More books

[watervole]

The Red Cross shop manager tells me that the cricketing biography that I repriced to £8 on Monday has sold already. 

I went in again today and did a few hours this afternoon wading through the back stock.   Had a load of good fishing books donated, so put them out to replace the gardening books.  Gardening never sells very well at our shop, and it sells best in Spring when it sells at all.

More annuals in, most in very good condition and dating to the 1970s.  Value seems to range from £3 to £7.  Sounds expensive, until you reckon what you'd pay for a new annual coming out this year.  Then, it sounds very reasonable.  Modern annuals, even in good condition are only worth one or two pounds.  That's nostalgia for you.

Comments

[kalypso]

Whose biography was it?

[watervole]

Sorry, I didn't recognise the name.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

wibble_puppy and I were discussing the price of a book I bought in a charity shop[1] yesterday. It's Fred: the Definitive Biography of Fred Dibnah; a 328 page hardback, written in 2006 (ie. after his death) by David Hall[2]. It has a nice modern-looking dust jacket and is in virtually as-new condition. Cover price is £18.99. How would you have priced it?

[1] A local charity called Powys Animal Welfare; their shops are rather small and run-down, and piled to the ceilings with the kind of stuff you see at car boot sales.
[2] According to the inside cover, he was the producer of most of his TV series, co-author of several books, and a friend of the family.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'd have put £2 on that. (Or possibly £1.50) The Red Cross guidelines don't like me to price below £2 for hardbacks, but you often can't sell celebrity biographies at that price.

Amazon confirms my instinct. Second hand copies are 1p plus postage - ie. as cheap as you can possibly get on Amazon.

When it comes to celebrity biographies, especially TV celebrities, they don't hold value. Printed by the million, discounted heavily and rarely sold at the price printed on the cover.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

What did you pay? My guess would be around a pound, or even 50p.

That kind of shop tends to have totally unsorted books and to price them very low and to miss anything with real value.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

It was £5, which was high enough to make me pause and consider if it was worth that much to me, before thinking, "yes, that feels about right." Admittedly it was more than I would normally spend on a book in a charity shop. The lady behind the counter seemed a little embarrassed to ask for so much, however she said it had only come in that morning. Perhaps the plan had been to trial it at that price and reduce it if it didn't sell. It's true that Amazon marketplace sellers have it for less, however it was an opportunistic purchase rather than something I have been specifically looking for.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

If you got £5 worth of enjoyment from it, then it was right. And it's for charity in any case.