Making Progress on My Set of Hardcover Hardy Boys Digest Books

I am currently building a set of hardcover Hardy Boys Digest books, #59 through #190.  I began working on this set in 2017.  I finished reading through the complete set of Hardy Boys Digest books in late 2016, so my pursuit of a set in hardcover came as a direct result of reading the books.  I feel that the Hardy Boys Digest set is a stronger group of books than the Nancy Drew Digest set.  I like the Hardy Boys Digest books a lot and would like to own all of them in hardcover.

I have made a lot of progress in just 4 1/2 years.

On Monday, I mentioned my latest hardcover Hardy Boys Digest purchase on Facebook:

I have stated more than once that I thought I could avoid having to box up extra books.  The hope was that I would reopen my stores before having to box up extras.  Well... it doesn't help that I just purchased this bulk lot of Hardy Boys books.  This purchase will put me close to needing boxes.  I might just leave them in the box.  Boxes, here I come!

I don't have five of the hardcover Hardy Boys Digests from the lot.  The cost was more than I wanted to spend to get them since I don't want the flashlight editions, but I decided that needing five books made it marginally worth it.  I then looked at the photo one more time before making the purchase.  I saw HB #59, 60, 61, 63, 64, and 66.  The inclusion of those books definitely made the lot worth purchasing.

I really didn't want to purchase 42 Hardy Boys flashlight editions that were library discards in order to acquire five hardcover digests.  At the same time, I knew that I had to do it.  The books have now arrived.

I have removed the stickers from the books that I plan to keep.  Five of them are books that I need, while one is an upgrade.

I also removed the stickers from the flashlight editions of #59, 60, 61, 63, 64, and 66.  

I will be selling the above group of books, and I believe that I can get more for them without the stickers on the spines.  The books are still library discards, but they have light wear and will display well.

I am not removing the stickers from the digests that I plan to sell.

I do not believe the presence of the library stickers will deter anyone from purchasing the books.  Those of us who collect library editions know how to remove library stickers.  I don't wish to take the time to remove the stickers from these books since I believe they will sell readily as is.  I already spent over an hour removing the stickers from the other books, so I will let someone else take care of these.

I also will leave the stickers on all of the flashlight editions of #58 and lower.  Those books will go in one bulk lot and will be sold fairly cheaply.  My goal is to get them out of here as soon as I can.  That is, I want to get them out of here as soon as I can after I begin selling again.

I now have 90 of the Hardy Boys Digest books in hardcover, and I need 42 more.  At present, I have over two-thirds of the set, and I'm certain that my progress so far has been much more rapid than it was when I was first building my hardcover Nancy Drew Digest set.  I am also not trying very hard.  I am purchasing what I happen to see, and I have not yet reached the point of doing exhaustive searches title-by-title like I did for years with the Nancy Drew Digest books.   However, I do feel that I am nearing that level of my search.  It is about time to begin trying harder.

Here's my set as it currently appears.

Some of the library stickers are very dry and are stuck hard to the books.  Those are the stickers that I have left on the books.  Sometimes removing the stickers isn't worth the trouble even for the books I wish to keep.

When I worked on my set of the hardcover Nancy Drew Digest books, I had the most trouble with the highest-numbered titles, such as #175 and the titles immediately before it.  With the hardcover Hardy Boys Digest books, I have had no trouble with the highest-numbered titles.  I already have all of #176 through #190, so I have all of the final titles in the set.  It looks like the middle of the Hardy Boys set will be harder for me to finish.

All in all, I have made great progress so far on my set.