Chicago's Brandeis book sale: experience

By far the largest fund-raising book sale in the Chicago area is the
one conducted each June by the North Shore Chapter of the Brandeis
University National Women's Committee. This year I attended the sale's
preview ($50 admission) for the first time.

The day after the sale I sent them the following e-mail. Two weeks
have gone by, and they have not responded.

I believe that the practices I describe are inexcusable, and the
failure to respond is unprofessional. I will not attend this sale
again, and I would caution anyone else against doing so. Completely
apart from the hefty admission fee, they are charging $3 to $5 for a
typical hardcover book, and the prices aren't justifiable for books in
this condition.

I attended your book sale preview for the first time on Thursday night.
I am very unhappy about one aspect of my experience.

When I examined the books, I noticed that almost all of them had
prices marked on the front flyleaf in what appeared to be colored
pencil. As a general rule I would discount the value of any book
marked in this way, since colored pencil is often impossible to
erase completely. In this case I thought nothing of it, since I could
not believe that an organization with your reputation and experience
would systematically mark its books in indelible pencil. I assumed
that the appearance of the pencil marks was caused by a trick of
light.

I was too trusting. When I tried to erase the marks, I found that many
of them could not be removed, just as I generally would expect.

Further, I realized that several of the books I purchased from you
have pencil marks on colored sheets. No colored sheet in a book
should _ever_ be marked with any type of pencil, since the mark is
often impossible to erase without damaging the paper.

I spent about $230 on Thursday night. I now find that many of the
books I bought are worth far less than I anticipated; your price
markers destroyed much of their value.

I do not expect compensation or the loss I am suffering, but I feel
that I am owed some sort of explanation. In particular, I would like
assurance that this incident will not be repeated in your future
sales.

My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 11:23:44 GMT, John A. Stovall wrote:

Then why did you by the books?

Why? I know this... because... Oh! Because

I could not believe that an organization with your reputation
and experience would systematically mark its books in
indelible pencil. I assumed that the appearance of the
pencil marks was caused by a trick of light.

Did you shoot your mouth off without reading what I wrote, or did you
simply forget what you had just read?

Stop whining.

That word is spelled "warning."

My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.

"Jonathan Sachs" wrote in message
...

By far the largest fund-raising book sale in the Chicago area is the
one conducted each June by the North Shore Chapter of the Brandeis
University National Women's Committee. This year I attended the sale's
preview ($50 admission) for the first time.



I've generally given up on library sales. The last one I went to was the
Chantilly (Virginia) Public Library sale about a year ago. They put some of
the more interesting books into higher priced categories, but generally
there was not a lot reason behind their pricing. Of course, the fight for
the books is at least as intense as ever. The atmosphere is not conducive
to careful scouting, IMHO.

But mostly I've been giving a lot of books that I can't otherwise dispose of
to the library sales. Out of a strong desire not to repurchase those books,
I've been abstaining from the sales.


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

"Jonathan Sachs" wrote in message
...

I spent about $230 on Thursday night. I now find that many of the
books I bought are worth far less than I anticipated; your price
markers destroyed much of their value.

I think it's on purpose, Jonathan. Here, the thrift stores with
the biggest business in books, have raised prices through
the roof and/or marked prices inside in black sharpie.

When I asked, I was told that it was to prevent people from
making a profit on them....and that they were tired of seeing
their books sold on eBay, or booksellers "cherrypicking"
them.

Last time I was at the most offensive, they were carting off
several loads of would-have-been-nice books to the dumpster.

Solved that, didn't they? What's the saying about
cutting your own throat?

But the newer stock on the shelves had the same problem.
Slow learners, but they'll figure it out.

Kris

"Kris Baker" wrote in message
...

Slow learners, but they'll figure it out.



It's a cyclical problem. Someone thinks they'll make more doing a select
(individually priced) business than doing a volume business. Then, when
busines drops and they're left with boxes and boxes of unsold books, they go
back to selling them at real thrift prices.

I buy a lot from local thrifts, but when they start individually pricing, I
almost always walk away--at least from the individually priced volumes
(which are usually less valuable than not).


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com