Remembering My Best Find

I have had many good finds, but there is one that will always be the best. In 1997 and 1998, I built a set of Judy Bolton books, as best I could. The prices were very high at that time. I had to buy Jim Towey's reprints of #33-38 at around $25.00 each. I wanted original editions of #33-38, but I had to settle for the reprints. The only book that I did not have at all was #32 Whispered Watchword. I kept bidding on dust-jacketed editions of #32 at around $125, but I kept losing. I was not willing to pay above $125 for it. After a delay of some months, Jim announced that the reprint would be available in June 1998, and I ordered it.

In June 1998, I went to Memphis, Tennessee, on a trip to antique shops. At that time, Memphis was a hot spot for old series books. I am seriously not kidding. I found lots of wonderful books there that I could not find near home. It was amazing.

I went into one shop that was called something like "Art and Antiques." This is the type of store that usually does not have many books, and the books that are available are ones like Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Nobody wants those. I had little hope for finding anything good, but I went in anyway.

The store was laid out in an obnoxious pattern that made it very difficult to make certain that I visited each room. The rooms were set up in an odd fashion. The walls were more like partitions, and anywhere from one to four of the walls had doors that led to other rooms. I had to double back multiple times to make certain that I was getting into all of the rooms. I ended up walking through some rooms multiple times, and I even had trouble finding my way out of one group of rooms. I may not have even made it into each room. It was like a maze.

About halfway through this store I felt like leaving. I felt that I was not going to find anything at all, and I was wasting my time. I had a limited number of hours in which to visit stores, and I had many more stores to visit. This was the kind of store that I hate where I never find anything. I forced myself to keep walking, just in case.

I had turned right when I entered the store and meandered my way towards the back, through the center, as already stated I doubled back multiple times, and finally approached the front on the other side. In that last front corner, probably the second to the last room that I needed to check, I saw them.

As I walked through the door, there was an old desk a few feet inside the room. On that desk was a row of six Judy Bolton books with very high grade condition dust jackets. I could not believe my eyes. The books were #18 Living Portrait, #24 Forbidden Chest, #30 Phantom Friend, #31 Dragon's Mouth, #32 Whispered Watchword, and #33 Secret Quest. As I approached them, I remember muttering to myself something like, "Oh my God, oh my God, I can't believe it." I pulled out one of the books and checked the price, which was $4.50. Each book was $4.50.

I began trembling. This was the only time that I have ever started trembling because of a book purchase. I already had original editions of #18, 24, and 30, but I wanted original editions of #31, 32, and 33 very badly. I couldn't believe that I had just found the original edition of #32 right before I was to receive my reprint from Jim Towey, and for much cheaper.

I could not completely conceal my nervousness when I approached the register. I know that I was fidgeting the entire time that the cashier meticulously wrote down the titles of the books and the prices. I became even more anxious when the cashier commented about how neat the books were. I was very afraid that I would not get out of the store with them.

This was because I had had past experiences at garage sales when the owner would decide not to sell out of paranoid fear that the books were valuable. Whenever that has happened to me, the books were not valuable. I even had a book store owner once who seemed paranoid that the one Nancy Drew tweed book with dust jacket that I selected was somehow valuable and he didn't know it. I chose it because I needed that title and for no other reason. Geez.

So I waited while the cashier slowly wrote everything down. Towards the end, she looked up at me and said she'd be done soon. She obviously had picked up on my nervousness. I was trying hard to hide it, but I did not completely succeed. I finally paid for the books and got out of there as quickly as I could. Once I had the books in the car and knew they were mine to keep, my nervousness disappeared, and I was on the most magnificent high the rest of the day.

I have had many outstanding finds, but this one was by far the most emotional and satisfying experience I have ever had. I returned from Memphis the day after I made my wonderful purchase. Jim Towey's reprint of #32 was waiting for me at home. It was ironic that I purchased a reprint of #32 for around $30, yet was able to purchase the original for $4.50 right before I received the reprint.

Current List of Blocked Sellers

This is my current list of blocked sellers:

buy,primemediaking,owl-books,ggiezgg,snowlionbooks,
keen_northwest,the-video-bin,sysqsystems,scrowe,
bacobook,h4book,books-fyi,greatbuybooks2,hippo_books,
the_tome_home,crispmovies,craeckerle,powells_bookstore,
universalathenaeum,ub123auctions,fetchadisc,
massbookstore-online

I notice on one of my older posts on this topic that the names of some sellers were cut off. I have tried to keep the lines short in the list so that nothing is lost after I post this.

Note: I make the additions near the start of the list after buy and primemediaking. It is easier for me to paste them into the list near the start rather than to scroll to the end of the list to enter them into the form. I mention this in case someone has a list and likes to modify it with sellers I have blocked.

I had noticed in recent days that my Nancy Drew searches had increased by around 300 results, so I found four sellers to add to my list. My results went down again by around 300. My criteria for removing sellers are when a seller has 10,000 or more items up for sale and is selling modern books only.

The above list removes over 1,300 items from my Nancy Drew searches. I also apply this list to other searches that have become troublesome with too many undesired books like cheap reprints and e-books on CD.

Here are the directions for blocking sellers from an old post:

There is a remedy for this situation. In order to combat this problem, it is necessary to use the saved searches feature from within My eBay. The buyer must first enter a search from eBay's Search page. If the buyer does not already use the Advanced Search, it will be necessary to click on "Advanced Search" right underneath the search selections. From the Advanced Search page, enter the desired search term. Scroll down to where it states "From Sellers." Click on "From specific sellers (enter sellers' user IDs)" and select "exclude" in the drop down box. Now enter the IDs that need to be blocked inside that search box, separated by commas. Click on "Search" and then click on "Save this search." The search will be saved and those sellers' listings will no longer show when the buyer clicks on that search from the Saved Searches page.

Current eBay Trends

In the last few days, I have used eBay searches for completed items to try to determine how to price some of my books in my Bonanzle booth. While I know what certain books are worth, I do not always know what the current prices are. I was unable to get a good feel for what the current selling prices are for many of the books.

For instance, I searched the completed listings for Connie Blair books. I was unable to find a listing for The Silver Secret that was not part of a bulk lot, so I could not price it. I had similar results when attempting to price a number of Judy Bolton, Cherry Ames, Tom Swift, Jr., and Landmark Books. Fewer good books are listed on eBay these days than was the case previously, and more books are listed in bulk.

In a recent post, I pondered where the good books have gone. I feel that the selection has further deteriorated in the last month. Jenn Fisher also made note of this disturbing trend in her blog. I have also noticed an increasing number of messages in eBay's forums that note the decrease in good items. Here are a couple:

Less choices...... bare trees!

Where have all my sellers gone???

This trend spans all categories in eBay. For the most part, I feel that eBay has caused the decline by its own strict anti-seller rules. The "PayPal only" policy may also have driven off some buyers, thus further causing the decline. When sellers have trouble selling their items due to fewer buyers, the sellers cut back or leave.

In last week's meetings, John Donohoe mentioned that the auction platform is the best one for sellers to get noticed; the trouble is that auctions are the most expensive. I have been thinking about this since yesterday, and the expense of auctions is probably a big reason why the listings are declining, especially with the economy the way it is. All we hear everyday is how bad everyone has it and how everyone is saving money, whether they really are or not. Many people may be saving money by not listing on eBay.

In fact, I am saving money by not listing individual books on eBay. My case has nothing to do with the economy. I am still disgusted about how I paid eBay around $100 in fees and only sold around $300 in books at the end of December—or something like that. Factor in the cost of the books—after all, I didn't get them for free—and the result was not good. I still wince when I think about it, and I have vowed not to allow that to happen again. So even I have held back on listings due to the expense of them. I have a feeling that many people are not listing in order to save.

In a light bulb moment, I realized that this is not necessarily a bad thing. As a buyer, it is bad all around, but as a seller it means less competition. There is definitely less to find on eBay, and for the sellers who remain, they may see higher prices. I have seen a few books spike in price, and I'm going to cover some of that in another post. As some books go up in price, some sellers may decide to list again.

