What's the best deal or cheapest price you've ever had to pay for a book?

I snagged a like new copy of Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn at a thrift store for $1

=)

The Windflower by Laura London - it's a historical romance that was published in 1984. it's out of print now and used, i've seen it go for as much as $30.

i got it at GoodWill for $1.00!

also, the libraries around me have the best sales. i love their 5/$1.00 deals on all books. some branches have the 10/$1.00 paperbacks.

these sales drive my family crazy because i can never walk away from them-

I found an untouched copy of Israel Scheffler's Inquiries buried in the back corner of a little used bookstore for $12. I looked it up when I got home and found that it's out of print, and copies are selling for upwards of $100.

Of course, the flip side is that this summer I sold my copy of David Marr's Vision at a used bookstore for a couple of bucks, only to find that used copies of it are selling for upwards of $100. That's what I get for being in a rush and not taking the time to look the darn thing up before I hit the store!

*Sigh*

eta: the touchstone on that Marr book is wrong, sorry...

Message edited by its author, Dec 16, 2007, 11:40pm.

Perfect first edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell for $2 at a booksale. No library stickers, no plastic dustcover — perfect.

But there have been so many good finds in my life... hard to narrow it down to just one.

A like new copy of Roadside Geology of Washington (among several others) for $1. Library book sales are the best.

I got my copy of The Windflower on E-BAY for 5 bucks not quite as good as aznstarlette but not bad considering how much it does go for.

Danielle

I got a 1950 Printing of City of God by St. Augustine with a forward by Thomas Merton for $2. This makes theology dorks like me get excited.

I somehow managed to pick up a nice copy of the 1927 first edition of Revolt in the Desert by TE Lawrence for one dollar at a library sponsored sale of used books donated by the general public. There's only one copy being sold on Abebooks right now, and I'm happy to see that it's going for $115...

The best deal I ever scored on several books was, well free.

A few summers ago, on my way home from work there were a few milk crates by the side of the road with a "free books" sign. Judging by the rugs and rest of furniture on the sidewalk someone's apartment was being cleaned out for good. So I did what I normally do and started rummaging. The cases contained:
a complete set of cloth bound Nathaniel Hawthorne books from 1931,
a complete cloth bound chat book sized collection of all of Shakespeare's works, published from 1880-1890,
a three volume set of the Divine Comedy from the 1890's which are green in (needs to be rebound) leather, and
a 26 cloth bound set of the complete works of Charles Dickens.

I've managed to get half of them catalogued since they all have to go in manually and the cue cat is so much more convenient...

And the Dickens set alone, being a more common set of his works, retails for $350-400 on ABE books...

*dies of envy*

Wow, I must not be looking hard enough. The best deal I've scored was a hardcover version of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman for $5.

I never seem to run into a good deal, but then again, I often don't know what I'd be looking for to find a deal. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll run across a first-edition of Stephen King's Gunslinger in some obscure place.

Well, I'm not really keeping my fingers crossed, or I'd have them crossed the rest of my life...

Aren't library sales wonderful? :) I suppose my best deals (strictly looking at most books for the buck) come from the $2/bag sales that my local libraries have, although those aren't necessarily my favorite deals. I did get a copy of Anne of the Island from 1915 at the last one.

Some of my other favorite finds: A copy of Gone With the Wind from 1938 from an antique shop ($6 I think), The Thirteenth Tale for $1 from a library sale, and, because I'm a Disney nerd, Disney's Art of Animation for $5.

I picked up a 6 volume set of The Memoires of Jacques Casanova for 60$ at a used book store. The set's pretty old but in very good condition. I don't really know if it was a good value as far as rare book prices go, but I thought it was really cool to find it and well worth the money.

There's a couple stores I frequent where I can pick up cheap contemporary books - last copy type stuff, or stuff that just doesn't sell as well as the publishers hoped. Usually end up finding at least one or two good deals - new hardcovers for 4 or 5$ type thing.

Message edited by its author, Dec 23, 2007, 11:52pm.

I've somehow attained the complete works of Ernest Becker, a very provocative, Pulitzer-winning Canadian psychologist/philosopher who dealt with existential questions (death, evil, life's meaning) at various library sales and used book-stores for a median sum of about $2.

Ok, this doesn't really count, but I got a textbook for free because the clerk accidentally spilled his water bottle on my checkbook and he felt so bad that he ruined a bunch of my checks that he took the price off of one of my texts off my tab.

Yay independent bookstores!

I paid $0.60 for a copy of Silas Marner in a used bookstore, but it was in good condition. I think that was the cheapest book I've ever bought... I'm quite good at finding sales and great deals when it comes to books, here's a short list...
Sophie's World, $3.30
The Wings of the Dove, great edition, $2.50
The Return of the Native, $1.50
Howard's End, $1

And many more... I love used books :)

I was thrilled yesterday to find an absolutely pristine hardcover copy of William J. Palmer's The Detective and Mr. Dickens, a fictionalized account of the relationship between Charles Dickens and his young protegé Wilkie Collins. It was $1 at the thrift store.

