informing the seller about the age of the book is a better approach. We end up all looking bad when one of us acts like this.

New Poll on Nancy Drew Brass Bound Trunk

2011-09-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

The back cover and order form list to The Sky Phantom. It seems that many of us have been unable to locate this printing, so I'm curious as to whether any of you own the first printing of the 1976 revised text.

Deceptive Book Listings

2011-09-10T09:31:00.000-05:00

I am always bothered when I see buyers pay too much for books that are not the advertised first printings.

This summer I spotted a Nancy Drew book that was advertised as a first printing, yet it was not. I am not going to identify the seller, who is probably not a collector.

The book is not the first printing because the back panel of the dust jacket lists the Dana Girls #1-15 followed by #17. The first printing dust jacket lists the Dana Girls #1-15 only.

The book sold for $39.99, which is way too high in the current market for a book that has a dust jacket that is not the first printing and has a faded spine. It is a shame.

The seller stated the following in the description.

Dust jacket lists to this title "The Scarlet Slipper Mystery #32" on inner sleeve as well as on the interior pages making this the 1st printing of this title.

While the seller could have been purposefully deceptive, I believe that this seller likely thought that the book was the first printing. In any case, I am willing to give this seller a pass. Unfortunately, the outcome was that a buyer paid too much for a book that does not have a first printing dust jacket.

Before finishing up this blog post, I wanted to see if any of you could find this listing by searching for it on Google. Much to my surprise, I found another Scarlet Slipper listing misidentified as the first printing.

This auction ended right before the other one was listed, so the other seller probably used this auction as the basis for the first printing identification. The lesson is never to use another listing as the means for making a first printing identification, unless you are absolutely certain that the seller is a knowledgeable and honest collector. Even then, you may have to be careful.

Some collectors appear to mislead their buyers on purpose. In fact, several collectors are vague about certain printing points, perhaps hoping that buyers who do not own Farah's Guide pay too much for books that are not firsts. Be very careful, especially if you do not own Farah's Guide.

August 2011 Sales on Bonanza and eBay

2011-09-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

Traffic remained steady to my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza during August, but sales dropped by quite a bit. In August, I had 14 transactions and sold 44 books. This is what I sold by series.

Nancy Drew - 40
Dana Girls - 2
Trixie Belden - 1
Kay Tracey - 1

This is what I sold by dollar amount.

up to $4.99 - 24
$5.00 to $9.99 - 11
$10.00 to $14.99 - 5
$15.00 to $19.99 - 2
$21.99 - 1
$360.00 - 1

I had 7 transactions processed through PayPal, 4 through Google Checkout, and 3 through Amazon.

I listed very few books during most of August, which may be a reason why my sales were down. I have noticed that whenever I list new books that some of them sell immediately along with older listings.

I had more transactions on eBay during August, since I finally hit upon the right method for selling books fast on eBay in the current market. Here is a list of what I sold on eBay, and I have not included the three lots which were not paid for by the buyers, since those transactions are not valid.

Nancy Drew #3 Bungalow Mystery #6 Red Gate Farm w/DJs - $9.99
Nancy Drew #10 Larkspur Lane #21 Old Attic 1940s Ed DJ - $24.99
8 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #26-28, 37-39, 41, 52 - $16.99
Nancy Drew Vintage Matte #1-7 Nice Starter Set - $5.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #9, 15, 18, and 20-22 - $14.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #24-25, 28, 29, 31, 33 - $17.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #35 and #37-41 - $19.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #44, 45, 50-52, and 55 - $19.99
13 Nancy Drew Trixie Belden Bomba Jungle Boy Books - $4.05
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #6, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21 - $15.50
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #23-28 - $18.50
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #29-31, 33, 38, and 39 - $30.00
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #43, 44, 46, 48, 49,51 - $20.50
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #11, 13, 15,17,18 ,20 - $19.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #21, 24, 28, 29, 30,33 - $19.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #34, 38, 39, 44, 46,47 - $19.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #1, 2, 3, 52, 53, 55 - $14.99
Nancy Drew Black Keys Ringmaster's Secret Tweed 1st DJ - $17.99
Nancy Drew #32 Scarlet Slipper #34 Hidden Window DJs - $14.99
7 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew #1-6, 8 Cheap Starter Set - $5.99
5 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #48, 50, 51, 53 and 55 - $14.99
6 Tarzan Edgar Rice Burroughs ERB Grosset and Dunlap - $34.99
4 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #1, 2, 3, 5 - $12.99
5 Dana Girls Beige Spine Picture Covers #1, 2, 3, 6, 23 - $11.00
Nancy Drew #1, 3, and 5 Vintage Tweed Books with DJs - $15.50

Most of the lots were listed with an opening bid and a Buy It Now price that was not too much higher. The lots that closed with prices ending with .99 closed at either the opening bid price or at the Buy It Now price. The other prices were the result of bidding.

The purpose of the eBay listings is to move out books fast. I have too many extras of certain picture cover edition Nancy Drew books, so I am selling them in lots for pretty low prices per book. I always have too many copies of the low-numbered titles. I have also had too many of #38, 39 and 40, other scattered titles, and even #55. I have used #55 to help get rid of other books. I have also included any double oval endpaper books that I have acquired in these lots.

Finding More Good Books

2011-09-03T15:39:00.000-05:00

You will recall that last week I purchased a bunch of early and first printing Hardy Boys picture cover books. I decided to check that same book store again today. I had a suspicion that not all of the books had been put out last week. I was right.

I found the $1 box editions of the Hardy Boys Skeleton Rock and Nancy Drew Fire Dragon. Fire Dragon lists to Dancing Puppet on the inside, which matches the book mentioned here. Fire Dragon is the second $1 box printing, which is currently not mentioned in Farah's Guide. Several more have surfaced since that blog post.

Witch Tree Symbol is the first printing book and jacket. Circle of Footprints is a tweed book with dust jacket. Scarlet Slipper and Golden Pavilion are first picture cover printings and are in really nice shape, as are most of the books. Scarlet Slipper and Golden Pavilion are in slightly better shape than the books in my collection, so I will be keeping them.

99 Steps is the first printing. The remaining five Nancy Drew books are early picture cover books that list either to Pine Hill or to Whistling Bagpipes. This is a very nice group of books.

Cleaning Library Editions

2011-08-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

Library editions can be cleaned much easier than regular editions, since the bindings can more easily withstand exposure to moisture. I decided to use some library editions that I just acquired as an example.

These books were absolutely filthy. They felt grimy when I removed them from the package, and the books have a musty odor. The text blocks are quite foxed, and I suspect that the books were kept in some type of outbuilding by their general appearance.

I knew that these books would not clean up very well, since the dirt looked to be embedded in the covers. However, I wanted the books not to feel nasty, so they were still worth cleaning.

Soap and water would probably work just fine, but years ago, I purchased some Demco book cleaner, which is what I use.

I have to be very careful with the printed parts of the covers. The print tends to come off of library editions fairly easily, so those parts cannot be cleaned as well. I first start with the unprinted areas where I know that I can rub very hard. Last, I go over the printed areas with a much lighter stroke and for a short amount of time. I wipe each area dry before I go to another part of the cover. Last, I take a dry cloth and buff the cover back as shiny as I can get it.

This is what the books looked like after my first attempt.

I thought I could do a little better, so I tried again with the following result.

I could probably get a little more dirt off, but I decided to quit. As stated, I knew that the books would not clean well, and I will not be able to get all of the dirt off no matter how long I try. If I were to go much further, I would end up taking off too much of the print.

These library editions were not the best examples since I could not clean them well. I have had filthy library editions clean up quite nicely, to the point that the books ended up a completely different color in the end. In those cases, the cleaning process is very satisfactory.

Hardy Boys First Picture Cover Books

2011-08-28T01:06:00.000-05:00

I decided to check out the local book stores on Saturday. I hit the jackpot at my first stop. I bought many first or early picture cover printing Hardy Boys books. I cannot be certain as how many of the books are actually first PCs, since I have an old version of Hardy and Hardy Investigations.

These books appear to be all first picture cover books since they list to Desert Giant on the back cover and to Screeching Owl on the inside, if an interior list is present.

The Hardy Boys picture cover books in the next two pictures are early picture cover printings. I also purchased one Hardy Boys and three Nancy Drew books with dust jackets as well as the first picture cover printing of Nancy Drew #18.

Later after I arrived home, I started worrying about whether I had missed any of the desirable Hardy Boys books. My main concern was that I knew that I had seen Aztec Warrior. I thought that Aztec Warrior listed to itself, and I had not checked for the tri-fold. I decided to drive back over to the book store, even though it is on the other side of the city.

Aztec Warrior turned out to be the second printing without the tri-fold, so I did not purchase it. I did pick up one more probable first picture cover and a few more of the early picture cover books.

This turned out to be a very nice book find.

Seeking the Crossword Cipher First Printing

2011-08-25T00:01:00.003-05:00

The most frustrating aspect of buying Nancy Drew books on eBay is having to ask sellers questions, and the questions are often answered incorrectly. I have had to return books for refunds because sellers gave the wrong information.

Several collectors have been asking eBay sellers about The Clue in the Crossword Cipher in order to find the elusive first printing. According to Farah's 12th edition, the first printing of Crossword Cipher lists to The Phantom of Pine Hill on the back cover. The second and third printings list to The Clue of the Crossword Cipher on the back cover. The first printing is very scarce, while the second and third printings are not at all difficult to find.

The first printing does not have an interior list, but at least three examples have surfaced which have an interior list. Farah has not yet determined which variant is the true first printing. Regardless, it is important to note that some have a list and some do not. The interior list ends with The Mystery of the 99 Steps.

Buyers who have questioned sellers about Crossword Cipher have received incorrect answers in several cases. In two cases, buyers asked about the last title listed on the back cover and received the answer as Pine Hill, which would indicate a first printing. Both buyers received books that listed to Crossword Cipher, which is two titles past Pine Hill. How did both sellers make that mistake?

