Friday, June 10, 2011

Buying Big Boxes of Books

I like buying big boxes of books, especially Nancy Drew picture covers from the 1960s and 1970s. I bought some recently in a Buy It Now. I knew that enough of the books were the original text that the lot was worth buying. I also have a lot of fun unpacking the books when they arrive, hoping that I might find something that I need.

This rarely happens, but I still have fun. It's like a little treasure hunt. And if I don't find anything that I need, at least I will be able to help others work on their collections. I firmly believe that most of the good books on eBay are in the bulk lots, so I will keep buying them when the price is low enough. The downside is that I end up with too many extra books laying around.

I received one such purchase yesterday. Most of the books in the lot list to Crossword Cipher. This means that the lot has no first picture covers. Have you ever noticed how common the books are that list to Pine Hill? Usually, I end up with lots that list to Pine Hill. Finding a bunch listing to Crossword Cipher is less common; unfortunately, the Crossword Cipher books are not often special printings.

I always separate any books that need further investigation. I did find just one: a copy of Blackwood Hall listing to Crossword Cipher. I knew that since the book has the 1967 text and since Crossword Cipher was published in 1967 that I needed to check Farah's Guide. It turns out that the book is not the first printing of the 1967 text, but it is the first printing of the 1967 cover art, 1967B-33 according to Farah's 12th edition. Best of all, I didn't have it in my collection! This is probably the first time in quite a while that I've bought one of these lots and found a treasure!

2 comments:

Paula said...

I was "spying" on your ebay purchases to see which lot may have contained this book, and was surprised to see an even bigger treasure in another of your BIN purchases. Did you find a misnumbered Hidden Staircase dust jacket? The description states Hidden Staircase is #8, and the books look like the right format for the misnumbered books, so I'm thinking it must be! Wow! Awesome find! :D

Jennifer White said...

The lot in which I found the Blackwood Hall is this one. In looking at the seller's picture, you can see that it is in about the nicest shape of any of the books in the lot. I also bought a lot of Hardy Boys from the same seller at a significantly higher price, and the books were shipped together. I will be keeping some of the Hardy Boys, and selling the rest. I believe some of the Hardy Boys are first PCs although I have not taken the time to verify whether I am correct.

Good detective work on the Hidden Staircase dust jacket! That was exactly why I decided to buy that lot, and what I suspected turned out to be true. Sellers sometimes make mistakes when they give book numbers, but it is highly improbable that a seller would type an eight instead of a two.

I am going to have a blog post about the Hidden Staircase dust jacket at some point. I like to space the posts out for when I don't have anything about which to write. I found several old unpublished posts which I will use in the next week or so and will mix those up with some new topics.