I snagged Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Soiled Doves by Anne Seagraves for FOUR DOLLARS at the thrift store!

One of my dad's friends gave me a complete Oxford Dictionary when he moved. That thing is ridiculously heavy though, so I still haven't hauled it out of storage. I'm also a big fan of the Metropolitan Library sale in my state. It's takes the biggest building in the fair ground to hold it and they keep putting new stuff out all weekend. Plus the paperbacks are .50 and the hardbacks are a dollar a piece, or you can buy boxes of books for approx. 5 dollars by genre. It's pretty amazing.

I just got a 1910 hardcover edition of Cyrano de Bergerac, in French, for $15 in Berkeley. It's gorgeous, with a ridged leather spine and beautiful swirly blue endpapers.

The inscription reads: "Scholarship price (sic) to our best French pupil in 1920 --J. Jobard"

I'm in love.

Message edited by its author, Feb 17, 2008, 1:56pm.

I think I'm in love with that misspelled dedication :-P

I used to go to yard sales in high school Just for books and jigsaw puzzles (occasionally missing pieces, usually not--but the old ones seem to be so much better made in general). Now, I'm lucky enough to be in a department at a university. Every time a professor cleans out their office, or retires, there are stacks and stacks of free books in the halls--I've probably gotten two dozen interesting (and free) reads that way this school year.

I got Twentieth Century: the history of the world 1901 to 2000 for a dollar the other day.

i spend so much money on books that i got a library card again... personally i hate the library here because they have no idea what they are doing and always end up charging me late fees for books i returned after only week but so far my luck this time hasnt been too bad. but its also saving me a A LOT of money.... my other favorite place to get books is Powells.com they have a great selection of used books for really cheap. Also Amazon has a good selection and thats actually where I discovered Powells.

I once bought a 1794 edition of 'Elegant Epistles' for $17 with its original covers. It is a collection of 'example' letters from Roman times right through to letters between the contemporary British aristocracy. It isn't really worth much more than that in terms of value, but WORTH is about so much more than money!

I just went booksaling Saturday (three big library sales) and came home with over 100 books — lots of poetry, classics, and YA fiction. And I spent a grand total of $31. That's 30 cents a book! :-D

I recently bought a little book with Shakespeare's Sonnets, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and one of the other plays (I forget which) for a dollar at a book sale. It was printed in 1897!

I got an illustrated hardcover edition of Balzac's Droll Stories from 1939 in great condition for $5.

My grandmother just gave me a first edition of Little Lord Fauntleroy. 1886.

I know it's not exactly a "deal" I scored, but man! She just started pulling books off the shelves, all of them ancient and in great condition, and handing them to me. I'm debating whether to try to sell some of them. I'm keeping the Little Lord Fauntleroy though. Damn!

My best friend took me to a used books store today (she knows me so well!) and I picked up 6 Beatrix Potter books for about $14. When we got home I looked at the copyright info, and the latest dates in them were 1918, 1931, 1933, 1935, and 1937. The 6th one doesn't have a date, which is weird because I suspect it is much newer than the others. The cover is shiny, and there is a hand-written note on the inside cover to a boy dated 1974.

ETA: I forgot that a couple of years ago I was given a set of 10 Washington Irving books, that I'm starting to think are first editions, or at least extremely early editions. I'm trying to figure out who I could take them to who could check them out for me.

Message edited by its author, Mar 23, 2008, 1:28am.

Best deal? Natives of Hemso, Gösta Berling's Saga and Mice and Men for about 1$. One of the tabloids in Sweden have this deal were you can buy an overpriced classic each week, but when they were getting started, they basically gave them away at a book fair to get people hooked. I got those three and intend to get other of the books in better packaging and at better prices.

Good deals are terrible - they cost me too much money and they take up too much space in my appartment! Most of the books I buy are good deals: second hand, publishers overstock, library sales... Last year I bought 40 books in a library sale for only 20 euro. Mostly damaged ex-library copies of course, but still: some paperbacks from the 40's and 50's, some expensive reference works, and lots of small fun booklets. Sold by weight...

Sold by weight?! That's amazing! I love library booksales too. I might have mentioned this above (I'm too lazy to scroll up, lol), but I once found a pristine first-edition copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell at a library sale for $2. And just last week I found a book I have been looking for for years, Marian Potter's A Chance Wild Apple. I read and reread that book so much as a child, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I think it was 50 cents at the sale.

