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#11
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
xerlome wrote: Two or three years ago i broke down and bought Robert Hunter's 4 volume, 1894 "Encyclopedic Dictionary" from an online dealer. I was silly, i paid too much, and it had worm holes in it. Shortly after that i discovered a copy in a thrift store. That was one of my last really great thrift store finds. I used to find great items one after another. It looked like almost anything would turn up eventually. Now not only do i rarely find them, but i rarely see the ones i already have. I see some items selling online for pretty good money that i used to see all the time in thrift stores. I'm not kidding you. I don't even want to tell you the titles because i wouldn't want to give anyone out there any big ideas. Wow, I've never seen anything like that in any of the thrift stores near me, not in 20 years. That's pretty cool. I can definitely understand why having such experiences disappear would be a bitter pill to swallow. I'd be pining too. I suspect that it's not just dealers picking them up ahead of you. I suspect that those who might have donated them before are now going straight to eBay themselves as well. In any event, the only solution would be to ask people to stop trying to make a buck where they have discovered an opportunity to do so. Painful or not, the odds are not in your favor. Maybe you could join the party and turn over some of your collection at a profit on eBay yourself. Maybe you could somehow spread the word that you are interested in old dictionaries that are collecting dust in people's attics in your town. Rather than letting the markup knock you out, take advantage of the folks like me who will pay *you* the markup. Selling things where they bring the most return is a pretty fundamental process to be fighting. I hope you recover your lost joy in collecting, one way or another. - Todd T. |
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
on 31 Dec 2005 00:49:43 -0800, xerlome stated:
Evelyn C. Leeper wrote: xerlome wrote: This is what dealers in every area have always done. Obviously it is much worse now. As a buyer i have noticed dramatic change in just the last few years. I used to regularly buy books for 3 for a dollar at a local Salvation Army Store, grat items, old and new, every time i went. Now i rarely see any of that level of material. I don't believe this is due to extreme increase of personal buying. There are clearly vastly more resalers than a few years ago. I think you should also take into consideration the shifting market. As someone else has said, there are probably plenty of people now who put their books on eBay instead of donating them to thrift stores. And there are probably a lot of people like you - not big dealers - who are buying up the very inexpensive books from thrift stores and also putting them online. I'm not a dealer, nor have I had a lot of experience with them, but I wouldn't go blaming them entirely for the shift you're seeing. Over the last few years, more and more of these stores have started "smart pricing" books, perhaps in response to the booming internet resale industry. Often the prices are not so smart, though, but based on what someone imagines is "worth something." I have noticed that many stores are treating all dictionaries as if they are "hot." Some trashy Collegiate 7th edition might cost as much as 5 or 10 dollars ( a particularly egregious example). I was annoyed by this at first, but now i appreciate that it at least discourages the resalers enough to reserve items i want (something better than a Collegiate 7th, though.) It is preferable to paying $20 or $50 or $100 or more to resalers. Well, you know, I think it's perfectly reasonable of thrift stores to "smart price" their books instead of selling them four for a buck. One of our local stores has volunteers working there, and donates all of their income to care for the elderly. Why shouldn't they get $10 for a book instead of $0.25, if people are willing to pay it? I'm sorry, but my heart just doesn't bleed for collectors like you (*and* me) who can no longer get an astonishing deal every time we turn around. At least we're not 95 with no one to care for us. The good thing about the Internet is that even if one dealer decides he wants to charge $200 for a book, one can see if other dealers are selling it for $20. This is rare, you must admit. Absolutely not. A range like $20 to $200 is not common for identical books in equal condition. The high range is usually some preposterously unreasonable price for the item. Yes, i've seen this. I think there are some sellers who just hope some fool will come along. It _is_ incredibly common. The only times I *don't* see it are for some of the books for which there just aren't a lot of copies available. And that's only because (I think) there aren't enough copies for sale to demonstrate the typical $1 to $10 (or $20 to $200, or whatever) range. As an example, I chose a title randomly that I remembered seeing sell well (new) off the shelves when I worked for a book distributor, and looked it up in addall. (You do know about used.addall.com, don't you? *Excellent* place to get a good idea of the price range of a book; I go there, look at the prices, and see if I can beat them on eBay.) Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which probably means there are about 200 copies - several are duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note the nearly 10x range. I see this *all* the time. I've gotten accustomed to thinking that I should be paying at the bottom end of the 10x range; the top end is usually either people trying to scam a large $ amount (as you seem to think is mostly the case) or people who actually paid a fair percent of that and are trying to recoup, or, sometimes, people who have a book that actually is better than those priced at the bottom end, but haven't made it clear in their listing. Or those who are clueless about the fact that others are selling the same title for 1/10 their price. I suspect the last to be the case more often than not. That's their problem; their book will just sit there and gather dust. I see it all the time on eBay, too. I collect "Materia Medica" books (medical books on drugs from 1800 to ~1920) and I have frequently seen the same author's work, in similar condition, selling for $5 and for $50. Or even for $200 or so. In fact, there's one such on eBay right now: Robert Bartholow's Materia Medica (I have two copies, one I probably paid $5 for, and a much nicer one I think I paid $20 for): three listings, $19.99, $36.00, and $375.00. I think the last seller is nuts, personally, but there's no law against making a fool of yourself online. I also suspect that the $375 copy is no better than the $19.99 copy (which ends in 4 hours and has, so far, no bids; if I didn't already have two copies I'd buy it). That fool with the high price has not provided any pictures, so I don't entertain any high expectation that he'll ever sell his copy. I've often seen in book searches where someone is selling a used copy of an in-print book for twice or more the current retail price of a new copy of the same edition. I wrote to one of these sellers and asked him why. He replied that he didn't know, he wasn't familiar with other people's prices. My point. There are clueless sellers out there. It isn't that there's a racket, or that they're trying to scam the public (not most of them, anyway); they just haven't taken the time to look around and see what their books are actually worth. So why don't you just ignore them? They're just fools; not worth jacking up your blood pressure over. -Allison |
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
on 31 Dec 2005 08:17:44 -0800, Allison Turner- stated:
Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which probably means there are about 200 copies - several are duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note the nearly 10x range. uh. Oops. 100x range. But my point stands. -Allison you wouldn't know I teach math, would you? |
#14
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
Allison Turner- wrote: on 31 Dec 2005 08:17:44 -0800, Allison Turner- stated: Ironweed, by William Kennedy, paperback. Discounting the two uncorrected proofs (going for $500 and $600, latter signed), there are 300 listings for this book (which probably means there are about 200 copies - several are duplicates) and the price range is $0.49 to $45.63. Note the nearly 10x range. uh. Oops. 100x range. But my point stands. -Allison you wouldn't know I teach math, would you? Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing. David Ames |
#15
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
on 31 Dec 2005 12:28:45 -0800, David Ames stated:
Allison Turner- wrote: you wouldn't know I teach math, would you? Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing. Does anyone still teach 'typing'? The computer science prof in our building has a sign on the door that says "Department of Typewriter Science." -at |
#16
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
Allison Turner- wrote: on 31 Dec 2005 12:28:45 -0800, David Ames stated: Allison Turner- wrote: you wouldn't know I teach math, would you? Well, I would have bet you don't teach typing. Does anyone still teach 'typing'? Our young 'un took typing (required) in eighth grade. Not sure if it was so called. The computer science prof in our building has a sign on the door that says "Department of Typewriter Science." -at I like to tell people we have a printer with a keyboard. David Ames |
#17
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
Todd T wrote:
I think a sizeable markup is fair, and I also think that dealers add value, which I also should pay for. I'm still perplexed by this mysterious "value" they add to books. I can't tell the difference between a book from a thrift store and the same one from a dealer. Unless you mean the feeling of greater sacrifice you feel if you spend more for the latter. That i can relate to. The comparison to new books is not quite applicable. A new book will be returned to the publisher for a refund if it sits for any length of time on a new book seller's shelf. ... A used book dealer, however, has no such recourse, and therefore accrues a cost that I think you are not accounting for: his/her money is tied up in that book until it sells. What i have been specifically commenting on is high markups on books already available to the public at low cost markets, such as thrift stores. But you are right: the resaler risks money. A resaler may buy 20 (or 10 or 15 or 30 ...) thrift store books for $20.00. If one of them sells for $20.00, investment rescued. If that is too great a risk, thrift store books may not be such a good inventment. At worst, thrift store book purchases are not going to break the bank, anyway. If the books don't sell, reverting to the original thrift price may salvage some of the cost. (And in thousands more books, none of which earn interest sitting there.) Well, at the rate of inflation for used books, i'm not sure that is quite