Recently, I asked a seller about the last title listed on the back cover of Crossword Cipher. I was mystified when the seller replied that the last title was The Mystery of the 99 Steps. No printing of Crossword Cipher lists to 99 Steps on the back cover. Either the seller had a rare anomaly or had made a mistake.

I wondered whether the seller could have looked at the interior list, if one was present, and come up with 99 Steps. I asked for clarification and explained that the book could not list to 99 Steps on the back cover. I received this answer:

The very last title listed on the back of book #44 - other than the books [sic] own title - is The Mystery of the 99 Steps. You are the 6th person that has asked me that. What is the significance of the last title on the back of this book?

This seller made the same mistake that I have seen other sellers make when the last title listed is the same as the title of the book. For some reason, many sellers think that when the very last title listed is the same as the title of the book that what we really want is the next-to-last title listed. This is frustrating. If we wanted the next-to-last title, then we would have asked for it. If we state that we want the last title, then we want the last title, regardless of what that title is.

The seller told me that I was the sixth person who had asked about the last title. She could have saved herself from having to answer the question five additional times by selecting the box that allows the question and answer to appear on the auction page. If a seller ends up with multiple buyers asking the same question, then that seller should figure out that this information is important and needs to be in the description.

I still haven't figured out how two different sellers mistakenly stated that the last title was Pine Hill when it was in fact Crossword Cipher. I have wondered whether they could have looked at the interior list and given the next-to-last title, which would have been Pine Hill. The problem is that both sellers would had to have looked in the wrong place for the list and then made the mistake of not giving the last title in the list. This seems improbable.

Clearly, many collectors will have a hard time acquiring a first printing of Crossword Cipher, not only because of the scarcity, but because many sellers fail to answer questions correctly.

Using eBay Effectively

2011-08-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

I spent some time trying to figure out what I need to do in order to have a chance of selling my extra books in bulk on eBay. I know that I can guarantee a sale by having a starting bid of $0.99 and free shipping. I am not willing to take that risk, since with my luck, the lot would sell at the opening bid.

I decided to view completed Nancy Drew listings, sorted by recent first, in order to see exactly what is selling. I checked through the first 800 results. 256 out of 800 items sold.

The following statements refer to the items that sold.

96 items were offered by top-rated sellers. This comprises 38% of the total. That tells me that I do not necessarily need to be a top-rated seller in order to be successful. I have been concerned as to whether I have any chance of selling my lots due to not having the top-rated seller status.

87 items were Buy It Now, and 169 were not. The Buy It Now listings comprise 34% of sold items, while auctions account for 66%.

Just 26 items had free shipping. 230 items did not have free shipping. The listings with free shipping account for only 10% of sold listings.

eBay would have us believe that buyers hate auctions and love free shipping. Strangely enough, most of the sold items were auctions, and most of them did not have free shipping.

I checked the statistics because I wanted to know if offering free shipping would give me an edge. Apparently not. Buyers purchase lots that they want at a price that they are willing to pay. They do not care if the item has free shipping or whether the item is offered in an auction.

Next, I had to decide how to proceed. Clearly, offering 30 to 40 books in a lot for a price of $50 to $100 no longer works. At least, it has not worked for me in recent months. I had a lot of 47 Nancy Drew picture cover books. The lot was originally priced at $99 and then $88 on the first relist and $95 on the second relist. The lot did not sell.

After considering the observations that I reported above and noting the content of the items that sold, I took my large lot of Nancy Drew picture cover editions and broke it apart into smaller lots. Four more books were added in when I broke up the lot.

I listed all of the lots as auctions with a Buy It Now price of just a few dollars higher than the starting bid price. I had to list some of the lots more than once, but I managed to sell all of them.

Nancy Drew Vintage Matte #1-7 Nice Starter Set at $5.99
7 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #8, 9, 11-13, 15, 17 at $19.99
8 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #18-25 at $14.99
6 Vintage Nancy Drew Books #29-34 All Original Text at $19.99
8 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #26-28, 37-39, 41, 52 at $16.99
7 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #35-39 and #42-43 at $14.99
6 Vintage Matte Nancy Drew Books #44-47 and #50-51 at $19.99

I ended up getting $112.93 for 51 books which included the 47 books I tried to sell for $88 to $99 plus four additional books. The small lots seem to work quite well. At this point, my strategy will be to list in small groups in order to dispose of my extra picture cover books.

Series Book Collecting and Prices

2011-08-19T00:01:00.002-05:00

Back in June, I mentioned the problems that occurred online in the late 1990s between several collectors. I believe those conflicts started years before at least in part due to a disagreement over the pricing of series books.

This controversy goes back at least as far as 1980. One group of collectors believed that series books should never be sold for more than $10. Others felt that scarce titles should command high prices due to the great demand. Keep in mind that in the 1980s, books were much harder to find than now. Collectors had to travel to book stores, call dealers on the phone, or send requests by mail. Collecting was very different in those days.

The topic of price gouging was covered in the very first issue of the series book publication, The Mystery and Adventure Series Review, to which I will refer as MASR in this writing. In MASR #1 from 1980 in the column "Hunting for Hidden Books," Kent Winslow wrote, "For the person who collects items because of their personal interest or nostalgia value, paying high prices that pave the way for even higher prices, is in the long run disastrous. Eventually the real collectors for whom the items are meaningful or beautiful abandon their collecting hobby to the professional collectors—speculators who may not have the faintest interest in the items for their own sake, but who see them as abstract investments." Winslow went on to state that this had already happened with comic books, in which the Overstreet price guide had dictated future prices.

In MASR #24 from 1991, one reader complained about the last Ken Holt title being priced at $300 to $400. Another reader complained about a Rick Brant book selling for $950.

MASR #26 from 1993 is full of rants from various readers about "series book profiteers" in the letters column.

In MASR #28 from 1996, Fred Woodworth expressed a belief that certain dealers had hoarded away stacks of scarce titles, selling them one at a time at outrageous prices. He went on to warn readers never to pay high prices for books, because "you're not only being cheated, you're participating in a nasty abuse that will inevitably result in the destruction of series-book fandom, leaving in its place a sad spectacle of profit-driven non-reading speculators."

In the letters to the editor in MASR #28, one reader was annoyed that a dealer priced the first printing of Hardy Boys #1 in dust jacket at $2,000. This reader also reported other high prices, such as Tom Swift Jr. Cosmotron Express at $85 and a Rick Brant (title not identified) at $125. These prices were considered exorbitant.

MASR #29 from 1996 includes many complaints from various readers about "money-hungry dealers" and "profiteering swine." A reader lamented that he would never be able to read the last five Judy Bolton books or the last Ken Holt book. People felt that the end of collecting was near.

I've only mentioned a small sample of what these issues contain, in part because much of the content is too hostile and marked with inappropriate language to reprint here. Even though some collectors were a bit too upset about the situation, they had a genuine concern about the inability to afford certain titles. Each of us has been in that position with regards to one book or another.

People felt that collectors should avoid pricing scarce books at high prices in order to combat profiteering. For instance, let's say that a collector found the last Tom Swift, Jr., Galaxy Ghosts, which in 2011 sells for $150 and up. The feeling was that the collector should sell the book at a low price in order to keep the price down. Some people felt that the book should not be priced at more than $10, while others could see a collector pricing the book at $50 in order to partially share the good find but to still profit at the same time. All agreed that to price such a book at a couple hundred dollars would be greedy and unacceptable.

The readers were not only upset with the people who charged high prices, but also the people who were willing to pay high prices. Both parties were considered equally guilty.

Here are my thoughts. We cannot control the prices of scarce books. It is honorable for someone to sell scarce books at low prices, but the seller cannot control what the buyer does with the book. What happened to some of these collectors who wrote to MASR is that they sold scarce books at low prices and then were upset when the buyers marked the books up higher and resold them. This is what happens in a free market.

What strikes me the most from reading the letters in MASR is that collectors were certain that the hobby would be destroyed by profiteers. No one would ever be able to read the scarce books that they want to read so badly. Have prices continued to rise, never to go back down? No.

While even today, some books are out of reach for most people, many of the books that collectors felt were too high during the 1990s have come down considerably. Some collectors may have since passed on and were never able to purchase these books. However, the collectors who are still around have seen the prices fall dramatically.

We now have the internet, and this has made most prices go down. Back in the early 1990s, the last Judy Bolton book tended to sell for at least $300 to $500 due to the small supply. When eBay came around, the supply increased, although the demand was still far greater. In the late 1990s, Sand Castle sold on eBay for around $200 or so. Now, Sand Castle can sell for under $50 in an eBay auction. Some sellers continue to ask higher prices, but the book can be acquired for far less.

When 500 people want a book that perhaps comes up for sale only once or twice per year, the price will not stay low. The free market does not work that way. Some books remain expensive today, but some people are able to get bargains. Sometimes those people keep the books, and sometimes they resell them at a large profit. That has not changed.

Even today, collectors sometimes get angry when certain other collectors "hog all the books." If collectors who are not buying to resell are not willing to bid higher in eBay auctions, then that is exactly what will happen. In fact, if some collectors were not buying to resell, the prices would be even lower than they are now.

The tweed Nancy Drew books with jackets kept some of their value for a long time due to people buying them to resell. We have finally reached a point where the tweed Nancy Drew books in dust jacket have saturated the market to the point that the books appear to be worthless. Even buying to resell did not keep the value of the tweeds up high.

A certain saying states that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This saying applies to collecting series books. The same concerns that collectors had years ago still apply today. Some books can be found inexpensively, while others will be sold at high prices. Collectors wonder if they will ever be able to read that certain book. With the advent of electronic texts, many old books going into the public domain, and reprints, collectors have a much greater chance of getting to read the scarce books than they did years ago.

Getting Auctions Closed Early

2011-08-16T00:01:00.009-05:00

Recently, a copy of the Nancy Drew book, The Bungalow Mystery, with a first printing dust jacket was listed in an eBay auction. This dust jacket is the one that lists to Bungalow Mystery on the front flap and is very scarce. Refer to this old blog post for more information.