The Art of Haute Couture by Laura Jacobs!
This book typically goes for well over $100 on Amazon and other used book websites (although I haven't checked Abe or Alibris in a while, they may sell it for cheaper there) which is pricey even for a fashion/photography book.

I managed to score a copy for only $6, including shipping. Man, that was a good day. :) $6 isn't cheap for a book normally, I admit, but for this particular one it was such a steal!

Once got a cookbook for free in front of a thrift store.

Then, I bought my Giorgio Armani Guggenheim exhibit book from (of all places) TJ Maxx for around $10! I got to see the actual exhibit in person and, believe me, the book cost much more than that!

Also, I have to agree that library book sales are the best! Spoils me rotten with $1 and $2 books. Seems like I can't set foot in a Borders or Barnes & Noble's anymore...

Here's the greatest find I didn't get: a matched set of the first three Horatio Hornblower novels in hardcover from 1939 for $1 a piece. A friend and I went to a library book sale, and I picked the other shelf. However, he's now my fiance... so perhaps I managed to snag them after all :)

Mmmm. It's library booksale season. I went to one last weekend on the "All you can carry for a dollar" day. It's pandemonian, and somebody always manages to touch my ass. But if you fill your box and look at what you get later, there are always some amazing finds. When I got home I found two uncatalogued (meaning no library stickers. Awesome!), signed editions that looked unread.

I've gotten my fair share of 50 cent and dollar books and even dollar bags at library sales and half price books but the best deal ever.... I went into a nice bookstore, some new some used, found this book by an author I've read before marked down to a dollar, it looked to be in great shape. I walked up to pay for it and the guy said I could just have it! So I said thank you and backed quickly out of the store.

There's a guy on my campus who hands out free copies of the Bhagavad Gita. That's a pretty good deal.

A Hare Krishna monk? They're on my campus too, I have a few of their publications. Not the Bhagavad Gita though, I have a different edition of that.

I borrowed Madness Explained by Richard Bentall a few times from my library because I couldn't afford to buy it at the time. Then I found it on the sale shelf for 50p. I was rather pleased with that find. :)

Gotta love those library sales. I've had a few good finds for 50 cents.

My best find, though, was a first US edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for $4 from the bargain attic at a bookshop in downtown Seattle. It looked like it had been up there for quite some time, but still in pristine, never-been-read condition.

My library has an Honor Cart where you put in 50 cents for each book you take off the cart. I've gotten many deals, but my favorite is when I find a Margaret Atwood that I haven't read.

I, too, love the library sales, but I don't usually find anything staggering at those. I just appreciate the prices!

My most wonderful find was a 1943 edition of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This was the first english edition, translated by Katherine Woods. It is near perfect condition and I snatched it from someone on Amazon Market for a measly $12. I couldn't believe my luck. I've found it listed as high as $1000 for mint condition.

Message edited by its author, Jul 28, 2008, 1:51pm.

Just last night I found a wonderful little book called Elison's Music Dictionary, published in 1905, for just $1 at a library sale! It has any music term you could imagine inside, including words in French, German, Italian, and even Latin. The small size of it and the lovely faded green cover are endearing. This is my new favorite.

Perhaps not awesome deals but I think they're good.

A while ago:

Paid $2 - List $50 E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962, used but good condition. Library sale.

In the last two weeks:

Paid $35 - List $115 The Oxford Classical Dictionary, basically new except a small tear in dust jacket. Used Bookstore.
Paid $45 - List $75 The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics, brand new. 40% off coupon at Borders.com.
Paid $7 - List $49 Liddel and Scotts: An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon: Founded upon the 7th ed., Used in college bookstore.

Lately I'm feeling bad about my use of coupons, particularly at Borders. I'm only contributing to Borders' bankruptcy. I want there to be bookstores in the future so I think I'm going to stop. They have lost money on me this year. I don't think I've paid list price except at my grad school's very tiny bookstore, but it's the best I've ever been in. I'll miss it terribly after next year.

Relatives have a habit of giving me old books without realizing their worth. I somehow ended up with a signed copy of a Padraic Colum Irish folklore anthology and Byron's complete works, publication date 1856. Both spines need some repairing, but aside from that they're in surprisingly good condition.

A friend of mine lucked his way into a first edition collection of Charles Dickens' complete works. Apparently the used bookstore owner had been trying to sell them for years and was so glad to find someone willing to take them off his hands that he sold the whole set for $20.

The local charity shop had ten books for a £1 and I got some books that I have been struggling to find for years. LJ Smiths Nightworld, Secret Circle books then I got cate tiernans sweep series (all 15!) and Anne Bishop. In all I spent a fiver on books and everyone was on my wanted list! Very pleased, except charity shop has never had anything of a similar nature since. (Though picked up some bargain retro knitting needles!)

I bought Prefects at the Chalet School a few years ago in a library sale for 10p and then sold it for £25 on Amazon, which was cool.

