We have looked at several ways to begin building your private library: gifts from friends & relatives; inexpensive purchases at garage & yard sales, library & Friends of the Library book sales, bigbox retailers and professional independent booksellers. We have seen how the latter two sources can be "comparison shopped" using a number of different bookish search engines. Today, we look at another major source of book purchases...the book auction:
Book auctions have been around for hundreds of years. But until recently, such auctions were largely the province of booksellers and advanced collectors. The advent of eBay and related sites has democratized the auction world, and now anyone who thinks they have anything worthwhile can put their item(s) up for auction and see if anyone else agrees with them.
Because the folks who sell on eBay often are not professional booksellers, their descriptions as to the condition of the books they have on offer can be...a bit optimistic! As a subscriber noted in a comment to a recent post, "grading is often questionable."
This subscriber was speaking of a book she purchased from a seller on Amazon, but it applies equally to any source that is not a professional independent bookseller or reputable bigbox retailer. If an IOBA, ABAA or ILAB member says a book is Fine, that term has a very specific meaning. When a member dealer ships your book to you, they will package your book to insure that it arrives in the same condition it was in when it left their shelves. (For a look at how books should be packed & shipped, click here). As to all others...caveat emptor!
Tomorrow we will look at the world of professional book auctions....
Recent Comments