NANCY DREW THE BUNGALOW MYSTERY FIRST EDITION 1ST PRINT

I immediately bid on the auction as soon as I saw it. Someone else bid on the auction the next morning. I did not warn the seller about the possibility of buyers tricking him or her into closing the auction early. I thought that the early bids might be enough to give the seller a clue that people were interested in the auction. I was wrong.

The auction was ended and relisted with a Buy It Now of $300.

The book was purchased within just of few minutes of the relist by a new user ID, thus making it impossible to identify the buyer by the feedback number.

Several of us have been communicating back and forth about this book. Apparently, the seller thought that the book wouldn't sell for much, which is why the offer was accepted. The seller suggested that people bid early if they are interested. Well...

I thought that was what two of us did. In my experience, most eBay auctions currently get very few or no early bids. Any auction that immediately gets two bids must be of interest to buyers. It makes no difference whether the bid stays low; at least two people are already interested.

Many of us have had bad experiences when bidding early. I used to bid my maximum early in cases when I was unable to be home to snipe, before I began using eSnipe. One time a knowledgeable collector spent an hour picking at my bid and finally gave up at just under my maximum. I would have saved a lot on that book by not bidding until the end. I never understood why he spent an hour bidding on the auction.

Back years ago when IDs were not hidden and before I sniped, I had a stalker who would bid on items I had found. That person would "grudge bid" by bidding an outrageous amount just to make me pay a high price for the item. I got tired of it and decided to bid lower than usual on purpose to catch him at it. He won the auction. I received a second chance offer from the seller, since apparently my stalker was unwilling to pay what he had bid. I refused the second chance offer, even though the price was within what I was willing to pay.

For those reasons and others, I always bid my maximum at the very end of an auction. I usually do not place early bids, except for books like the first printing of Bungalow Mystery. In those cases, sellers need to know that the people who make private offers are not the only interested buyers.

eBay hides the user IDs of winning bidders on the bidding history page, but the user IDs do display when feedback is left. If you take a look at the feedback of the seller of the Bungalow Mystery book and view the feedback left for others, you will be able to find the buyer's user ID.

Coincidentally, this person also bought the first printing Old Clock that a seller was trying to sell for $8,500. The seller accepted the buyer's offer of $4,000. For reference, the book was the one mentioned here, and the seller was the person who bought the book for just under $4,500. He sold it at a loss.

Whoever the buyer is, this person knows what these books are worth, since he or she paid $4,000 for Old Clock. The buyer purchased this first printing of Bungalow Mystery at a huge bargain and at the seller's expense. Even though the dust jacket is in bad condition, the auction probably would have closed at $1,000 or higher.

This is why sellers should always refuse a private offer and should instead tell the buyer to bid that amount. After all, if the private offer were such a good offer, then surely it would be enough to win the auction. The reason people make private offers is to get the seller to sell the item for less than what the auction will bring.

Star Ratings, Comments, and Package Situations

2011-08-13T00:01:00.011-05:00

Bonanza added star ratings awhile back, except that the stars are not punitive, can only be seen by the seller, and are not anonymous. The main benefit of this feature for me is that I can easily see why my DSRs are sometimes so low on eBay.

I have had ten Bonanza buyers leave me the star ratings. Nine of those buyers left me five out of five stars on all ratings. One buyer left me one out of five stars on all ratings. Since that buyer faved me the day she left feedback and since her feedback was very positive, I have no doubt that the buyer meant to leave higher ratings.

Averaging out my Bonanza stars, I have 4.6 stars on all of them. Did you know that 4.6 is the level at which eBay begins to impose restrictions on sellers? For instance, a seller who has a DSR of 4.6 might have his or her payments withheld by PayPal for 20 days. Just a few buyers leaving low DSRs can cause an eBay seller to be sanctioned.
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I always wrap books in stretch wrap before placing them in the package. You never know when a package will get wet. I recently had a buyer thank me for protecting the books I sent her. Her postal carrier left the box setting out in the rain instead of walking just a few steps to leave it under the overhang. She said that the entire package including the newspaper I used for padding was wet. The books were fine because they were wrapped in plastic.

The greatest irony, perhaps, is that the books that my packaging saved were the unwanted ones mentioned in this blog post. I pack all books the same regardless of whether they are in excellent condition or horrible condition. After all, if a buyer has purchased a book from me, then I need to make sure that the book does not arrive damaged.
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I was going through some old posts in order to find ones on a certain topic. I found an old post in which someone chose to post a comment anonymously and supposedly was trying to be funny. At least, after another reader took offense, the commenter claimed that he or she was trying to be funny.

The humor fell flat, and the comment was obnoxious. Never try to be funny on the internet unless you are on Facebook with your buddies, or unless you really just want to offend everyone. As I recall, that anonymous comment was the one which made me disallow the anonymous comments. Of course it hasn't stopped the people who wish to be rude, but at least they have to register a Google ID before doing so.

On the subject of rude comments, I had stated here that I would delete rude comments without a response. I have now decided that when someone makes a rude comment directed at me and has chosen not to do it using a fake name, I will leave the comment so that others can see what that person is like. I still intend to delete rude comments directed at others, since I do not wish for people to fear being attacked.
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I received a package in which I could feel the books banging around inside. That was not why I decided to mention this package here. It was what I saw when I opened the package.

The first photo shows what I saw when I opened the package. I was sure that what I saw was a priority mail envelope and turning the envelope over confirmed my suspicion.

The only reason I care about the priority mail envelope is that the package could have arrived postage due. If this particular media mail package had been opened for routine media mail inspection, then it would have arrived postage due. Nothing, aside from receiving damaged or destroyed books, annoys me more than receiving a package postage due.

In several past instances, I have had to go to the post office to pick up postage due packages. I often have to wait in line at my post office for 20 to 30 minutes. You can see that a postage due package turns out to be a great inconvenience to me.

Sellers, please do not use priority mail supplies for other services. The USPS does not like that practice, and if caught, the package arrives postage due. Buyers tend to get upset when that happens.

Another Damaged Package

2011-08-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

I received a package that was stamped "received in damaged condition." This is never good.

The bottom edge of the top of the box, as seen in the above photo, is completely split from left to right. In the below photo, you can see the books inside the package along the left side of the split.

The following photo shows the bottom of the package. Three of the four corners have holes, although only the worst one can be seen in the photo.

This particular lot was offered by a seller with not-so-great feedback. The seller's photo did not show all of the books, and the description listed not all of the books in the lot. I could tell by the seller's photo that the books were most likely in rough shape. I bid low and got the books at a low price, which is good since I did not want more than half of them.

I opened the package, and as expected, the books are in rough shape. At least one book was damaged during shipment, since the spine had come off. Most all of the books are library discards, so you can imagine the condition. I suppose if a lot of old books is going to get abused during shipping, then thankfully it was this particular lot of books.

It was difficult trying to figure out if all of the books arrived. What I received was one fewer book than the number of books the seller stated were in the lot, but the seller's description mentioned two fewer books than that same amount.

The seller gave the weight of the lot in the listing, and the package weighed two pounds less than what he stated. I checked the titles of what I received up against what he listed in the lot. I received two books that were not mentioned in his list, but I also did not receive one book that was in the list.

It seems that I am missing at least one book. I realized that I could find out for sure by checking the postage paid up against the weight of the package. I weighed the box before I opened it, and it weighed 24 pounds. The parcel post postage for a 24 pound package from the seller's zip code to mine is $16.72. The seller paid $17.07 in postage, which is the rate for a 25 pound package.

I weighed one of the books, and it weighs around 12 ounces. It appears that one book is missing. The good news is that I don't care about the missing book one way or the other. Remember that I did not want most of the books. The missing book is one of the books I did not want, which means that I will not mention the missing book to the seller.

The box used for these books has thin cardboard, which is not acceptable for heavy packages. The box split because of the thin cardboard and the fact that the seller did not use any packaging material to fill up the empty space inside the box.

I use Uline's 12 X 12 X 12" cube box for heavier lots of books. The boxes are quite sturdy. Sellers should always use sturdy cardboard boxes for heavier lots. It is also a good idea to reinforce the edges with tape if the box is not very sturdy. If the seller had used more tape on the box, probably all of the books would have remained inside the package.

I want to make one final point. Sellers often state that they have never had a package arrive damaged. Actually, those sellers have never had a buyer report that a package arrived damaged. In this case, I chose not to contact the seller since I received the books that I wanted. The package was damaged.

I have had only one buyer tell me that a book was damaged during shipment. I have mailed out thousands of packages, and I have probably had more than one book arrive damaged. All I know is that one buyer told me about it.

Some Blog and Website Tips

2011-08-07T23:45:00.001-05:00

Many people who have blogs do not use the tags feature correctly, and this causes problems for people who want to read the blog. Many blogs attach three or more different tags to every single post. The problem with using lots of different phrases as tags is that it creates a huge list of tags which is impossible for blog readers to navigate. That is, if the blog owner even has the list of tags displayed in the blog.

This brings me to a second problem. Many blog owners use lots of tags but the blog does not have the list of tags displayed in the sidebar. How can blog readers use the tags if they are not displayed anywhere?

I followed a link today to a blog which is used to promote the seller's online store. The blog owner used three tags at the end of a post. The blog does not have a list of tags, so the tags mean nothing. I assume that the blog owner is using the tags as keywords. Fine, but how does that help readers of the blog? The keywords should be part of the text of the blog post, not in the tags.

Even worse, the blog I visited does not have links to posts by date, year, or anything else. The only way to navigate the blog is to randomly click on the tags at the bottom of blog posts that appear on the main page in order to get to the other posts with that tag, and then proceed in the same fashion.

I was interested enough in the one blog post to want to see what else is in the blog, but the blog owner has created no easy means to navigate the blog. Therefore, I will not visit the blog again.

Since many people do not understand what tags actually are and how to use them, their blogs are difficult or impossible to navigate. Tags are actually categories for sorting the blog posts, like the names written on file folders in a file cabinet. On Blogger, tags are called "labels," and the list of labels needs to be added to the sidebar of the blog.

