I purchased the FLB edition Cookbook seen above on eBay in November 2005. The book was offered in an auction. During that time, I usually was able to purchase any library edition I wanted, whether through Buy It Now or auction, with very little competition. Sometimes though, a newbie buyer (a new account with no feedback) would show up on eBay and decide to go after a library edition at all cost. That was what happened when I failed to bid high enough on the 1940s Style Library Binding of the Nancy Drew book, The Haunted Bridge.
There has always something about newbies to eBay and how they react to certain listings. It can be library editions or anything else. It was always frustrating to me when a newbie chose to go after a library edition.
A newbie to eBay decided to bid aggressively on the FLB Cookbook that I purchased in 2005. There was also another bidder involved, someone who was not a newbie. I waited until the end to bid, as I have always done. I bid something like $125 on it, which should have been more than sufficient to win the auction. I lost the auction.
Shortly after the auction ended, I received a second-chance offer, because the winning bidder had backed out. Certainly, I could not rule out shill bidding by the seller, but I am confident that the seller was not the winning bidder based on the messages I exchanged with her.
Consider that just about nobody wanted library editions in those days. Would a seller really have bid on her own auction for a library edition? I just don't think so. Also, nobody had any idea what kind of prices I might have been willing to pay. I usually purchased library editions at low Buy It Now prices, in bulk lots, or as the only bidder in an auction started at a reasonable price. It would be more logical for a seller to shill bid now than in those days of low interest.
After I received the second-chance offer, I declined it. I told the seller that I didn't feel that it was fair for me to have to pay one bid increment below the winning bid since that person was not a serious bidder.
I don't recall whether my suggestion or the seller's was mentioned first. In any case, the seller offered to relist the book at the same low starting bid. I offered to pay the seller a price somewhere in the middle. I believe my offer was about at what the third highest bidder was willing to pay. I do recall the seller not wanting to take my offer. Some people might say that she was going to shill the auction agin, but I really don't think she was bidding on the auction herself.
Besides, I rather badly wanted the book. I just didn't want to have to pay one increment below what the winning bid was. I didn't want to have to wait through another auction, not knowing who else might get involved. I had a chance to purchase the book outright, and I told the seller that I did want to purchase it for what I offered.
I had offered the seller $75. At that time, it was an exorbitant amount to pay for a library edition. I didn't tell anyone what I paid. Well, I didn't have a blog at that time, and I certainly didn't go into discussion groups and tell people about my spending habits. They would have thought I was insane.
It's apparent that I got a really good deal, now that the Nancy Drew library editions have become much more desirable.
The recent auction closed at $330. For this auction, the third highest bid was $30. Usually, the third highest bid is used to assess the actual value. Based on the scarcity of this book, I would place the value at above $30. Let's say at least $75 to $100, but it could very well be worth more than that. While the pink/salmon FLB binding is not too hard to acquire for the Nancy Drew titles from the main set, the Nancy Drew Cookbook is in a different league.
The FLB editions date from the 1970s, but I don't know the exact range of years. The highest numbered title of which I am aware is Forgotten City, which was published in 1975. If Forgotten City was the final book done by FLB, then FLB quit rebinding the Nancy Drew books in around 1975.
My FLB Cookbook has a handwritten date inside of when it was acquired by the library: 12/15/73. My copy does have the red endpapers of the first printing, so it is a rebound copy of the first printing from 1973. Therefore, the Cookbook would have been rebound by FLB from 1973 to 1975. The regular edition Cookbook is quite scarce compared to the average Nancy Drew book. While the Cookbook can be found by most people who want one, there really aren't that many copies out there. Very few of the Cookbooks would have been sent to FLB for rebinding. That's why the FLB Cookbook is so hard to find.
I also like the FLB cover better than the original cover. The style is great and really stands out. This is a special collectible Nancy Drew item.
In an auction with competitive bidding, books often close at well above the perceived value. It might take years for this book to come up for sale, so the winning bid was well worth it.
These notes are for me to document my struggles with uploading photos via the sorry new Blogger interface. On the first attempt, the first two photos landed in the correct part of the post but in reverse order. On the second attempt, the photos were in reverse order again even though I reversed the order in which I selected them. The photos were also in the wrong part of the post. I had to move the text to get the photos in the right position. For once, I was able to drag the second photo to above the first photo. That typically no longer works. However, it did cause HTML problems, so dragging the photo is still a bad idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment