Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Sleuthing at eBay #16: Where Are All The Vintage Books? Part 2

(Image from Jennifer White's Bonanzle Booth)

I decided to follow up my last "Sleuthing at eBay: Where are All the Vintage Books?" post with a part 2. It's been over 5 months since my last Sleuthing at eBay post. Why so long you may ponder? eBay just isn't what it used to be and I haven't been on there a lot--definitely not as a seller (I've got a booth at Bonanzle now and have my own Sleuth Shop at my website that I sell at.) I am still on eBay as a buyer and it's frustrating as a buyer when the earlier editions are pretty scarce. Especially since those editions (I'm looking for first printings) are the ones that I have held off on acquiring since they're usually more expensive to collect.

When I went through a search by title and not within the description to avoid sets or lots of more than one book, back in March of 2009 I found about 170 vintage books with dust jackets--not including a few book clubs or those common Applewood Books reprints (which are NOT rare FYI!)

Back in March, I noted a trend--that about 95% of those books in dust jacket were being sold by resellers. And I ask again, where's "mom and pop" selling out of their attic? Perhaps with Nancy Drew in the news so much lately and the 80th anniversary next year, we'll see more "mom and pop" sellers rushing to eBay to take advantage of the publicity!

In doing another search here about 5 months later, I've determined that we still have the same problem--some books have a couple extra listed than before, some are the same amount, and some have gone down in numbers but only 171 (one more book than March's search). Still mostly sold by resellers. Still some being sold at crazy prices above and way beyond what Farah's Guide prices them at. More than double in some instances which to me is astronomically too high. Especially now where it's a buyer's market.

And as you can see from the stats below, the 3rd art wrap dust jacket for Lilac Inn is so RARE that now more are listed than were back in March! Go figure :)

Here's a listing by title/keyword and for each cover art dust jacket--the first number is what was listed back in March so you can compare to the 2nd number which is what I found listed on Tuesday, August 11th:

OLD CLOCK

1ADJ: 4 1
2ADJ: 7 6

STAIRCASE

1ADJ: 1 5
2ADJ: 7 5

BUNGALOW

1ADJ: 4 1
2ADJ: 6 6

LILAC

1ADJ: 2 1
2ADJ: 1 3
3ADJ: 1 2

RANCH

1ADJ: 1 4
2ADJ: 4 4

FARM

1ADJ: 3 4
2ADJ: 3 3

DIARY

1ADJ: 3 4
2ADJ: 1 4

LETTER

1ADJ: 2 6
2ADJ: 6 6

CANDLES

1ADJ: 2 4
2ADJ: 3 2

LARKSPUR

1ADJ: 5 2

LOCKET

1ADJ: 2 2
2ADJ: 2 5

OAK

1ADJ: 6 10
2ADJ: 0 0

CHARM

1ADJ: 5 6

STATUE

1ADJ: 4 5

BRIDGE

1ADJ: 4 11

HEELS

1ADJ: 3 3

TRUNK

1ADJ: 8 2

MOSS-MANSION

1ADJ: 4 3

MAP

1ADJ: 5 2

BOX

1ADJ: 4 5

ATTIC

1ADJ: 4 3

WALL

1ADJ: 4 2

BELL

1ADJ: 1 2

ALBUM

1ADJ: 3 2

HALL

1ADJ: 4 2

CHIMNEY

1ADJ: 6 3

LADY

1ADJ: 6 1

KEYS

1ADJ: 2 1

JUMP

1ADJ: 4 1

MASK

1ADJ: 4 5

RINGMSTER

1ADJ: 3 2

SLIPPER

1ADJ: 2 4

TREE

1ADJ: 2 2

WINDOW

1ADJ: 0 4

SHOWBOAT

DJ: 4 2

PAVILION

DJ: 1 3

STAGECOACH

DJ: 3 2

DRAGON

DJ: 2 3

Jenn:)

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