While I don't have my blog posts categorized in the most optimal fashion, readers generally know what to expect when they click on the tags (or labels) that appear in the right sidebar of this blog.

My tags are:

* Barbara Ann Series (3)
* Betty Gordon (14)
* Beverly Gray (17)
* Billie Bradley (15)
* Blythe Girls (1)
* Bonanza (31)
* Bonanzle (111)
* Book Buying Information (23)
* Book Hunting (15)
* Book Selling Information (4)
* Brownie Scouts (5)
* Ceramic Christmas Trees (4)
* Chalet School (8)
* Closed Polls (3)
* Clues to Collecting Q/A (7)
* Connie Blair (3)
* CPSIA (5)
* Dana Girls (9)
* eBay Buying Problems (25)
* eBay Commentary (121)
* eBay Prices (40)
* eBay Selling Problems (9)
* eBay Selling Tips (5)
* eBay's Star Ratings (21)
* eCrater (1)
* Fablehaven (2)
* Girl Scouts Lavell (11)
* Grace Harlowe (10)
* Grosset and Dunlap (6)
* Harriet Pyne Grove (14)
* Judy Bolton (16)
* Kay Tracey (1)
* Kit Hunter (3)
* Library Editions (3)
* Linda Carlton (9)
* Mildred Wirt Benson (13)
* Miscellaneous (18)
* Miscellaneous Series (16)
* Nancy Drew (65)
* Nancy Drew Anomalies (19)
* Nancy Drew Buying Tips (41)
* Nancy Drew Games (6)
* Nicholas Flamel (2)
* Outdoor Girls (4)
* Penny Parker (3)
* Percy Jackson (6)
* Riddle Club Series (2)
* Ruth Fielding (9)
* Series Book Websites (4)
* Site Statistics (4)
* Sweet Valley High (2)
* Tapestry Series (2)
* Trixie Belden (5)
* Twilight Saga (7)
* Twitter (5)

I have tried to minimize the instances in which I use more than one tag for a single blog post. I want the categories not to have a lot of repetition. I want readers to be able to click on a category and know exactly what topics will be found within.

This blog has nearly 750 posts. Adding the numbers given in the tag categories together, it appears that I have 808 posts. This means that I have used more than one tag on possibly as many as 60 posts. I have kept double tagging to a minimum. With around 750 posts, it is vitally important that my posts be properly categorized, or readers would never be able to find anything.

I chose to label this post "Bonanza." I made that decision because I have used either "Bonanza" or "Bonanzle" to label the vast majority of my content that gives information to people who are building traffic to a website other than eBay. If I were to give this post some other label, then it would be separated from other posts on similar topics, which is not what I want.

The bottom line is that tags are an organizational tool and should be used to file information into categories.

I also have problems navigating many websites. I often have to use Google to quickly find a page on a website because I can't remember how the site's hierarchy leads to that page. I hope that people can find information easily from the main page of my website, Vintage Series Books for Girls. I tried to be obvious and tried to avoid mistakes other sites have made.

A big mistake is using pictures instead of text. Some sites use images instead of words. Not everyone is going to see a couple of links in a chain as meaning "Links page." If a site owner really wants to use an image, then please place the meaning of the image in words next to the image so we don't have to try to figure it out.

For instance, consider if the main page of my site were set up as a bunch of images like what you see on the left with embedded links and no visible text.

Would most visitors know that the images represent Betty Gordon and Beverly Gray? Some people would, but many others would not. Text is better than symbolic or visual representation of text, and Google likes text.

Concise presentation is also important in online stores. I seldom browse booths on Bonanza, because many of the booths either have too few categories, too many categories that overlap, or too many empty categories. It is frustrating to click on one category after another and find nothing in it or see the same group of items from the previous category.

When I created my Jennifer's Series Books booth on Bonanza, I first tried automatic categories since that was recommended. I figured out within a couple of days that I did not want Nancy Drew books showing up in the Dana Girls category because the phrase "Dana Girls" was mentioned in the Nancy Drew listings. I changed to manual category insertion, and I place each book in one specific category, similar to what I have done in this blog.

Organization is important no matter what kind of website you have.

July 2011 Sales on Bonanza

2011-08-05T11:05:00.000-05:00

I sold 96 books during July on Bonanza in my Jennifer's Series Books booth. Here is a list of how many books I sold for each series.

Nancy Drew - 50
Judy Bolton - 13
Trixie Belden - 11
Dana Girls - 4
Lone Ranger - 4
Sally Baxter - 4
Penny Parker - 3
Beverly Gray - 2
Vicki Barr - 2
Cherry Ames - 1
Dorothy Dale - 1
Harry Potter - 1

Here is the breakdown by cost.

up to $4.99 - 39
$5.00 to $9.99 - 17
$10.00 to $14.99 - 12
$15.00 to $19.99 - 9
$20.00 to $29.99 - 9
$30.00 to $39.99 - 4
$40.00 to $49.99 - 2
$64.99 - 1
$74.99 - 1
$99.95 - 1
$149.99 - 1

As always, my sales are strongest for the cheaper books which are no longer worth selling on eBay. If I were only selling expensive books, I would have far less success. It is also worth noting that people often buy expensive books along with cheap books. The book that sold for $149.99 was in an order combined with two books priced at under $5.00 each.

Here are my sales sources for July. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Remember that freebies are included in the above stats, which throws off the totals. Most of my sales are attributed to direct visits or traffic that comes in through my website or blog. All sales that are attributed to a widget came from my website or blog. Some of the direct traffic is traffic that could have come from Google via other sellers' listings and then to my booth through Bonanza's search. In fact, I just had a sale (not shown in the above results) that is attributed to another seller's product URL in Google. I know this because Bonanza shows that seller's Google URL.

I have had 21 orders since I added Checkout by Amazon as an option. I have had 9 orders through PayPal, 9 orders through Checkout by Amazon, and 3 orders through Google Checkout. Amazon is as popular as PayPal. I have no way of knowing whether offering Checkout by Amazon is increasing sales, but the popularity of Amazon shows that it very well could be increasing sales.

Checkout by Amazon does have one drawback. Sellers do not receive the money until 14 days after the transaction. For some sellers, this is unacceptable. In my case, I always have money for shipping in my PayPal account, so I don't mind the lag time in between shipping the order and receiving the money in my bank account.

July 2011 ranks fourth in sales over the 31 months I have sold on Bonanza. Only three months had a higher amount in sales. Bonanza is looking very good.

The Tapestry Series Part 2

2011-08-02T00:01:00.025-05:00

The first book in the Tapestry series comes across as a Harry Potter wannabe, with many parts of the Harry Potter premise present. This includes the village near the school where the children go on outings. The author was clearly trying to create his own series based on the Harry Potter series.

With the second and third books, the author takes the series in a different direction. Unlike other series in which good battles evil and wins, in this series, evil wins and gains complete control.

I found the journey fascinating. The modern world regresses back into a more primitive world, and a new world order governed by demons emerges. The content of this series is very dark.

While the reading level is for ages 9 through 12, the content is more appropriate for young adults. The Harry Potter series is very dark at times, which made it unsuitable for more sensitive children. This series is darker than Harry Potter. For instance, one of the primary characters summons demons in order to gain information from them.

The series will consist of four volumes, three of which have already been published. The final volume will be published sometime in 2012. In my previous entry, I remarked that I was bored during parts of the first book. The first book primarily sets the stage for the story that unfolds during the second and third books. The second and third books are quite good. I have greatly enjoyed the Tapestry series, and I hope that the final book lives up to my expectations.

The Tapestry Series Part 1

2011-07-31T00:01:00.007-05:00

After I finished the Fablehaven series, I decided to see if I could find another series which was recommended to readers of Fablehaven. I found this page.

Battle for the Harry Potter Throne: Fablehaven vs. Tapestry

I was intrigued, since I had never heard of the Tapestry series, which was written by Henry H. Neff. I rather like trying out series which are not particularly well known, since I have far less chance of getting spoiled.

I was someone who resisted Harry Potter until close to the release of the fourth book. I disliked all the hype. Once I read the books, I loved them, but I found the continued hype to be a bit detrimental to my enjoyment. With each new book release, reporters, who had probably never read Harry Potter, prattled on about possible plot details. I found it all quite obnoxious.

After reading the comments about the Tapestry series, I decided to learn more about it. The Tapestry series will ultimately consist of four volumes, three of which have already been published. The first three books are The Hound of Rowan (2007), The Second Siege (2008), and The Fiend and the Forge (2010).

After carefully checking just a few reviews, which is always a risk due to spoilers, I decided to try the first book in the series. Most all of these fantasy series are said to be inspired by Harry Potter. The first book seems a bit more like Harry Potter than the other series I have read, like Percy Jackson, Nicholas Flamel, and Fablehaven.

Here is a review taken from the Amazon site.

In a hidden alcove within Chicago's Art Institute, Max McDaniels discovers a faded tapestry. As he watches, the tapestry begins to glow; soon after, he receives an invitation to attend a private boarding school in New England. When he arrives at Rowan Academy, where young people with Potential are trained to fight an unnamed enemy, he and the other apprentices are housed in magically morphing rooms and assigned animal charges. Max is paired with the last lymrill in the world, a nocturnal creature with metallic quills. They train on the Course, where they experience different scenarios as they try to achieve a goal and move up levels as they progress. Meanwhile, apprentices and even some full-fledged agents are disappearing all over the world. This novel's sprawling, quirky boarding school has obvious parallels to Hogwarts, but Neff's storytelling boasts charms of its own, and U.S. readers may appreciate that this magical adventure, the first installment in the planned Tapestry series, takes place here rather than abroad. Tixier Herald, Diana

During a good part of this book, I was trying to figure out where the plot was heading and kept skimming ahead a chapter or so to see if I could get a clue. It was not until well into the book that the situation became clear. The series is titled the Tapestry series, not just because of the glowing tapestry, but for another reason. I dislike giving too many details, so I will not elaborate.

