Stealing Books-A Bookscout's Guide To Book Collecting

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Sections
  Introduction
  Chapter 1
  Chapter 2
  Chapter 3
  Chapter 4
  Chapter 5
  Chapter 6
  Chapter 7
  Chapter 8
  Appendix 1
  Appendix 2
  Appendix 3
  Appendix 4

Chapter 2 - Where To Find The Books (continued)

USED BOOK STORES:
Used bookstores of course have a lot of books, you can find a large volume of books. But then again a lot of the bookstore owners tend to know books better and so while you are more likely to find a collection of books of your particular interest, you are less likely to find the incredible steals on them. But then again, used book sellers may be knowledgeable on certain types of books that they specialize in, and not as knowledgeable on other areas. Where their expertise may be in modern fiction, or maybe antiquarian books, or science fiction, or mystery, or whatever. Maybe they are weak in knowledge when it comes to the types of books you are looking for. They can’t be experts on every single book that has ever been published. There have just been too many of them published for anyone to know them all. That is where you can find steals is in the areas that they are weak on. And it is possible that while the bookstore owner might be very knowledgeable in a certain area of books, maybe his employees are not, and they are the ones that under price a book that you are looking for. And often it is too time consuming for them to look them up in a price guide on the internet. Some stores may just price the book based on the cover price. In these cases, their loss is your gain. When you find the one book that they drastically under priced. Every single book in the place could be over priced. They may have thought they priced every book at the high end, but one was under priced.
Some used book stores have bargain rooms, or bargain barns. I love these places. If you go through there you can really find some deals. Chances are you can find a lot of older books or really interesting books. Maybe the books just aren’t in the greatest shape, or the seller just decided that these books did even appear to be worthwhile to look up. But you can find some really interesting books back in these, and you never know. You might find that one book that you were looking for and get a real good bargain on it. Sometimes you’ll find really old books, like books from the 1800s that are not in the greatest shape, then again a lot of those books from the 1800s are not going to be in very good shape. Is it collectible to you. It may not be collectible to high end collectors, but some of us can’t afford to spend $400 on a book. But if you can find a copy of that same book that’s maybe not in great shape, the boards are a little loose or something, but you find that book for $3, then buy it and add it to you collection. You can always upgrade it later if you want. Better to get it now at least as a place holder. You can still read the book, put it up of you shelf. Who know, maybe later you can turn around and sell it for $20 when you find a better copy of it.

Different book stores have different feels to them. Some of them are just kind of very generic, some of them you'll walk into, and overtime you walk into them they'll feel like an old friend. You'll remember some great books that you found there on a previous trip and the feelings of find those books. I like some of the little used bookstores up in the Adirondacks of New York. There is a neat little on called Birch Bark Books. The shelves are built using small tree trunks for posts, and it gives the store lots of character. You get to remember the various bookstores and what books you found. As I am driving from place to place, I very often will have a book on tape or CD playing. So a lot of times as I am driving around going to a particular book store I can recall which book I was listening to. And also sometimes if I am listening to a book again, it will bring back flashes of the book hunting trip on which I originally listened to it along with memories of the books I found.

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