If sellers can figure what to list on eBay and how to do it, the site is still viable. I am determined not to allow eBay to get large amounts of money from me for nothing. I have listed exactly four lots on eBay in the last two weeks with a 100% sell-through rate. I was worried at first that I had thrown more money at eBay for nothing, but it worked out okay. All four of my lots were bulk lots, so for me, this is the only way I can use eBay as a seller at this point in time. What I am doing is clearing out books that I do not wish to list individually on Bonanzle due to condition problems.

Series Books and Literary Excellence

I read the first two pages of Grace's Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School, a book that I mentioned in a recent post. The book immediately pulled me in, so I know that I need to buy more of them. The Grace Harlowe books will be tough to find in dust jackets.

Whenever I find another series that I think I want to collect, I go to the Girls' Series Group on Yahoo! Groups to see what old discussions I can find. The group is very inactive nowadays, but it used to have excellent discussions. I ran a search for "Grace Harlowe" and began to read the comments.

I found an excellent message about Grace Harlowe and the overall appeal of series books in general. This is a direct link to the message, but you have to be a member of the group in order to read it. The message was posted on June 3, 1999, but I do recall reading it back then. The message made quite an impact on me.

The writer explained that Grace Harlowe and Marjorie Dean are "not very good books in a literary sense. However, just to judge from the comments on this list, the books remain compelling. There's no necessary link between literary excellence and storytelling ability . . . But often, the very lack of literary substance allows characters to achieve a sort of mythic resonance."

This person then stated how the vague descriptions of Nancy Drew have given Nancy Drew a mythical quality that has transcended the decades. So often, the absence of literary descriptions is what draws us into series books. As we read the series books, we become the characters and live through them. It is a great way to escape from the troubles of life and feel like a carefree child again.

For anyone who is relatively new to collecting series books, there is nothing wrong with reading such simple fiction. We all know that series books are not great literature, but the books are examples of storytelling at its best. The writers of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and all of our other old favorites knew how to tell a good story. They were masters of their craft, and their tales have lasted well past their own lifetimes.

Twelve Years Ago Today

I registered on eBay to bid on my first auction on March 17, 1997. My twelfth anniversary is bittersweet. I still loved eBay a year ago, even though I had concerns about its direction. I still love what eBay once was, but I do not like it so much now. Enough of that—the purpose of this post is not to dwell on the present but to revisit the past, and it was a fun ride.

The next portion of this post is reprinted from a post I made over two years ago to the Nancy Drew Sleuths group.
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I began collecting in the summer of 1991. I was inspired by an episode of Oprah Winfrey in which she had people showing off items found in their attics. I remembered a stack of used books that my mother had bought me when I was around 10 years old, and I was so fascinated with the appearance of the older Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books. I pulled out those books and decided to begin searching for old books at garage sales.

I subscribed to Yellowback Library and joined Phantom Friends in September and October of 1996 and the internet came right on the heels of the other two. I remember all the ads in those two publications there at the beginning and most people were trading through them rather than the net. I was searching the net for Nancy Drew books around late December 1996 or early January 1997 when I visited a site called The Internet Antique Shop. On the main page down at the bottom, I happened to notice a small ad for an internet auction site called "Auction Web." In fact, I just visited the Internet Wayback site to view the cache of a page from www.tias.com from late 1996 to see exactly what that ad looked like. The ad states "Auction Web - The most fun buying and selling on the web! Going once, going twice, click! Check out the on-line auctions going on at AuctionWeb. Click here!"

I had discovered eBay! eBay was called "Auction Web" or "eBay's Auction Web" in those days. I was so amazed that there were actually - gasp! - 50 Nancy Drew books up for sale at a time! And they were collectible ones with dust jackets and any type you could want! I remember how the search results were in random order and you could not order the search results by date or price or anything. And the searches would often take around 2 minutes or longer because eBay was growing fast and could not keep up with the rate that it was gaining new users. People would joke on the message boards that one could hit "search" and then go take out the trash or fix a sandwich and come back to view the results!

While I discovered eBay in around January 1997, it took me two months to get around to registering and bidding. I wasn't used to paying more than $5.00 for a book, so it took that long for me to change my mind about what I was willing to pay.
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I remember that the very first book I bid on was on the afternoon of March 17, 1997, and it was a tweed copy of Larkspur Lane that had a chipped dust jacket. I'm not sure what I bid, but it was around $8-10. Of course I lost, since I was not willing to pay very much.