I always like to read the critical reviews on Amazon once I have finished a book. The favorable reviews are never very interesting since they gush about the book and how wonderful it is. The more critical reviews bring up the actual flaws that a book has, so those are the ones I read. The critical reviews brought up some really good points concerning the flaws in this book.

While I found some parts of the book not to be particularly interesting, I enjoyed this book enough to want to read the next installment.

The Yellow Spine Nancy Drew Aladdin Books

2011-07-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was getting some books that were in storage back into some semblance of organization. At one point, I was working on my yellow spine Aladdin Nancy Drew books. I decided to take a couple of pictures to show the design variations that exist for those who wish to get all of them. The yellow spine was the final format before the books went out of print.

Click on the photos to view larger versions.

In the first picture, the books with the red rectangle at the bottom spine are Scholastic book club editions. They are unnumbered, like all book club editions, and I didn't bother to put the books in order. I'm not sure if I have all of the Scholastic editions, but I should have most of them.

Not all of the softcover Nancy Drewbooks were still in print at the time of the Aladdin imprint, which is why not all titles are shown. Some books have the pound sign in front of the volume number, while most do not. Some books were printed both with and without the pound sign.

#127 and #128 were printed with the old Minstrel design but with gold placed on the top and bottom of the spine. I always wonder about that type of oddity. Could someone have been lazy and decided just to put a little gold on those books and call it a day?

#112 has the full yellow spine but also has the gold at the top and bottom of the spine.

Nancy Drew Game: The Captive Curse

2011-07-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

Her Interactive's 24th Nancy Drew game, The Captive Curse, was released in June. In this game, Nancy Drew travels to Germany, where a castle is terrorized by a monster. As Nancy, the player is able to explore the castle, the dungeon, the courtyard, and the woods outside the castle.

I always play the games as a senior detective, since I am rather good at certain types of puzzles such as the sliding ones. Since I play as a senior detective, I always use spoilers to get through the puzzles that are not to my liking.

In this game, I only had to use spoilers a couple of times. This game is significantly easier than most of the Nancy Drew games, and for this reason, it is a good game to try for someone who has never played one of these games. For me, the game was too short and a bit disappointing. While many of the puzzles in the typical game can be quite annoying, I like to have at least a bit of a challenge.

I also did not like that Nancy is not able to explore some of the businesses and residences that open off of the courtyard. I hate having a doorway present with something behind it, and I never get to see what is there.

On the plus side, Nancy does not explore in third person. All of the action, such as exploring the woods, is in first person. The first person game play is a throwback to the older games and is preferred by many game players.

As always, I enjoyed the game but do not consider it one of my favorites.

More Nancy Drew Picture Cover Anomalies

2011-07-20T00:01:00.005-05:00

Last month, I bought a large lot of Nancy Drew picture cover editions and found four books that caught my attention.

I found a revised text picture cover of Hollow Oak with blue multi endpapers.

The book meets the points for the 1972B-68 printing according to Farah's 12th edition.

3/3/ND#1-49
bl/bl/syn/pf/tp/cp/tc/bl//bl/bl

This printing is the introduction of the 1972 text and third cover art. It matches all points in Farah's Guide, including the two blank pages at the end (bl/bl) just before the endpapers. The book has blue multi endpapers, which is what got my attention. Normally, the books switched to the black and white multi endpapers when the text was revised.

I already have the same printing in my collection—or so I thought. This book has the black and white multi endpapers, unlike the above book.

The book does not have the extra blank pages at the front and the back, which means its points would be listed like this in Farah's Guide.

3/3/ND#1-49
syn/pf/tp/cp/tc/bl//none

The above points match the 1972A-67 printing, except that the book should have the original text and second cover art. Since this book has the revised text and third cover art, it should be the 1972B-68 printing, but the missing blank pages make it a mismatch.
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I found another book that is identical to the one mentioned in "A Nancy Drew Revised Text PC with Blue Multi Endpapers." The book I just found is identical to the one pictured in that post down to every point.
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I found a Haunted Bridge PC listing to Mirror Bay with reversed black and white multi endpapers.

The left and right endpapers are each on the wrong side. The rear endpapers are also reversed.
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I found a Bungalow Mystery listing to Crooked Banister that has the black and white multi endpapers. This would not seem odd, except that I'm pretty sure that I normally see blue multi endpapers on all of the revised text Bungalow Mystery books up to 1973 printings. I checked several books in my possession, and I found blue multi endpapers.

Farah's Guide has never noted which endpapers are present for each specific printing, except for earlier formats. I am discovering that much is unknown about the endpapers for the revised text picture cover books.

Nancy Drew Wanderer Hardcover Editions with Dust Jackets

2011-07-17T00:01:00.024-05:00

The format of the Nancy Drew series switched to softcover with the publication of #57. A small number of the Wanderer editions, #57-78, were printed in hardcover with dust jacket. The hardcover books were sold through mail order, mostly to libraries. Probably 80-90% of the books were sold to libraries, so most examples that surface are library discards. As collectors know, most library discards tend to be in rough shape.

I have been working on a set of these books since the late 1990s. The goal is to have all of #57-78 in hardcover with dust jacket and for the books not to be library discards. This is nearly an impossible goal.

I have upgraded my books many times. The first goal was to get any copy with a dust jacket. I recall one book that had a severe spine slant, so severe that it was more like the severe spine roll of a softcover book. That book had very heavy wear. The dust jacket was present, but tattered. I upgraded it to a more respectable copy with at least moderate wear, and then probably upgraded it again one or two times. I have upgraded these books so many times that I have lost track of how many copies have passed through my hands.

The Wanderer hardcover editions are not equally scarce. The lower-numbered titles are not that difficult to acquire. #57 to around #63 are fairly easy to acquire. #64 through #75 are moderately difficult to acquire. #76 and #77 are quite scarce, and #78 can be considered rare.

The Hardy Boys Wanderer books were also published in hardcover with dust jacket, although I do not collect those. I have collected the two Nancy Drew Ghost Stories titles as well as the two Super Sleuths! titles. The Ghost Stories and Super Sleuths books have about the same scarcity as #76 and #77.

I believe that the Camp Fire Stories book also exists in hardcover with dust jacket, as I seem to recall seeing it on eBay once, and it has the approximate scarcity of #78.

I have had #57-77 for years, but #78 continued to elude me. I decided long ago how much I would bid if #78 were to appear on eBay. To me the book as a library discard in decent condition is worth $100 to $200. In excellent condition, I would bid $300 or more.

Recently, another collector directed my attention to a pricey listing for what appeared to be a hardcover edition of #78 with a dust jacket. The book was priced at $275, which is within what the book is worth to me. My main concern was the lack of a picture and the possibility of the book not being what the seller stated.

The seller did not have the book identified as a Nancy Drew book. Only the title, Phantom of Venice, was given.

I could have inquired, but I decided that the book had to be what it appeared to be. I checked the ISBN, and sure enough, that is the ISBN for Nancy Drew #78 in the hardcover edition.

I found the same listing on the Advanced Book Exchange. I purchased the book there, since I have an account on ABE. I was encouraged by the seller's low rate of returns and canceled orders. I selected priority mail, because I wanted to see the book fast. I received the book, and it was what I expected.

The book is not a library discard. The pages are white, and the book is in excellent condition. The dust jacket has some wear at the spine ends, but it is in excellent condition as well.

I noticed that the jacket has a sticker over the ISBN.

The ISBN that is covered by the sticker is the ISBN for #77. I checked my jacket for #77, and it also has a sticker covering the ISBN. The ISBN underneath the sticker on #77 is the ISBN for #78.

A collector who ordered all of the hardcover editions as they were released stated that he had trouble acquiring the last two titles due to a change in the ISBNs. I wonder whether the change in the ISBNs is part of the reason for the scarcity of these final titles. Of course we all know that the final titles in any format tend to be the scarcest, but #78 is far beyond the scarcity of the other titles. #76 and #77 are also far more scarce than the other titles, although not as scarce as #78.

This is my set of Wanderer hardcover editions with dust jackets.

#57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, Ghost Stories, Super Sleuths!, and Super Sleuths! 2 are not library discards. #59, 60, 64, 66, 67, 70, 75, 76, and Ghost Stories 2 are library discards. Despite the number of upgrades, I still have quite a few books that are library discards.

The books that are library discards have light wear and are in above average condition for library discards. Just one jacket, #66, has an obvious sign of having had a library sticker on it. It is unfaded where the library sticker was positioned. Otherwise, the jackets are in nice shape.

In quite a few cases, I have switched books and jackets when I have found a library discard with a jacket for which I was able to remove the library sticker. Often, the newly acquired book was in worse condition, but since I could get the sticker off the jacket, I would keep the new jacket with my old book.

It is of greatest importance that I have jackets that do not have library stickers on them. I am less concerned with whether the books are library discards, just as long as the jackets do not look like they are from library discards.

Where It All Began

2011-07-14T00:01:00.002-05:00

Sometime this summer, I will reach the 20th anniversary of when I began collecting series books. First, some background to the tale is necessary.

During the summer that I turned seven years old, my mother pulled six Nancy Drew books out of the living room closet. She told me that the books were the first six Nancy Drew books and that she had purchased them for me when I was a baby, which was in 1972.

She told me which one was the first book, and I began reading it. I recall that I spent a good amount of time that day reading The Secret of the Old Clock. I do not recall any other details, but I must have liked the book.

My mother began buying Nancy Drew books for me. The books that she bought were a mixture of black and white multi endpapers, double oval endpapers, and quite a few of the Twin Thriller lavender double editions that she found in a local closeout store.

I later progressed from Nancy Drew to Trixie Belden. During the sixth grade, I checked out the first sixteen Trixie Belden books from my elementary school library, one at a time. I remember how thrilling it was reading about Trixie, Honey, and Jim getting caught in that horrible flood during The Happy Valley Mystery. I remember how much I loved reading those Trixie Belden books, which were the thin hardcover editions from the 1970s. How I wish I had those exact copies from the elementary school in my possession.

At some point after I read Trixie Belden, my mother brought some books home for me that she found at a garage sale. There were perhaps around six or so Trixie Belden books, covering all formats from the first format up to the books from the 1970s. She also had found an interesting old copy of The Clue of the Velvet Mask which was a picture cover edition with blue multi endpapers and the original text. I was utterly fascinated with that book. It had an old-fashioned illustration on the front cover, and I carefully compared the text to my copy and noticed the interesting differences.

I gradually lost interest in Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. I began reading miscellaneous teen novels including Sweet Valley High very shortly after its launch when only around a dozen SVH titles had been released. After that I read Christopher Pike and later went through a phase in which I read most of Charles Dickens' works along with works by several classic English authors.

My Nancy Drew books never left my bedroom even after I lost interest in them. I did, unfortunately, use a bunch of them to prop up a broken leg on my bed, so the covers of some books have deep gouges in them.

I have now set the background. Sometime during the summer of 1991, I was watching the Oprah Winfrey show. During that time, I did not often watch Oprah, but on that one fateful day I was watching her show. That particular episode was one of her shows featuring items that people had found in their attics. Audience members had brought a variety of antiques and collectibles and were finding out what the items were worth, kind of like what happens on Antiques Roadshow.

As I watched that show, I thought of those books that my mother had bought at the garage sale when I was a child. I thought of those neat older Trixie Belden books and that odd copy of Velvet Mask with the original text. I went to my room and found the books. I then thought about how I could try to find more of them.

All it took was one hour of watching Oprah and remembering those old books from that garage sale. That summer, I began visiting garage sales every weekend. I went to used book stores. I traveled to local antique shops. And here I am 20 years later. What is your story?

Checkout by Amazon on Bonanza

2011-07-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

Bonanza now offers a new payment option, Checkout by Amazon. I signed up for the new service as soon as Bonanza made the announcement and have already had a sale through Checkout by Amazon.

The sale was for my Harry Potter Bloomsbury set. The sales source was Google Product Search (GPS), and I seldom get sales through GPS.

I signed up for Checkout by Amazon as soon as I heard it was available on Bonanza because of a transaction from two years ago. A buyer decided to mail me a money order for the transaction. She had some trouble even with the money order option.

I can't recall her exact comments, but she stated that she had only purchased on Amazon up to that point. She wished that I was able to offer payment through Amazon since that would have been easier than mailing a money order. Because of that type of buyer, offering Checkout by Amazon can increase sales. When selling on an alternative venue, we need all the help we can get.

Here is Bonanza's help page for how to set up Checkout by Amazon.

If you follow Bonanza's steps, you should be able to find the necessary information to get entered on Bonanza. Bonanza has some really good screen caps that will help greatly, and I strongly recommend that you use that page. I am going to give you directions here, since some issues are not addressed on Bonanza's page.

First of all, you will probably not be able to use your existing Amazon account if you have ever sold on Amazon, unless you get lucky. I was prompted with the email for my existing Amazon account, but on the resulting page I was told that my account is incompatible. I then used another email to create a new Amazon account. If you are told that your existing Amazon account is incompatible, you have to use a different email address, since the email address is how you sign in to your Amazon account.

I went through and filled in the necessary information, including credit card, name, address, and phone number. You will be asked for your website address. Enter your booth URL in that spot. As an example, I entered http://www.bonanza.com/booths/thebgs. I next went to complete the setup on Bonanza.

On Bonanza, go to "Account settings" then "Seller Settings." You need to find three pieces of information from within your Amazon account: Merchant ID, Access Key ID, and Secret Access Key.

On Amazon under "Settings" and "Checkout Pipeline Settings," you should be able to find your Merchant ID to enter on Bonanza. Also on Amazon, under "Integration Central," select "Access Key." You will get your "Access Key ID" to enter on Bonanza. You will also need "Your Secret Access Key" and you should click on "show." I had to agree to something or other, and then Amazon gave it to me. I entered it on Bonanza.

You do not need to enter anything else on Bonanza other than those three pieces of information. Some people are confusing the Google Checkout setup with the Amazon setup. Nothing else needs to be done.

You also do not need to set up anything in your Amazon account under "Shipping Settings." Your shipping is determined on Bonanza in your booth. Amazon does not need that information.

On Amazon, you do need to get your bank account routing number entered so that you can receive your payments. You should see a prompt for this on the right side of the screen. You will also need to get your bank account verified. I have not gotten mine verified yet since I am still waiting for Amazon to make two small deposits into my account that I will then have to enter in my Amazon account. I only signed up for my account on Friday, so not enough time has elapsed.

The process was a little confusing at times, just like with anything new. You will get an email whenever you receive an order. You log in to your account through http://sellercentral.amazon.com/. You click on "Manage Orders" to see your orders. You can then click on the order to get the buyer's address.

You can generate a shipping label through PayPal shipping or whatever service you normally use. You can then enter the tracking number into your Amazon account to show that you have shipped the item. You must verify shipment, or else Amazon will not release your money to you.

By the way, there was a glitch with the process for those of us who received early orders this weekend, but that problem has now been fixed. Accepting payments through Amazon will work about the same as receiving them through Google.

1922 Illustrated Catalogue of Books

2011-07-08T11:32:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I purchased the 1922 Illustrated Catalogue of Books put out by The Book Supply Company of Chicago. The catalog is in excellent condition and even has the original order form.

Remember that you can click on any image to view a larger version.

The catalog appears to contain all books that were available for sale by all publishers during the year 1922. The catalog is 352 pages long. I took a few photographs of some of the pages for the juvenile series books.

Most of the series books are available at $0.54 each from the book company. Since only the series books that were available in 1922 are offered in the catalog, you will notice that not all titles in each series are listed. The remaining titles had not yet been published as of 1922.

June 2011 Sales on Bonanza

2011-07-05T00:01:00.034-05:00

Here is a breakdown of how many books I sold from each series during June on Bonanza in my Jennifer's Series Books booth.

Dana Girls - 42
Nancy Drew - 28
Trixie Belden - 14
Judy Bolton - 8
Edith Lavell - 3
Vicki Barr - 2
Ken Holt - 1

I sold a total of 98 books in 30 transactions. The last month that I had at least this many transactions was August 2010, the month before the name change from Bonanzle to Bonanza. I paid $44.00 in fees for June, which is also the highest level since August 2010. I had 34 transactions in August 2010 and paid $60.00 in fees.

I am getting some sales through Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, at the highest level since before the name change. I still get very few sales attributed to search, but the uptick is encouraging. The search terms people used that resulted in sales are as follows.

nancy drew books bonanza
the haunted attic margaret sutton
silver wings for vicki helen wells
trixie belden 38
bonanza.com
Bonanza
vintage nancy drew books

Several of the search terms were used by people who already knew about Bonanza.

Here are my sales sources.

Click on the image to view a larger version. The stats do not total out exactly, since the stats also include freebies. I do not include the freebies when I give the number of books that I sold.

I sold $1,124.63 in books. This averages out to $11.48 per book. I broke down the number of books for each price range.

up to $4.99 - 36
$5.00 to $9.99 - 36
$10.00 to $14.99 - 8
$15.00 to $19.99 - 6
$20.00 to $29.99 - 6
$40.00 to $49.99 - 3
$59.99 - 1
$89.99 - 1
$134.99 - 1

The majority of the books sold are ones that were priced at under $10.00. I sold more Dana Girls books this month than any other series, and most of those books were priced under $10.00. I had to price those books lower, due to the condition, and they sold fast. Many collectors are more interested in reasonably priced books than books that are perfect. This is something that all sellers should keep in mind. I have much success with selling books that have a lot of wear that are priced low.

At the moment, I am having very little success with selling some extra Nancy Drew books in bulk lots on eBay. I do not wish to sell those books at a huge loss. One lot was photographed this last week but never made it to eBay. I need around $40.00 for the books, so I decided to price them individually on Bonanza so that the prices end up adding to what I want for the books altogether. Four of the books sold immediately.

I have another lot that I listed on eBay three times with no takers. I am considering pulling that lot apart as well and selling the books individually or in smaller groups. As of the moment I write this, I view eBay completely worthless with respect to selling books.

I encourage sellers who have had little success on Bonanza in the past to consider trying Bonanza for the books that need to be priced low that are no longer worth selling on eBay due to the high fees.
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Earlier this year, Bonanza added a new membership tier for sellers, the platinum level. Platinum level sellers pay a $50 membership per month and have no fees on items sold. My membership level is gold, and I pay $200 per year, which means that my membership is $16.67 per month. June is the first month since the platinum level was created that I would have saved in fees at that level.

In order for the platinum membership to be worthwhile, my average monthly fees would have to be greater than $33.33 per month. July appears to be off to a good start, but I have no guarantee on how high my fees will be at the end of the month. For that reason, I am holding out on upgrading to the platinum level, but I will keep it in mind.
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Many of Bonanza's sellers seem to be unaware of a new page that features each user's favorite sellers. You can get to this page from your profile page. Follow this link to see my list of favorite sellers.

I have faved people who sell series books in an effort to help bring traffic to these other booths. Since I see the list more as a promotional tool, I have also faved myself. Furthermore, by faving myself, my items show up in My Bonanza when I list new items. I find it useful to see how my booth is presented to others.

You will notice that I have filled out the top portion of the favorites page. I have found very few people who have filled out that section, which is why I believe that most people are unaware of this new page.

I made a point to mention some of the key series, since those series are search terms that get used by people when they are looking for books. It would be a good idea for sellers to fill out that section with whatever information applies.

Do You Remember This Book?

2011-07-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

Here is another old post. This one is from August 17, 2010. I didn't publish this one because I wasn't sure if I should out the person who bought the book and resold it. I almost published it and then decided to wait. I then forgot about the post, and here we are. Instead of deleting it, I present it to you to read. The post makes more sense if you now read the title and then begin reading the next part.
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NANCY DREW SECRET IN THE OLD CLOCK 1930 ORIG. FORMAT DJ

It closed at $150.00.

I do, because I wrote about it the first time it sold. I even saved a photo for my blog.

Why Didn't It Close Higher?

