Query: The House Called Hadlows by Victoria Walker

Hey guys, don't get me wrong... we didn't come here to badmouth other
bookdealers or start a war. We came here to ask for others experiences of
Bloomsbury Book Auctions, and to find out what we could about a certain
title that had come into our posession. Now the seller of the only copy
being advertised online has turned up, and the thread is turning aggressive.
Graeme - take a look at our contributions to this thread - at no time have
we made any accusations of anything, we've only responded to questions and
points others have made with our reasons for taking the steps that we did.

Here finally, before we get on with our lives, is the course of events:

August
We contacted you about your copy of House Called Hadlows:
Book ID: 12453
Price: £ 1272.00

Description:
Fine. in Near Fine dj. unclipped and uninscribed, very slight shelf wear to
dustwrapper. Illustrated by Meg Rutherford Dustwrapper. First Edition

to ask how you had come to set the book at this price (had you seen others
sold for this sort of sum etc). You replied asking how much we wanted for
our copy. We had also contacted Bloomsbury to ask them the same question,
and based on our accurate description of the book's condition and a copy
they found online at £1600 (maybe through another of your online outlets?)
they gave a estimated value of the high hundreds if we sold through them,
which we agreed to do.

October
Bloomsbury catalogue came out, with our book given an estimate of £200-300.
When we contacted them to query this massive drop, they said the only copy
online was priced at £500, and sure enough when we checked we found your
copy of House Called Hadlows:
Book ID: 12453
Price: £ 556.50

Description:
Very Good Indeed. in Very Good dj. unclipped and uninscribed with no tears
and very slight shelf wear and bumping to the head and tail of spine.
Illustrated by Meg Rutherford Dustwrapper.

We contacted Bloomsbury to advise that we had sent our book to them on the
basis of their original estimate and that for a £200-300 book we are more
than happy to deal with the sale ourselves so we set the reserve at £500 at
Bloomsbury's suggestion, and they revised their estimate back upwards to the
£500-600 that was displayed on the podium.

We end up bringing the book back with us, much happier at having the chance
to explore other avenues than we would have been to have had the whole sale
spiral out of our control with the book selling for a third of Bloomsburys
original estimate. We are happy that we did the right thing, even more so
now that the copy being offered for sale online is as follows:
Book ID: 12453
Price: £ 1060.49

Description:
Near Fine. in Near Fine dj. unclipped and uninscribed with no tears or
markings. Illustrated by Meg Rutherford Dustwrapper

So, we're once again looking at our options, we'll either be offering ours
for sale at a competetive price, or will put it away with our other more
collectable books to sell. You have a book for sale (the book ID has never
changed and the description has barely), and have a right to charge as much
or as little for it as you want. We have a book which we have a right to
offer for sale at a time, place and price of our choosing. We chose not to
sell for less than £500 at Bloomsbury Book Auctions - that was our choice.
End of story. Our apologies to anyone else reading this thread. We hope we
haven't bored you too much.