Oh, I love Cate Tiernan's books!

I snagged a signed paperback of the White Dragon at a library sale for a quarter.

Although my favorite book buying moment came when I volunteered to help at a friend's bookstore during a local festival and was paid in books (A decent batch of Ian Fleming novels and an old James Branch Cabell hardcover I think).

On our honeymoon in England this past August, my husband and I brought one suitcase, two book bags, and eight books. We came back... with significantly more, even considering the exchange rate - eight Osperys (a publisher of military history books) for $4 a piece (they list for $12+ usually) and three huge (but up to date) O'Reillys (tech books) for $2. The British Library also had some wonderful old maps of England for $1 each!

But the best finds were particularly unexpected: The gift shop for the Royal Naval museum in Portsmouth had a small selection of used books, so we picked up Mr. Midshipman Easy, Lord Hornblower, and Mr. Midshipman Hornblower all in hardcover for under $10 :)

I'm in the Navy and the base I am stationed on has different schools. Whenever they change the curriculum they throw books out. They throw A LOT OF BOOKS out. Since I am in the group actually tasked with throwing away books I look through and take what I want.

I got Dante's Divine Comedy, Fahrenheit 451, John Grisham, Tim O'Brien, Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, Gulliver's Travels, Lord Jim, Macbeth, North of the Rio Grande, Camus' The Plague, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and The Scarlet Letter all for the price of free.

I'm surprised no one has mentioed all the used 1 cent books on Amazon. I'm always browsing around and seeing what I can find from there.

tag sales or garage sales or yardsales depending on where you're from...

second day (having scoped on day one) when you KNOW they don't want to take stuff back inside or haul it off... hitting the fill a bag for a Buck sales and then suggesting it to those not offering it... its a great way to bring home a treasure trove to split amongst friends...

when we've figured out which ones we want and which ones we don't we set those no pile aside... read what we want and then hit the book barn with ALL of the books (unless they are total keepers) we use the books as currency to get MORE books that would have cost us a lot more money... I've gotten hard cover, unread, John Grishams and Anne Rice and JD Robb among others for my mom and my friend scored Wicked and Son of a Witch that had been sold as a set still in plastic wrap for $5.

We have a great system LoL

BUT... I think perhaps my best best best book, has to be Lighting the Way by Al Gore's daughter... her full name escapes me. It was a present from her. My aunt and her are on a committee together and my aunt brags about me... well, Mrs. Shiffe (I believe that's her married name) showed up one day with a not only SIGNED but with a personal memo inside about me being an inspiring young lady with a bright future.

I cried.

Message edited by its author, Jan 27, 2009, 11:54pm.

I found a hardcover, brand-new-looking copy of Jonathan Norell and Mr. Strange at a used book sale at my university's library for 50 cents. Yes!

I bookmooched a 1913 edition of Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward'.

First Adition hard cover of Going Postal by Terry Pratchett for £1.

I just received 40 books for free from a girl friend and the security guard at my work...she is spring cleaning and decieded to get rid of a majority of her books and my security guard only a couple years shy of retirement so he and his wife are selling/getting rid of a lot of their things before they go tour the world. I got a bunch of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens...good stuff. :)

so in short my answer is: FREE!

A 1965 copy of Dune for $1.25. Gotta love used bookstores.

One of my friends recently found a rare book with a roughly $200 asking price anywhere online for $15 buried in the basement of a bookstore in their "used" section. Words cannot describe his elation.

Outside the USF library, sometimes they'd have huge ex-library and used book sales. You bought a brown paper grocery bag for $4 and filled it up as much as you could. Awesome! And then you make your burly friend Roman carry them for you to your dorm.

Though, it turns out that I never really read any of the books I bought from those sales. It was more.. I couldn't NOT buy them, you know?

So, I guess the best deal I've gotten on a book was when I got 2 mass markets for free from Borders. Employee discount, coupons, and store credit. Kaching!

I found a translation of the Annals of Fulda at a used bookstore (might have been The Strand in NYC, I love it there so much) for about $5. That book can go for as much a.... OMG. It is on abebooks now for a whopping $850. Unbelievable. I didn't even know that when I found it, I'm just interested in medieval history and love monastery annals... So, when talking about getting an expensive book cheap, that's the one. Other than that I have gotten books very cheaply at ramsj sales (here in the Netherlands ramsj is like overstock from publishers).

Edit: I forgot my main source for good deals, the "White bookcase" at work (I work at a library). Any colleague can put a book in the case for any other colleague to take. Most of it is not my taste, but I have gotten some good ones from there before, like J-Pod.

Message edited by its author, Jun 10, 2009, 8:52am.

I found a first edition with dustwrapper of The Chalet School in the Oberland a few years ago - bought it for 10p, and it's worth about £50. :)