I'm sure you'll agree that the recent listing is indeed the same book.
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Additional comments added July 2011: The seller paid $56.00 for the book and sold it for $150.00.

The Fablehaven Series Part 2

2011-06-29T00:01:00.004-05:00

After finishing the first two books, I read the final three volumes in the Fablehaven series rapidly. Volume 3, Grip of the Shadow Plague, is a great book. Fablehaven is plagued by the spread of darkness, which turns the good creatures into evil creatures. The plot is harrowing, and this is the best book in the series.

In volume 4, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, one of the major characters betrays the rest. These books were not crafted as well as series such as Harry Potter and Nicholas Flamel, so the author gives few clues to the betrayal. For that reason, the betrayal is intensely shocking, to the point that I thought it was a joke at first. I paused in utter disbelief, and then continued. The entire passage has an unreal feeling which leaves the reader not feeling as much loss as should be felt.

Also in volume 4, a character is believed to be dead during part of the book, and the way the death and following events are handled are quite lacking.

In volume 5, Keys to the Demon Prison, the bad guys are getting close to opening up the demon prison and taking control of the world. As in the previous volume, Kendra, Seth, and their companions go after an artifact in order to keep it out of the hands of their adversaries. We get a character or two killed in the process, but the reader feels no loss.

This is because the evil characters are described much better than the good characters. Most of the good characters are given a name with little physical description and no information other than the fact that they are supposedly a trusted ally. Some of them end up not trustworthy or dead, but neither is a big deal to the reader since they all blend together.

These books tend to ignore characterization in favor of lots of nonstop action. I would have preferred far less action with a good bit more characterization.

In volume five, the good side attempts to prevent the opening of the demon prison. They come up with a plan, which I could see right off was flawed. I was not surprised when trouble arose from where I expected. Furthermore, Seth made an extremely stupid decision which made me want to quit reading. An adult character also made a stupid decision, and the adults are supposedly very experienced. I can understand Seth being stupid, but not the adults who have been fighting evil for decades.

The stupid decisions were simply the manner the author chose in order to set up the circumstances for the great final battle. The story was not bad after the stupid decisions had been made, thus giving the bad guys the upper hand. It could have been accomplished better.

I can hardly separate the events of books four and five in my mind, since both books are crammed full of nonstop action. In several parts of the fifth book, my mind began to wander, as I read the words. That is not a good sign. Both books consist of endless monsters, demons, and dragons attacking. As soon as one was defeated, two or three more would arrive. I grew weary of it.

The writing generally improved through the five books, but in the fifth book, the author took a step backwards at times. I have two examples, but I cannot give the exact pages since the Kindle version does not display the exact pages. In the chapter entitled "Vasilis," the faces on the totem pole are described as follows.

Some looked friendly, others furious, others wise, others ridiculous, others crafty, others ill, others smug, others frightened, others serene.

The following passage appears in the chapter "Knights of the Dawn."

Some walked on two legs, some on four, some on six. Others slithered. Others jumped. Others rolled. Others had wings.

I have now mastered the word "others" and can understand two-word sentences. To be fair, most passages are not written like the above examples. These two are the ones that stand out the most. The books do have complex sentences.

The series would have been stronger if books four and five had been condensed into one book with many of the battles removed. The characters deserved better descriptions. In spite of those flaws, I did enjoy the series. I loved the setting at the Fablehaven preserve and found the magical creatures to be very interesting. Most importantly, the series helped me quench my desire for the final Nicholas Flamel book. I can now wait nearly a year for it, and shortly, I will return to my usual vintage series books.

An Explanation and My New Blog Policy

2011-06-28T12:19:00.002-05:00

After the unfortunate events of last week, I am still a bit upset. I was far more upset initially than what I confessed to any of you. I was more upset than I have ever been over any negative comments that have ever been made in this blog. What caused me to be extremely upset is that someone whom I thought was friendly to me turned on me.

Since I am still left with a lingering unpleasant feeling that an unknown number of people now regard me with disdain, I feel that I must explain about the interpersonal disputes of which many of you who are fairly new to collecting are unaware. I have stayed out of these disputes, but with the comments of last week, I find that I am slowly getting sucked into them. It must stop now.

These disputes go back at least around 20 years. I first came online in late 1996 and came into contact with other collectors in around early 1997. We had two primary places in which we discussed series books: the Nancy Drew message board hosted by Applewood books and the alt.books.nancy-drew newsgroup. When I first visited both of these locations, they were great places to discuss books. That soon changed.

We had a group of two or three collectors who did not like each other. I believe that the conflict began in some form as far back as the early 1990s or possibly even as far back as the 1980s over a simple difference of opinion. The difference of opinion turned into vicious mudslinging and defamation of character.

The actions of a few ruined both the Nancy Drew message board and newsgroup. In order for collectors to have a place free from controversy to discuss books, Gayle Kaye and Jennifer Fisher created the Nancy Drew Sleuths group. That group became a safe haven from the war which still raged.

That war still rages today, which is why I get anonymous comments in this blog that slander others. At this point in time, it little matters who started it. I believe that the cause was a simple difference of opinion which escalated into something far worse. It is not my position to judge.

In fact, what happened 20 years ago is like what happened last week. Person #1, who is one of the major players in the interpersonal disputes, decided that I was bashing Farah's Guide. He chose to refer to my comments as "rude." Person #2 (me), responded in anger explaining my point of view. Person #3 decided that I was to blame since I showed anger and did not see anything wrong with the first comment.

The end result is that I became the person who looked like the cause of the trouble. This is what has happened over and over across the years in the interpersonal disputes between series book collectors. Often, the person who starts the trouble is not the person who gets blamed. The person who responds takes the blame, even though they did not start it.

Therefore, from now on, whenever someone posts a comment which adds nothing to the discussion and is interpreted by me to be rude, I will delete it. I will use the selection in the delete feature so that people will not see the deleted comment but will see a statement indicating that a blog administrator deleted a comment. I will then make a short nonemotional comment that those types of comments are inappropriate. That way, I don't look bad, and those people don't take over this blog.

What kind of comments are considered rude? Any comment which uses rude words including the word "rude" or is worded in such a fashion as to appear to attack another person's opinion. Here is one example. Someone responded to a comment with "Let's see. ON that Hidden Clue auction. The buyer was happy, the seller was happy. The only unhappy person was you. So what? You had nothing to do with the auction. Deal with it." That person could have made the same point in a far more constructive fashion.

In the future, such comments will be deleted with no response. And of course there are the comments I have always deleted immediately, such as the one where someone called someone else a "crybaby." Really not appropriate.

Last, I ask that people who know about the interpersonal disputes refrain from posting any names or information concerning that situation. If any such comments appear, I will be forced to delete them.
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Edit from 8/12/2011: I have decided that some hateful comments will not be deleted. A few collectors post negative comments and use their real names. It seems best to leave those comments so that other collectors know what those people are like. If a collector wishes to dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole, I do not wish to intervene.

The Fablehaven Series Part 1

2011-06-28T00:01:00.082-05:00

I read all five books in the Nicholas Flamel series a second time after I finished with the fifth book, The Warlock. Since I was facing an 11 month wait for the final book in the series, I was feeling at a loss as to what to read. I craved something similar.

I managed to find a place where someone asked for series similar to Harry Potter and Nicholas Flamel. The Fablehaven series was recommended. The series consists of five volumes and was written by Brandon Mull.

I checked out the reviews on Amazon and decided that spending $7.59 for the Kindle book would be worthwhile just to see what the book is like.

While not perfect, I enjoyed the first book, entitled Fablehaven. The book is not spectacular and mainly sets up the premise for the series. It is good enough that I wanted to read the next book.

Kendra and Seth visit their grandparents, who are the current caretakers of a secret preserve in which magical creatures are kept. Soon, the children find themselves in the middle of a battle between good and evil, which is pretty much what happens in all of the series books from this genre.

This series uses some different magical creatures, such as fairies, which seemed stupid at first. Once I got into the second half of the first book, I no longer thought that the fairies were stupid.

The first book has two scenes that are really stupid and annoy me as an adult reader. This happens sometimes with children's books. Children probably loved those scenes, but I could have done without them.

Near the beginning of the first book, the children, Kendra and Seth, are warned not to go into the woods because of ticks and Lyme disease. The tick excuse is false, since the woods are part of a preserve in which magical creatures run loose.

I greatly dislike it when people give false reasons for following a rule, although Seth is so stupid that he would have entered the woods even if he had been told the truth. Seth is very immature and obnoxious during the first book. We get to see Seth gradually mature as the books progress.

The second book, Rise of the Evening Star, is better than the first book, since the action begins right off. We don't spend half the book setting up the premise.

This passage from the second book summarizes the general idea nicely.

He placed a single finger beside his temple. "One last thought. Though secret, and in many ways quiet, the struggle between the Society of the Evening Star and those who manage the preserves is of desperate importance to the whole world. Whatever the rhetoric on both sides, the problem boils down to a simple disagreement. While the Conservators' Alliance wants to preserve magical creatures without endangering humanity, the Society of the Evening Star wants to exploit many of those same magical creatures in order to gain power. The Society will pursue its ends at the expense of all humankind if necessary. The stakes could not be higher."

Bonanza Christmas in July

2011-06-27T12:40:00.001-05:00

Bonanza is having a Christmas in July sale. This is organized by members and promoted by members. I'm pretty sure that traffic jumped last year during July due to members' promotional efforts.

If you sell on Bonanza, you can sign up here by posting a message.

Bonanza message thread

You are required to post your booth URL in the message. You also need to state your discount and three keywords that describe what you sell. I chose books, series, and vintage. All participants are to use the coupon code "July." You must sign up by June 29.

I have already put my coupon code in place, and my discount is 15% off. I am fine if anyone wants to go ahead and take advantage of the discount. I will leave the discount up for all of July for the promotion.

More on the Tenth Nancy Drew 1930A-1 Old Clock DJ

2011-06-24T21:38:00.001-05:00

To make this discussion easier, I will refer to the above book as Auction #1. This is the book that closed at $3,028.88.