It was not until April 1997 that I was successfully able to win an auction, actually two of them. During the first four to five years that I bought online, I always made printed copies of the item pages. I'm now glad that I did, because I still have those copies, and they are very interesting.

I scanned the printed copies of the item pages for the first two books that I bought on eBay. In those days, our user IDs were our email addresses. I removed the seller's user ID, but I left mine, since I abandoned that internet and email account in 2001.


Click on the images to see larger versions. I have no idea why I printed the pages before the auctions closed. You will notice that it was not necessary to be a registered user in order to use eBay, or Auction Web as it was called, at that time.

In my printed copies, I also found an auction that I won on Amazon in 1999. I thought that it might be of interest since I mentioned Amazon Auctions in a recent post.


I wish I had printed copies of more web pages from those days. Very little can be found on the Internet Wayback Machine.

The Billie Bradley Series

I decided sometime recently, probably in November, to build a set of the Billie Bradley books. The Billie Bradley series was published first by Sully and then by Cupples and Leon from 1920 through 1932. The series was written under the pseudonym of Janet D. Wheeler.

Since I prefer to buy books with dust jackets, I knew that it would be very difficult to acquire a complete set. I have found in the past that when I buy books without dust jackets that I always eventually upgrade to books with dust jackets. It usually saves money to hold out for dust-jacketed copies.

All early series books from the early 1930s and before are very hard to find with intact dust jackets. The books are even a bit scarce without dust jackets. It is because I seek early, very hard to find books that I am so scornful of sellers who describe relatively common Nancy Drew books from the 1960s as rare. All Nancy Drew books from the 1960s, even the scarce printings, are much easier to find than most of the titles in obscure series.

Prior to the last week, I had successfully purchased three Billie Bradley books with dust jackets. I believe that I did begin searching online for Billie Bradley books in November. I found no examples with jackets during November and December—at least with dust jackets in acceptable condition. I do hold out for very good or better condition dust jackets unless the book is one of the last few in a series. I thought that it would take me at least a year or longer to build the complete set in dust jacket. It can be very frustrating to search for the early 20th century series books.

I bought my first Billie Bradley book in mid-January. I bought the next two Billie Bradley books in mid-February. A couple of weeks ago, a seller placed the entire Billie Bradley series on eBay. All nine books had their dust jackets. I was fortunate to win the auctions for the six books that I needed. I now have the entire Billie Bradley series in hardcover books with dust jackets. This has to be the record for the shortest amount of time it has taken me to build the complete set of an early, obscure series.

The series consists of the following titles:

1. Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance, 1920
2. Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall, 1920
3. Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island, 1920
4. Billie Bradley and Her Classmates, 1921
5. Billie Bradley at Twin Lakes, 1922
6. Billie Bradley at Treasure Cove, 1928
7. Billie Bradley at Sun Dial Lodge, 1929
8. Billie Bradley and the School Mystery, 1930
9. Billie Bradley Winning the Trophy, 1932

Since I was able to purchase the complete set so quickly, I have no idea for certain which titles are the hardest to find; to me, the volumes are equal in scarcity. It is only by following the listings for months that the relative scarcity of the volumes in a series can be determined. If this series follows the same pattern as other series that ended during the early 1930s, volumes 7 and 8 are probably harder to find than volume 9.

The Cupples and Leon dust jackets have two styles. The earlier style shows Billie Bradley with a book in her hand.


The later style shows Billie Bradley standing on a porch that has a checkered floor.

How to Compete without Self-Destructing

EBay has been trying to become like Amazon, and in the process, has ruined its own platform. Once upon a time, Amazon tried to compete with eBay. Amazon's bid to enter the online auctions failed, but Amazon did not destroy its marketplace in the process. In this post, I will discuss what Amazon did right when it tried to compete, and what eBay has done wrong as it has tried to compete.