true. The fact that the donor paid the initial "legitimate" costs becomes irrelevant once the book hits the used market and is subject to the supply and demand levels therein. I guess i've never been able to accept "supply and demand" as some ultimate moral principle, any more than "survival of the fittest." They may both be natural laws, at a certain level, but does that mean they need to be our core motivations as human beings ? We (most of us) wouldn't beat someone up to get their money even if it were legal, and we wouldn't try to beat the old lady into the "12 items or less" checkout line with 15 items even if we could get away with it. Do we really want to try to beat the poor to the bargains only to sell them to the rich ? It's a general practice of sellers to pull prices up to whatever the market will bear. There's a profit graph, a curve showing what price produces the greatest profit, based on numbers of sales times the price. Competition, whether the number of units available is virtually unlimited or very few, the time it takes to sell a unit, etc., influence the graph. If maximum profit for the seller is the ultimate consideration, it defines all other considerations by default, including what is sold, who can buy it, how it affects the world we live in. On some issues we're on the honor system. Pardon me, i didn't mean to start writing a book. Anyway, whether one believes in supply and demand as a principle to aspire to, or as a lowest common denominator, or something in between, depends on one's ideology, status, character, etc., and my theorizing probably won't alter that. When I add that to the dealer's other overhead costs, and the value of the dealer spending his time to corral the book rather than me spending mine, and the ability of the dealer to tell me more about the book, steer me to other books of interest and keep eyes open for my wants, my conclusion is that the profit is not obscene. It's worth it to pay the higher, even much higher, price he ends up charging rather than try to beat the dealer to the bargain. If I then cannot afford some things I want, such is life for a collector. If I want them badly enough I'll try to hunt them down myself and prepare for a long wait, and if not, then I am not willing to pay the price and that's my decision and I can't blame anyone. You are clearly a model client for the book dealer. Clearly, i am not. If i eat at a restaurant, I expect to pay a sizeable markup, not a marginal one, for overhead and the owner's risk, plus value added by chef's skills, whereas if I cook for myself I avoid all that but must eat my own cooking. If I can't eat out every night, then I can't. I don't eat at restaurants, although it's not only because i can't afford to pay people to buy and prepare my food, serve me, and clean up after me... But if restaurants were buying up most of the affordable good food, i might have to bite the bullet, i suppose. And i probably wouldn't be as, shall we say, philosophical about it as you are when i have to sell off most of my books to pay the added value of restaurant food, because i'll be damned if i just say "oh, well" and eat leftover junk. Just my humble opinion. I do sense your humility. I'm being serious. You don't find fault, you make allowances. You like to trust in others, even to do and know things for you. You are willing to pay. You accept your lot without complaint or blame. You are more content with this world than i am. If your post is a fair indication, i would imagine you have little quarrel with the Patriot Act. And when our society slides into totalitarianism, you'll take it quietly in stride, preferring not to make waves, and probably go unnoticed living pretty much the same life you do now. I, on the other hand, will probably be dead, or else in prison for trying to buy the wrong books. Please don't take me wrong: I can tell you are a good guy. I'm a good guy too (even if i don't seem like it) but probably not as nice as you. ER Lyon |
#18
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
Mr. Lyon:
I've tried very hard to keep from replying to this thread, even when you began to compare used booksellers to safecrackers. Thieves, in other words. I will say this, then no mo you have *no idea* what it takes in the way of physical and financial resources to be able to operate a used book service and make any kind of living at it. You don't. And, from what I've seen of your posts, you're unlikely to ever understand it. Whether this is because you're unable to, or are simply unwilling to do so because paying a higher price is inconvenient to you, I neither know nor care. I know of not one single wealthy bookseller who got that way solely from selling used books, no matter what their mark-up is. Not ONE. I know many who, after decades of hard work and study, can support themselves and their families, but they'd all be better off financially if they'd gone into IT twenty-five years ago. Quite the contrary, I know of hundreds and hundreds of booksellers who could NOT make a living at it, either in brick-and-mortar shops or on-line, because competition is so tough that they were unable to get prices that would cover their expenses, and subsequently closed down and sold off their stock. At thrift-store prices, I might add. You know *nothing,* Mr. Lyon, about what it takes to be a bookseller. |
#19
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
Kris Baker wrote:
"xerlome" wrote in message When a resaler picks up a used book for, say, a dollar, and then sells it for the price of a new book or even higher, we are paying the dealer a four (or even five) digit percent profit for buying and holding an already available book after the original buyer has paid the legitimate costs and later decided to donate it to a charity thrift store or public library. Even $20.00 is a 2000% markup. I see this as a kind of market theft. You're assuming that the new book dealer and used book dealer invest the same amount of time and effort into selling a book. You cut out the part where i mentioned the retailer as only one of many on the chain of people paid for their part in creating the book and making it available. I might better have left the distributor and retailer out of the list and my point would have been clearer. Up to that point, the cost of the book goes to those who actually create and make the book. After that, it is primaily a matter of moving it around. That can be pretty costly, but i'd like to see those costs kept to a minimum. If I sell new books, I have to: 1 - order them from the publisher 2 - open the box and put them on the shelf 3 - return them for credit if they don't sell That's true. And it's probably done by an employee on a salary who gets paid either way. Right ? If I sell used books, I have to: 1 - know possible locations they can be found I know how difficult that is. I generally look in the yellow pages to find the locations of thrift stores (as well as used book stores). I look in the paper for yard sales and other sales. Libraries post their sales, etc. 2 - go search those places (time, fuel, effort) All part of the added value. I understand. But if you have a store, and i bring books to you and tell you i want extra money because i added value when i invested my time, fuel, and effort finding the books originally, and again bringing them to you, what would you say ? a) That's fair. I'm always willing to pay for added value. Saves me adding it myself. b) Ha ! That's a good one ! - Hey Pat ! - Tell Pat what you just told me. c) I'll have to see your resaler's ID or i can't validate the added value. d) Would you be willing to sell me just the book and hold on to the added value ? e) Other (suggestions welcome). or pay a scout A scout ! That's an idea, i'll have to try that ! A boy scout or a girl scout on vacation, maybe they'd work for peanuts ! 3 - pay for them (the $1 you claim I pay) .... or $2 or $3. Or 50 cents - but point taken. I can accept the need to allow for thrift inflation. 4 - bring them back and research each of them .... to determine what price the market will bear... 5 - inspect them fully and then grade for condition I usually spend a few seconds doing that at the thrift store. Oh, i see: You are an online seller. You write up data and descriptions. (I just do it in my head.) 6 - in some cases, perform restoration/cleaning I do that a bit, too. Usually it's just removing the price sticker or erasing the penciled price. 7 - watch them sit on the shelf if they don't sell I know i'm being peevish in my frustration, but it might have been on *my* shelf if you hadn't taken it. 8 - donate them back to the thrift store if they don't sell I'm glad you do that. I sometimes do it, too. It's a charity, after all. What it breaks down to is that you are my competition. I don't want you to get it first because i usually can't pay your price. You don't want me to get it first because you want to sell it to someone with more disposable income than i have. You claim that some booksellers dump them in the trash; that's possible. I talked to one who does. I've been told by others about the practice. Many thrift stores have stopped accepting common books as dictionaries, encyclopediae, Reader's Digest anythings, National Geographics or the like..... because no one will buy them. I've noticed some of this, too: a new style of cleaned up thrift store But in the case of dictionaries, in the last couple of years i'm seeing some thrift stores treating them as if they are *hot stuff*. *Any* dictionary, even some little home and office type that has no more than three words in it that an educated adult doesn't know (try opening to random pages and pointing blindly to words and you'll see what i mean !) I've seen so many ordinary or trashy dictionaries on eBay that it makes me wonder if eBayers are buying these dictionaries (well, at least a notch better than what i just described). Perhaps the thrift strores have noticed them disappearing fast and are trying to get in on the action. Maybe dictionaries *are* hot. I probably shouldn't be saying that here, though. I'm my own worst enemy... At such time as thrift stores start to do more than flip a price on them and put them on the shelf, watch their prices soar. Oh, i hope they don't do that - i mean start putting a lot of added value into them. I can never seem to find that added value. In fact, here, many do attempt to sell ungraded books that "look old" for $25 and up. Yeah, but i leave those for the eBayers. ER Lyon |
#20
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The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)
BobFinnan.com wrote:
Kris Baker sez: You claim that some booksellers dump them in the trash; that's possible. My local used book dealer (who, sadly, is going out of business) puts his unwanted books out on his stoop and allows the locals to build up their libraries for free! Yes, there's one around here that has a box outside which says "FREE". I'll bet that actually brings customers. Is he doing it because he's going out of business ? Or did it put him out of business ? ER Lyon |
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