I was surprised at the overall lack of interest in the recent auction for a 1930A-1 first printing Old Clock book with the intact first printing dust jacket. Previous auctions have resulted in a circus in which some collectors try to get the auction kept open, other collectors try to get the seller to sell privately at a low price, and collectors who are not interested in bidding gush about how valuable and PERFECT the book is and try to make sure everyone in the entire world knows about the auction.

I'm sure that some of the above did happen behind the scenes. I bid on the book as soon as I saw it and asked the seller to ignore what would seem like excellent offers. I have no way of knowing whether anyone tried to get the auction closed. What I do know is that no one announced the auction to the rest of us collectors and that no one appeared to gush about it. This auction went like the average eBay auction without the usual crazy behavior.

Another seller had a first format (but not the first printing) Old Clock with dust jacket up for sale at the same time, and that auction seemed to be noticed by far more people. I will refer to this auction as Auction #2.

NANCY DREW SECRET OF OLD CLOCK 1930 ORIG. FORMAT DJ!

Auction #2 closed at $350 and was for a book and jacket that are worth around $600 in excellent condition, according to Farah's Guide. Auction #1 closed at a much higher price, yet fell far short of the $10,000 Farah's Guide value. The book from Auction #2 is in better shape, but it still fell far short of its Farah's Guide value.

Someone mentioned Auction #2 in the Nancy Drew Sleuths group and did not mention Auction #1 at all. I thought that was odd, since I was expecting Auction #1 to be mentioned by somebody. Furthermore, Auction #2, while a far less valuable book, had twice as many watchers as Auction #1. This is also odd.

The number of watchers for eBay listings can be seen by visiting this site. I entered the search term "Nancy Drew Old Clock" to see the watchers for these two auctions. I took a screen capture right before Auction #1 closed.

Auction #1 had only 15 watchers, while Auction #2 had 33 watchers. Even more strange is that 11 people were watching that fixed-price listing for a common purse that can be found anywhere.

I wondered if Auction #2 had better placement in Best Match. No, Auction #1 was ahead by at least two pages, so that does not explain the discrepancy.

I bid on Auction #1 around 30 minutes after it started. Auction #2 did not receive a bid until nearly 24 hours into the auction. One of those wacky conspiracy theories is that auctions that get a bid at the very beginning are hidden from people who have not already viewed it. Keep in mind that I really don't believe the conspiracy theory, but I have to consider it for these auctions.

One reason for the lack in interest in Auction #1 may be that most current buyers are not interested in first printings. They may be more interested in excellent condition books. For those people, Auction #2 may have seemed more desirable.

Many of the current buyers are not aware of the nuances of collecting Nancy Drew books. To the casual observer, Auction #1 and Auction #2 look like the same book and jacket. If buyers are not aware of the significance of the the front flap listing just three titles in Auction #1, they might see Auction #2 as much more desirable due to the condition of the book and jacket.

Auction #2 may also have been more desirable because of the seller. That seller always has a fantastic selection of very desirable series books and probably has a huge following.

Also, many buyers may have ignored Auction #1 because they thought that the closing price would be too high to afford. They may have preferred watching Auction #2.

Finally, eBay may have eroded its auction business enough that eBay is no longer the best place to sell valuable books.

The Tenth Nancy Drew 1930A-1 Old Clock Dust Jacket

2011-06-22T00:01:00.007-05:00

Please view these related posts for background information.

THIS Is a RARE Nancy Drew Book!
Scarcity of Early First Printing Nancy Drew Books
Nancy Drew 1st Printing Auctions Part 2
Nancy Drew 1st Printing Auctions Part 3
The Ninth 1930A-1 Nancy Drew Old Clock Dust Jacket

The tenth known example of the 1930A-1 Nancy Drew Old Clock dust jacket just sold this week on eBay.

1930 RARE Nancy Drew Secret of the Old Clock with DJ

The auction had the subtitle, "Bungalow Mystery Last listing on Front Flap."

The auction closed at $3,028.88, and the auction was won by a Nancy Drew collector. I am very glad that the book went to a collector, since the book means so much to collectors.

This auction is important, because it disproves David Farah's statement about how many known 1930A-1 Old Clock dust jackets exist. Farah's Guide states, "The first edition dust jacket is extremely rare with, probably, less than ten existing copies in any condition."

We now know that there are not fewer than ten surviving copies. We know that at least ten exist. I have long believed that more than ten of these dust jackets exist, and I expect to see at least a few more surface.

The sixth 1930A-1 dust jacket surfaced on eBay in 2008. Two years passed with none surfacing, and now in just the last year, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth known jackets have surfaced. My theory is that these books were in the possession of the children of the original owners. Those children would probably be around 70 years old and are now passing on.

I have more thoughts on this and another auction which closed the same evening, and that will be the content of my next post.

How People Try to Find Books

2011-06-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

I always appreciate comments, because the comments get me to think more about a topic or remind me of certain information. When I wrote about Google Product Search, a reader questioned whether buyers would just go directly to sites that sell books rather than using Google. I made the following response.

I believe that most book buyers would do that, which is another reason why I care very little about how well my items rank in Google Product Search.

However, there are some buyers who have no clue where to find books. They really don't. My website, series-books.com, gets a lot of Google traffic from people who type "where to buy Nancy Drew books" or similar phrases into the search form. This blog gets a lot of that traffic as well.

I have had people contact me asking where they can find certain books, like Sally Baxter. I tell them that eBay is a good place to look. I tell them about ABE. There are people who don't seem to know that eBay has books for sale. It boggles the mind how many people have absolutely no idea where to find books.

Thinking about this topic again made me decide to take a look at my Google Analytics data for my website, www.series-books.com. I brought up all of the queries used by people who visited my website over the last five months.

People who think like me just type in the series name and book title when trying to find a book to buy. Many of my visitors do exactly that, and I cannot read their intent. They could be trying to buy the book, but they could also want a summary of the book or general information. Other people form their queries as questions or use certain words such as "buy," and in those cases, the intent is very obvious.

I took screen captures of the data that included at least some queries for which the intent is obvious. There is no way that I can show you all the data, because more than 13,000 search terms were used in the last five months to reach my website. This will give you an idea.

If any of the screen captures are too hard to read, click on them to see a larger version.

Since the queries regarding where to buy books caused those people to visit my website, you can see the importance of my site having links to my Bonanza booth, Jennifer's Series Books. Here are my main sources of traffic to my Bonanza booth over the same five months.

Direct traffic is the highest and includes widget traffic, which means that people who reach Bonanza via my widgets on my website or either blog end up counting as direct traffic. Each widget is like a piece of Bonanza inserted into my website.

Between the unattributed direct traffic from widgets and the traffic that is attributed to my website, I have a large amount of traffic reaching my booth through my website. If I can also get my individual items to rank high in Google's results, I have an even greater chance of bringing more buyer traffic to my booth. The goal is to reach those buyers who have no idea where to buy old series books.

Series Books for Girls

Nancy Drew: Two Strange Broken Lockets

Nancy Drew: Twisted Candles and Larkspur Lane

Nancy Drew #8: Nancy's Mysterious Letter

A Box of Hardy Boys Books

Nancy Drew: The Secret of Red Gate Farm

Nancy's Mysterious Letter Library Binding

Nancy Drew #7 The Clue in the Diary

More Package Troubles

Be Wary of Certain Selling Practices

My Third Anniversary on Bonanza

My Book Collecting Year in Summary

Taiwanese Nancy Drew Books

Follow Me on Facebook

Another Trip to Shadow Ranch

Revisiting The Mystery at Lilac Inn

Revisiting the Rest of the Nancy Drew Breeder Set

Saturday's Estate Sale Finds

Seeking the First Printing of Nancy Drew Lilac Inn

November 2011 Sales on Bonanza

Revisiting The Secret of the Old Clock

The Big November Run on Series Books

A Dana Girls Book with a Different Color of Ink

Examining the Cover Art of Library Editions Part 2

Examining the Cover Art of Library Editions

My 11/11/11 Book Find

Nancy Drew Game: Alibi in Ashes

October 2011 Sales on Bonanza

Which Twisted Candles Book to Keep

Pondering a Buy It Now

1930A-1 Nancy Drew Lilac Inn First Printing Book

Why Certain Series Are More Popular

Big Sale at Jennifer's Series Books

Nancy Drew $1 Box Picture Cover Editions

A Touching Inscription

My Best eBay Finds

September 2011 Sales on Bonanza

Nancy Drew Blog Party

Opinions Needed on Nancy Drew Relaunch

Dana Girls Original and Revised Texts

Ten Rarest Nancy Drew Books and Collectibles

When Private Offers Backfire

Jennifer's Series Books on Facebook

Collectors Behaving Badly

New Poll on Nancy Drew Brass Bound Trunk

Deceptive Book Listings

August 2011 Sales on Bonanza and eBay

Finding More Good Books

Cleaning Library Editions

Hardy Boys First Picture Cover Books

Seeking the Crossword Cipher First Printing

Using eBay Effectively

Series Book Collecting and Prices

Getting Auctions Closed Early

Star Ratings, Comments, and Package Situations

Another Damaged Package

Some Blog and Website Tips

Popular Blog Topics Poll Results

July 2011 Sales on Bonanza

The Tapestry Series Part 2

The Tapestry Series Part 1

The Yellow Spine Nancy Drew Aladdin Books

Nancy Drew Game: The Captive Curse

More Nancy Drew Picture Cover Anomalies

Nancy Drew Wanderer Hardcover Editions with Dust Jackets

Where It All Began

Checkout by Amazon on Bonanza

1922 Illustrated Catalogue of Books

June 2011 Sales on Bonanza

Popular Blog Topics

Do You Remember This Book?

The Fablehaven Series Part 2

An Explanation and My New Blog Policy

The Fablehaven Series Part 1

Bonanza Christmas in July

More on the Tenth Nancy Drew 1930A-1 Old Clock DJ

The Tenth Nancy Drew 1930A-1 Old Clock Dust Jacket

How People Try to Find Books