The buying experience on eBay has gradually deteriorated in the last three years. This process began when eBay took the inventory from eBay Stores and placed that inventory into the core search results in February 2006 according to Scot Wingo in his eBay Strategies blog. Scot wrote, "Thus, a seller paying $2 for an auction listing had the same exposure as a seller that paid back in that time .05 or less for a store listing. You can imagine what happened - sellers left the auction format and bulked up on store listings. By March, eBay turned this off, but they had started in motion a severe debalancing of the marketplace that their subsequent actions to rectify actually amplified to the downside as far as selection is involved."

Even though eBay removed the stores from search, the trend to fixed-price listings had begun, and eBay had caused it. The trend had nothing to do with buyers wishing to purchase at fixed-price; people still loved auctions, but sellers began to list at fixed-prices. It became much harder to find items in search. The quick removal of store results from search caused store owners to feel slighted, and rightfully so. It is back to this event that the strong anti-eBay attitude of many sellers can be traced.

Since early 2006, eBay has gradually raised auction fees and enforced new policies that have driven sellers away from auctions and towards fixed-price listings. EBay has caused its own ruination, yet blames the market and buyer attitudes.

Back in March 1999, Amazon launched Amazon Auctions in an attempt to compete with eBay's auctions. Amazon sunk a large amount of advertising dollars into its auction campaign. I was one of the people who temporarily quit selling on eBay to sell on Amazon Auctions. I have fond memories. Because of the large amount of advertising, Amazon's auctions were very successful for around six months to one year. I remember getting very good prices for books—higher prices than I would have seen on eBay during that time.

In September 1999, Amazon launched zShops, in which individual sellers could list fixed-price items. Amazon's homepage was set up differently at that time than what it is now. I found an archive of Amazon's homepage from late 1999 in the Internet Wayback Machine. Here is a screen cap:

Along the top of the page were tabs for the different parts of the Amazon website. At the end were two tabs for Auctions and zShops. By keeping the auctions and zShops separate from the other parts of the site, Amazon did not risk compromising the success of its entire marketplace. Ultimately, Amazon quit advertising its auctions, and the auctions and zShops were discontinued due to lack of interest and sales. Since the auctions and zShops never commingled with the rest of Amazon's products, their failure did not affect the rest of the marketplace. Amazon tried to imitate eBay and failed but emerged without damaging its core value.

EBay's mistake was to place the fixed-price and store listings in with the auctions. EBay should have tried an approach like Amazon did by having links to the stores and fixed-price items prominently featured at the top of each page along with the rest of its tabs to important sections of eBay. EBay could have better advertised the stores without damaging its core auctions. If eBay had tried Amazon's approach, perhaps so many of us would not be so dissatisfied with the direction that eBay has taken.

eBay's Current Business Plan

The Wall Street Journal has a bewildering article in which the writer apparently came away from the meeting yesterday with the impression that eBay plans to "return to its roots as internet flea market." Most everyone else feels that eBay plans to move forward with its plan.

The entire text of the article has been copied and pasted into this message thread on eBay's message boards. By going to the message thread, the article can be read without having to register on the Wall Street Journal site.

It is clear that eBay wishes to court the sellers who have warehouses full of items. According to the article, eBay "plans to focus its online-marketplace business on used and overstocked goods, rather than on the retail market for new goods that is dominated by competitors such as Amazon.com Inc."

The key word is "overstocked." It seems that since the plan to become Amazon 2.0 has not worked so well, Donohoe now thinks eBay should also attempt to become Overstock.com 2.0. Most of Thursday's comments have centered around that idea. EBay plans to continue its destructive trend of imitating other retailers but will now attempt to imitate Overstock in addition to Amazon.

The comments that have been made about this article are very interesting. Here is one from mydogsownme in the eBay message thread:

My personal take is that they are realizing that they made a mistake, but not fully wanting to turn back. To save face, they will continue manipulating this site to find a way to keep unpopular and nonworking policies in place. Not once in that article did I see any admission that Donohoe made any mistakes. eBay will remain without any significant growth until they realize that what made them unique and successful were the sellers placing their used items up for sale. This site was built on the customer finding a unique, hard-to-find or desirable item, at a great price using the auction format.

The auctions always were what was great about eBay, and the auctions are about all that is still good about eBay.