Selling Books to Raise Funds Quickly

Recently, a collectible Nancy Drew item was put up for sale on eBay at an exorbitant price.  The item is probably worth around $25 to $35 and was priced at $1,500.  The seller stated that money was being raised to pay for medical bills.  Unfortunately, the item will likely not sell for an amount that will help unless the seller gets very lucky.

This started me thinking about what items I might sell if I were ever in a position to need to raise funds quickly.  The fastest approach would be to sell my most valuable books, but those are not books I wish to sell since I would never find replacements.  I feel that the best approach is instead to sell lots of books that are not of great value that could always be replaced without an incredible amount of trouble.  Ideally, these books should be ones that are not of great importance to me that I don't think about very often.  And of course the books would need to be sold at current market value so that they would sell quickly.

At least half of my collection is double-shelved behind other books.  The books that are of less importance are the ones I cannot see that are hidden behind the books that I can see.  I do not see the hidden books more than once or twice per year, so I could let go of many of them very easily.  All of the books seen in the following photos are some of the books that are shelved behind others.

I don't care much for the white spine Dana Girls books, so I would sell them if necessary.  I could sell my Whitman books with jackets and my Kay Tracey picture cover books.  I do have a habit of selling books as I tire of them, and some of these books are ones that I have considered selling, which means I would have no trouble selling them if I needed to raise funds.

I could also sell the rest of my Melody Lane books.  I don't like them very much.  I have already sold my assorted Lilian Garis books, because I doubt I will ever read the stories.  I don't keep collectible books that I will never read.  I only keep the ones that I have read or believe that I will read someday. 

I don't like the Nancy Drew Diary that much.

I only have the white one because it was in with some other books that I purchased on eBay.  I have never cared about it and have considered selling it several times.

I have a lot of duplicates of the Nancy Drew books with internals.  Some of those could go.

I don't care much for autographed items, and I am probably one of the few collectors who feels that way.  I have already sold some autographed items.

I am currently selling some Mildred Wirt Benson documents that I purchased 5 1/2 years ago.  This is not to raise money.  I purchased the documents for the information contained within, and a PDF copy of each document is all that I need.  It is true that Benson owned and handled the documents, but that sort of thing doesn't matter much to me.  I regard the documents the same way that I regard autographed items, and I have begun selling what items I own that fall into that category.  They are great items, but it is best if they go to those who care more than I do.

The auctions can be found on eBay and close on November 16.

What items would you sell if you needed the money?