UPDATE on feral cat Robinson
Robinson
came inside to eat a little breakfast this morning. As I was making my
coffee, I felt a cat rub against my leg. I assumed it was one of the
girls, but no--it was Robinson!
Then he ran away, back outside.
"I'm not in love. And don't forget it."
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Valuable books at the thrift store, I put in the glass display case.
If they don't sell in a few weeks, I mark them 50%down.
Eventually, I take the chance that they'll be stolen and put them on the shelves.
I used to list expensive books on eBay, but it takes too much time to list and ship them. I don't have enough time to tend to BOOK's as it is (not to mention toys).
My focus is on providing books for locals anyway--and giving people a reason to come to the store.
A couple times people have asked how I know if a book is valuable. I don't always, but sometimes a book sets my Spidey Sense tingling, and I look it up (or, more often, I set it aside to look up later--then do a big Look Up all at once).
I wish I'd taken photos of the glass-case books all along.
Here's what's in there now--(or sitting on top, vintage but less valuable books, but still more than our standard $1.99):
Three that sold recently:
Borges' The Aleph and Other Stories, 1933-1969, trans. by Norman Thomas diGiovanni: 1970, out of print, hardcover with dust jacket, $40.
Motherpeace Tarot Deck: 1981, $35 (round cards, feminist imagery)
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, London: Arthur Baker, 1980. Hardback, dust jacket... ex-library book.
(I thought about getting this myself, just for the cover illus.)
I'd priced it $25.
An older man wanted it for his son's birthday and asked if it could be less. I gave it to him for $20.
Unlike this one, ^ our edition was not signed by Douglas Adams--those go for way more. (Adams died in 2001, aged fifty-one.)
I don't usually mind dropping prices on the glass-case books--I price them on the high (but fair) end to begin with.
Some
people obviously don't have the money, and I'm just happy they want a book. Others are angling for a better deal
(fair enough).
Occasionally I've offered a discount only to have the buyer say, "Thanks, I don't want a discount, I want to
support the store."
I love that answer.
________________
Some big sales.
Biggest ever: an early, limited edition set of Edgar Allan Poe books, $280.
Bought by a bookseller in St. Paul (across the Mississippi). He didn't ask for a discount.
I don't like resellers who are selling to Amazon, because they're feeding the maw of that monster. (Not that I have any control over it...)
But if someone buys our books to resell locally, I don't mind. They are turning over the garden soil--part of a healthy ecosystem. Not that we have a healthy ecosystem. It's practically a miracle if anyone makes it as an brick-and-mortar, indie bookseller.
A first U.S. edition of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, $100.
A woman bought it as a Christmas present for her brother. She did not ask for a discount.
An early (not first) ed of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, $35.
I always remember this one because it was donated in a brown-paper grocery bag of otherwise garbage books--it was at the very bottom.
Lesson: always unpack all the books.
Not so big, but we've sold three copies of Obama's latest autobiography, A Promised Land (2020; $40 new) for $18 each.
Because those are of general interest, I stand copies up on the display shelf behind the cash register rather than putting them in the case.
A glowing review from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Embarrassingly glowing? Is Obama really "as fine a writer as they come"? I haven't read this one, but didn't think that when I read his earlier work.
Anyway, some people don't seem to mind giving their copies away to us...
