Another Interesting Package Situation

I sometimes have trouble with sellers making mistakes throughout every step of the transaction.  I have these problems because I often buy cheap lots of books on eBay that are not described well.  Those types of lots are often sold by sellers who are careless and do not package well.* 

One such package arrived recently.  I guess I should consider myself very lucky that the package arrived at all.  The problem is that the seller wrote the wrong house number on the address label.

At first, I thought that the package was delivered to the neighbor, who opened it and then gave it back to the carrier.  The package was opened, at least partially, from the right edge.  Apparently, what actually happened is that the carrier recognized my name and determined that the package had the wrong house number on it.  He verified that the package was mine and left it at my house instead.  At least the carrier was paying attention and noticed that the name did not match the house number.

Since the box was smashed, I knew before opening this package that I should document it with photos.

Also make note that the seller was careful to make certain that everyone who saw the box knew that it contained Nancy Drew books. I think that was a nice touch.

I opened the package and was not surprised at what I discovered.

The package contained nothing to pad the books, which is why the box ended up smashed.  Also interesting is how often I open these types of packages and the books are upside down with respect to the direction of the address label.  I flipped the remaining photos over to make your viewing of them easier.

The Hidden Staircase dust jacket was folded under at one corner and loose in the box.  Why wasn't it on the book?  Why do I even ask?

I hope you enjoyed reading about this package situation.

*Note to my sensitive readers:  I am not stating that all sellers of cheap books are careless, just that some of them are.

Nancy Drew 1940s Style Library Binding

The Nancy Drew 1940s Style Library Binding is the most difficult to find of the different Nancy Drew library editions.  I have been searching for them for ten years and have only managed to acquire #1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11.  I once lost an auction for #15.

When Megan Washburn contacted me wanting to know if I wished to see pictures of her books that I do not have in the 1940s Style Library Binding, I was extremely excited.

All books seen here were photographed by Megan Washburn and are owned by Megan Washburn.  Megan granted permission for me to share her photographs.

First, I want to show you Megan's photograph of all of her Nancy Drew books.  This is quite a handsome set of library editions.  Remember that you can always click on a photo to see a larger version.

Now, here are Megan's 1940s Style Nancy Drew library editions.

When I wrote about Nancy's Mysterious Letter, I commented that the books do not show Nancy on the spine.  The Hidden Staircase does show Nancy on the spine, so that statement is false.  The Clue of the Tapping Heels might show Nancy on the spine, but the image is more likely young Gussie Woonton.  The rest of the books stick to the theme of showing an important symbol from the mystery on the spine of the book. 

The Sign of the Twisted Candles has a twisted candle.  The Password to Larkspur Lane has larkspur.  The Mystery of the Ivory Charm has an ivory charm.  The Haunted Bridge has a ghost.  I love the unique spine symbols that each book uses.

Thanks for Megan, we now know that the 1940s Style Library Binding exists for Nancy Drew #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 16.  At this point, I consider it likely that #4, 12, and 14 probably exist as well, although I cannot be certain.  The binderies rebound whichever random books were sent to them, so we have no guarantee that every consecutive title was rebound in this particular binding.  Furthermore, we do not know if any titles past #16 were rebound in this binding.

I am excited to know for certain that more books exist in this binding than the ones I have managed to acquire so far.  I am also encouraged by the knowledge that Megan has duplicates of some titles, which gives me hope that more of these books exist out there and that I may someday find them.

Geometric Design Library Binding

Recently, I was contacted by Megan Washburn, who owns her grandmother's Nancy Drew books.  Almost all of Megan's books are library editions, and she went online to research them.  This led her to my site, where she discovered that I do not have examples of most of her books.  When I learned what Megan has, I was eager to see pictures. 

All photos seen here were taken by Megan Washburn and are of books owned by Megan Washburn.  Megan granted me permission to share the photos of her wonderful books.

Remember that you can click on any photo to see a larger version.

The following photos are of Nancy Drew books that have been rebound in geometric design library bindings.

The above book is The Clue of the Velvet Mask, but the spine has the title as The Glue of the Velvet Mask.  The binderies sometimes misspelled titles on the bindings, and the above book is an amusing example.

Megan also has some Dana Girls books in the geometric design library binding.

My favorites are The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion, The Clue in the Old Album, and both versions of The Clue of the Leaning Chimney.  I love the swirls.

Megan also has a number of the Nancy Drew 1940s Style Library Binding that I do not have, and I will showcase those books in my next post.

The Connie Blair Boxed Sets

Recently, I had the opportunity to purchase a boxed set of some of the Tempo paperback Connie Blair books.  I already had a set of paperbacks in a slipcase, but this set is enclosed in a box.

 

The above box has a flap that opens to show the books inside. 

Here is the slipcase version of the boxed set.

Note:  I do not have all eight books displayed in the slipcase since it is a tight fit.

I prefer the slipcase version since it displays better.

In regard to both versions of the boxed set, the designer chose an image of Connie that shows her unconscious, which is bizarre.  Perhaps the publisher wanted buyers to think that the books contained graphic content.  Since these were books for children and young adults, I think Connie's face from Puzzle in Purple would have looked much better on the boxed set.

But what do I know?

Big Book Find October 2012

Today I saw an ad for an estate sale that advertised "hundreds of books."  Estate sales almost never have series books, and when they do, the books are of minimal interest and hugely overpriced.  I had this nagging feeling that a big stash of books was waiting for me today, and that I had to go out to find it.  I get this feeling sometimes, and I have to act on it or else I will worry for the rest of the day about what I might have missed.

Gasoline costs too much these days to go out on very many random searches for books, and I did not want to go to yet another estate sale that advertised books and would have absolutely nothing of interest.  I have had very little luck lately.  But I could not shake that nagging feeling that today was a day for a big book find.  Most of the time when I have that feeling, nothing ever comes of it.  Since occasionally I am right, I just cannot ignore it.

I decided to go to the sale even though I would end up burning at least $10 in gasoline.  The estate sale did indeed have hundreds of books, but the books were all modern softcover general fiction books from the last 20 years.  As usual, that sale had books that were of no interest to me.

While I found nothing at that particular estate sale, going to it resulted in me checking a couple other locations which did result in a big book find.  My nagging feeling about a big book find was correct!  Here are photos of some of the books that I purchased.

I purchased a bunch of Hardy Boys books with dust jackets.  One or two of the higher-numbered ones could be first printings, but I have not yet checked to see.  The rest are nowhere near first printings.  Almost all of the books are tweeds.

I purchased a few Hardy Boys picture covers with the original text.  I could have purchased others with the revised text, but I find those to be about impossible to sell so I chose only the original text books.  I purchased three Trixie Belden books.

While great, the above books are not the ones that excited me.  The books seen in the next photos are the ones that thrilled me.

The Three Investigators hardcover editions are always very easy to sell, so I love finding them.  I even found some of the moderately higher-numbered ones, which pleased me greatly.  I will probably initially list the Three Investigators books on Bonanza, but I will most likely use the them to further build my sales on eBay.  I find it much harder to sell boys' series books on Bonanza since my website does not focus on boys' series series.  I have more success on eBay with boys' books.

Remember that the books are out there, and we just have to find them!