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Selling Nat'l Geo from 1950's



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 2nd 05, 07:18 PM
midlib
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Default Selling Nat'l Geo from 1950's

I am a middle school librarian with a limited budget. I have been
granted permission to sell my back issues of Nat'l Geographics to
generate funds for badly needed new materials. My stash goes back to
the mid 1950s and most are in at least "good" shape; almost no maps
remain in them. I'd prefer one fast, easy transaction. What's my best
bet?

Ads
  #2  
Old February 2nd 05, 07:50 PM
Kris Baker
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"midlib" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am a middle school librarian with a limited budget. I have been
granted permission to sell my back issues of Nat'l Geographics to
generate funds for badly needed new materials. My stash goes back to
the mid 1950s and most are in at least "good" shape; almost no maps
remain in them. I'd prefer one fast, easy transaction. What's my

best
bet?


I'm sorry, but I don't think there is one....at least not for your
purposes.

http://snipurl.com/chkb will show you what they'll bring, when exposed
to a potential audience of millions,

These aren't old enough to bring high prices, aren't "like new"....and
are
so common that thrift stores actually refuse them as donations. I'm NOT
saying they aren't worthy.....it's just that everyone subscribed and
then
saved them, so there are stashes of them everywhere.

I'll bet you DO have some things that could bring income, though.
1940s-1960s children's textbooks (New Basic Readers - wink wink),
first editions of books that went on to be best-sellers (IF in great
condition), etc.

Here's an idea: what if you got together with a math teacher, and
planned
an auction sale, for the kids to participate in? They'd learn math,
they'd
buy them and take them home (hopefully), and they'd be gone all at
once.

OR maybe just put a flyer on the library door and offer them all for
$50.
You never know.

Good luck!
Kris


  #3  
Old February 2nd 05, 08:20 PM
paghat
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In article .com,
"midlib" wrote:

I am a middle school librarian with a limited budget. I have been
granted permission to sell my back issues of Nat'l Geographics to
generate funds for badly needed new materials. My stash goes back to
the mid 1950s and most are in at least "good" shape; almost no maps
remain in them. I'd prefer one fast, easy transaction. What's my best
bet?


Having a bake sale in the library would be more profitable, or selling
pencils on a street corner out of a tin cup. Even the Goodwill would be
apt to sell those magazines only as recycled paper since they've already
got scads of the magazines difficult to sell for a quarter each. Your best
bet is to find a gradeschool art teacher & give them away so that littler
school kids can cut them up for collages. I'm sure the art teacher is as
hard up for art supplies as you are for library supplies.

Post-1950 issues of the Geographic have no particular value, & are easy to
get for nickles or quarters at the Salvation Army in mint condition
supposing anyone wanted them, & maps intact.

Since even you believe these magazines are worthless for the library
stacks, why would anyone else want to pay actual money for them? For your
fund-raising to work people would have to be personally invested in
helping the specific school, since the "prizes" for donations are of such
small consequence.

Perhaps you can coordinate your fundraiser through the school's PTA, as is
done by actual school librarians in order to reach the specific parents
who will care.

Before anyone will even believe you're doing official fundraising, they
would have to know for which school & by whose authority you are doing
this alleged fundraising. Fundraising Book Fairs coordinated through PTAs
or by school youth groups can get books donated by the hundreds, a few
perhaps worthy of adding to the school library itself, the rest offered
very cheaply at the "library fundraising sale" in the school gym or some
church basement, manned by PTA volunteers & yourself. In this environment
you might be able to off-load a few of the unwanted magazines too, the
leftovers going to that gradeschool art teacher.

You could also distribute through the PTA or PTSA a request for parents &
teachers &/or students to purchase for the school individual books or
supplies, with the suggested expenditure of $20 per parent, & you
providing the purchase lists. It could be arranged to be tax deductible &
encourage donors to go above the $20 suggested donation, while making it
clear even the minimum would be a great help.

If you're on the level, it's tragic you're reduced to begging in
newsgroups, & I do feel for your situation of having to try to sell
something close to worthless in hopes of bringing in a few library
supplies. Libraries should be high-priority in schools, but obviously
rarely have much priority at all, & much of the limited funding nowadays
is siphoned away from books in favor of computers, with schools
encouraging kids' deteriorating interest in books.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden
people maintaining a free civil government." -Thomas Jefferson
  #4  
Old February 4th 05, 03:39 PM
Evelyn C. Leeper
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David Ames wrote:

midlib wrote:

I am a middle school librarian with a limited budget. I have been
granted permission to sell my back issues of Nat'l Geographics to
generate funds for badly needed new materials. My stash goes back to
the mid 1950s and most are in at least "good" shape; almost no maps
remain in them. I'd prefer one fast, easy transaction. What's my
best bet?


When my wife volunteered in Middle School, the duplicates of National
Geographic were for the youngsters to cut up.


It's sad but true.

This is one of the more depressing aspects of book collecting (or I
suppose any collecting)--to discover that what you have collected has no
resale value. I suspect that we have a lot like that, which is why I'm
much more sanguine about books that we bought to read than with those
that we bought to "enhance the collection".

As for National Geographics, we occasionally bought a few at library
sales if they happened to have articles about someplace we had 1) just
gone to, or 2) were going to next. But in general, the maps were the
most valuable parts of them, and we often bought an issue *just* for the
map (e.g., the ethnographic map of North American tribes). If the maps
are missing, the issues have lost a lot of their appeal.

One possibility other than for cutting up, though--would senior centers
or nursing homes be interested? The high-picture content might make
them good for people whose eyesight isn't up to a lot of reading. (This
doesn't raise any money, of course, but it may get the magazines another
cycle of use.)

--
Evelyn C. Leeper
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
The fundamental precept of liberty is
toleration. -Calvin Coolidge








 




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