I just won
Posted on: April 13, 2011 - 8:52am
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I just won
A decent looking pair of books on ebay, tom sawyer and the prince and the pauper ..for nine fuggin dollars both printed in 1909 ..wtf is wrong here? I can buy books over 100 years old for less than 5$ each???
I was so amazed when I got into roman coins and all, you can buy a bag of 20 2000 year old coins for 20$ ???? wut teh fuk.
Does no one appreciate this stuff at all anymore? I showed one of these coins to a friend and he was like "huh". I'm thinking "do you realize where this came from, who could have had and spent these, anything???"
What has happened?
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
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RRS will win if you make those purchases after clicking any link from our site that leads to Amazon. RRS will make about 4% of your purchase price. That's why you see so many Amazon ads on the forums. Thanks to everyone who does this for us, it really helps out!
All you have to do is click a link from our site that leads to Amazon, then type in the search bar for your item, then add it to your cart and checkout within an hour.
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Well, I see a few things going on here.
First up would be commerce in general. Sometimes people don't know what they have or if they have a clue, it is not worth the time and effort to get a better price. Old books could be someone who just cleaned out granny's attic. There may be a few really good books in the lot but mixed in with a whole lot of shit.
Last year, I got a $900 telescope from ebay for $350. I could tell one I got it that the previous buyer was truthful in his description that he paid full retail only to have it sit in his closet for a few years. Then he finally decided to dump it for whatever he could get.
Getting back to books, they may not be worth all that much even if they are old. You would have to have them appraised by a dealer and even then, my experience has been that you need to shop them around to several to see who offers the most money.
As a reader, you may find that an old copy of some book is fine for you but if it has damage that you can't see in the pictures, that will tank the value. Also, it has to be the right book and not just the same title. Often, a publisher will make a first printing that is small in number to limit the exposure if the book does not sell very well. Then when it does, later print runs will be for more total copies.
I did a quick search for you and the only 1909 versions of tom sawyer that are currently in the market are in Spanish. If that is what you have, it may be worth <$30 at best. Also, I found copies of the prince and the pauper for as little as $2.
Roman coins are not something that I have dealt with but they are probably too common to have the kind of value that you have in mind. Again, what is going to make something valuable will be how hard it is to find the thing. So if the US mint decided that there were enough dimes in circulation in 1888 (for example), they might have done a very small production run. Or a very large one where the collectors at the time assigned little collectible value and thus, the ones that you find are not in great shape.
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Oh I understand what is actually happening, I'm just sad about it. People don't care about shit like old coins or 100 year old books by an author they have never heard of. /cough it's true
Young people couldn't care less. What has happened to them, unless it has the word "x-box" or "playstation" they don't seem to give a fux. Btw I'm not actually asking I'm just making a sad point.
I don't care if these books are appraised at 25 cents each, the problem is why.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Does this work on any of the gun dealer websites? I purchase guns and ammo more regularly than anything. I usually use gunbroker.com auctionarms.com and cheaperthandirt.com. Or is this just for purchases from amazon? I have yet to purchase anything from there.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Odds are that it is only Amazon. Brian would know the specifics but I asked him a while back if he would add some other sites. It turned out that he gets a bit more cash from keeping it all in one place.
Too bad really because there is stuff that amazon does not have that I am in the market for. Gunbroker.com would be awesome. As would telescope.com and probably as many other sites as everyone here is interested in.
As far as people not knowing what stuff is, until recently, I was spending my first hour at work every day covering my employer's thrift shop. That is how I come to know about old books. We get them in from time to time and if I did not pull them, they would get sold for next to nothing.
One time, I walked over to the register to see someone buying an old ashtray. She had already been given a price of $0.25. I asked her if she knew what it was ans she replied “of course, I collect depression glass”. That can't be true because I could tell on sight that it was not depression glass.
If I had seen it first, I would have dropped $5 on it and sold it t a real collector for $100. The thing is that it was glass that was colored by the inclusion of uranium. That stuff was never made during the depression as uranium was always way expensive. It was not made after the govt. started buying all the uranium.
Sadly, I could not make the public offer of $5 because I already knew from previous dealings that she would have gone to my supervisor and complained that she had been robbed of the chance to buy something she only thought to be sort of pretty for a quarter.
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Yea there are plenty of penny pinchers around. You wouldn't believe some of the people I have to deal with. I hate fuking farmers, I think ill make a lil thread about it.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin