I have more!
6. I received a postage due notice yesterday and had to go to the post office today to pick up the package. As I expected, the seller misused priority mail supplies. The seller wrapped a priority mail envelope around the book and mailed it media mail. It arrived with postage due of $2.52.
Wrapping a thin envelope around a book is unacceptable packaging, but let's go with it. All the seller had to do is take a couple sheets of white paper and wrap around the book. Oh, but I guess a couple sheets of white paper might actually cost a couple of cents. Never mind.
7. This one has been a grievance of mine for months, and I am sick of it! This one is all eBay's fault. When a seller uses PayPal shipping, I get a shipping notice from PayPal. I then get a shipping notice from eBay. The seller also tells me that the book has shipped. If the seller uses auction management software, I get another notice about shipment. Enough!
Do you want to guess how many of these messages I read? None of them! I delete them without reading any of them. I don't care. I only care when around three weeks have passed, and I need to find out why I don't have the book. Otherwise, the information overload is unnecessary.
The money from my first transaction on my low-feedback eBay account was held by PayPal for around 14 days, until around a week after the buyer received the package. EBay does this to new accounts, even when the account holder is someone like me who has a long track record on other accounts. The notice that I received about the payment hold stated that I needed to contact my buyer "early and often." Gag. EBay wants sellers to harass their buyers. As a buyer, I do not wish to be harassed.
This is why I tend not to contact buyers to tell them that their books have shipped. Since I use PayPal shipping, the buyer receives a message stating that the item has been shipped. In my opinion, any further notice is unnecessary. Of course, I always respond promptly to any questions and concerns about the shipment. This philosophy pertains to my Bonanzle transactions. On eBay, it is apparent that I need to tell my buyers that the books have shipped, or they will give me a low DSR for communication. Currently, my communication DSR is 4.7, the lowest of the four. I am such a bad seller!
10 comments:
Here's an update on my musty book. It smelled much better after I microwaved it and had it outside for an entire afternoon. Since that time, the musty smell has increased bit by bit each day to where it now smells quite musty once again. I have never been able to eliminate a musty odor in a book.
I will have no choice but to air the book out thoroughly right before I decide to read it. Otherwise, I will have to tolerate a strong musty odor. This is not a book where I will be able to easily buy a replacement copy in the short term. I will be reading the book before I will be able to find a replacement.
Here's a grrr--I purchased a Crossword Cipher pc on eBay recently that the seller said listed to Pine Hill as the last title on the back and when I got it in the last title was Crossword Cipher :( So we'll see how that one plays out when the seller responds to me. One with Pine Hill on the back sold for around 100 yesterday. I really don't want to pay that for a PC!
Jenn:)
Okay, that is amazing! I missed seeing that auction.
Crossword Cipher auction
I would not have been willing to bid that one up so high, since I have a Crossword Cipher that lists to Pine Hill but has an interior list that is not mentioned in Farah's Guide. I don't even know what I have, and the one from that auction could be like mine, and may not be the first printing. Until I know more about these odd Crossword Cipher books that I keep finding, I don't know what to think.
I'm glad you mentioned this auction, because I'm going to have to make a mention of Crossword Cipher in my next Nancy Drew values post, which will focus on picture cover editions. The picture cover editions are clearly worth more now than the Farah's Guide values for most printings. Interesting... the jackets are worth less and the PCs are worth more.
That's too bad about your Crossword Cipher book. Let me know how it works out. That is so disappointing when you think you've gotten a first printing and the seller messed up the description. That happened to me one time when I paid something like $400 for what I thought was a first printing Twisted Candles jacket, but it was the second printing because the seller didn't give the right information for the Judy Bolton list. :(
Also, I had a situation in another auction when trying to get a first printing book for Twisted Candles. A seller told me that the "That Isn't All!" was within a box, and when I received it, it was not. The seller thought that "within a box" meant that the words were arranged in a boxlike shape when it means that an actual line or box is drawn around the words. I had to return that book for a refund.
Musty books -- I put them in a box with 3 or 4 newly opened bars of Irish Spring soap. I leave them closed up for a few days. It makes the books absolutely REEK of the Irish Spring smell, which ends up killing the musty smell. It takes a few days for the soap smell to fade, but then the musty is gone forever.
Mike
You are right about the picture cover books being really hot right now. And the Hardy Boys blue PCs are even more hot than the Drews. I recently sold almost two complete sets of the first printings of these, individulaly, and some went for near $100.
The 'experts' have come up with all kinds of 'firstier' firsts. 'True' firsts based on such far out stuff like the clearness of eyes in the frontispiece, dots on page 88, letters on certain pages that are incomplete from plate wear. These things, supposedly, denote books within a printing that were printed before the later ones - ahh ... firstier firsts! And those go really high.
Farah hasn't done this with the Drews, but you can be sure there are many instances of such things occuring in them. If the Drew PCs get firstier firsts, I think the values will soar like the Hardys have.
This kind of thing started with the OZ books. The folks who made the early guides delineated so much as to make 'states' of printings based on such observations. Because several guides were made, there was a lot of bickering about it and arguing over whose firstier first was the firstiest! I'm sure that soon 'states' will be added to all the Hardy listings. It's the natural progression to further delineate and make the earliest-rarest even more valuable.
I was never crazy about this kind of 'grading', it seems so silly. But fans do like it and I'd like to see it happen to Nancy Drew right now to give her a shot in the arm and cause a new buzz about the books and a soar in the values.
Mike
I mentioned that I have a Crossword Cipher listing to Pine Hill but with an interior list. The first in Farah's Guide lists to Pine Hill without the interior list. To use your term, which one is the firstier first? Is it the one with the interior list, or the one without? Are they both worth $100, or is one worth more? I tend to think that the one without the list is the firstier first, and of course it is the one I do not have. Not only that, but the one I have is in awful condition.
Definitely, the one WITH the interior list is the firstier first of those CIPHERs listing to Pine Hill on the back.
Using 'guide logic', the early printings of the previous titles have the interior list, so an odd Cipher with an interior list would would be 'earlier' than those without because it is more like the previous books. The following title's first, Sapphire, doesn't have a list - so your Cipher with a list goes more with the previous books.
Since it's not listed in the latest guide, that means Farah hasn't seen any (or multiple) copies of it. If he had, it'd be listed as a 1st, and the other one (the one without the list) a second. It's probably not a book that had a whole printing, because it's so rare, but I'd consider it to be the 'true first'.
Odd that I'm warming up to this kind of delineating now because I've been so against it for years. But if it gives interest in the books a shot in the arm, I'm now all for it, and Farah has his work cut out for him because there are a lot of cases of this in the Drew PCs.
Mike
"Firstier firsts" - that's a riot! :D
I know this is a really old thread by now, but I couldn't resist responding....
(I'm re-reading lots of older blogs on Jennifer's Blog site here, and it's so interesting. Never posted anything until last night, though.)
Just looking through my own personal collection of Nancy Drew books, it seems I have separate so-called "Firstier firsts" of CROSSWORD CIPHER (in excellent condition!) with the book list on one of the last couple pages.
I don't know if I should count myself lucky or not. From what I've seen over at Ebay over the last year or so, 1sts of CROSSWORD CIPHER don't really go for a heck of a lot.
Richard
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